A new electronic system for UF students to pay fees and access financial services went online Wednesday afternoon, two days after the initially planned launch on Monday.
The system is geared to provide a quicker way for students, parents and staff to access financial information.
Michael Conlon, UF's director of data infrastructure and the PeopleSoft implementation officer, said the delay was caused by a desire to double-check and make sure everything was correct before launching.
"Things needed to go right," Conlon said. "If you're converting the financial positions of 50,000 students, you want to check them and make sure they're right."
Conlon said implementation of the new software cost $2 million. He said UF did not write a check for that amount to anyone, but rather it was the cost of all the staff time put into executing the switch. The actual equipment costs were only a few hundred dollars, he said.
The old system, he said, required students to give parents their log-in information if they wanted their parents to pay fees for them. Now, students can log on to myUFL and authorize a parent, or any other payer, to make payments on their behalf. That person receives an e-mail to set up an account in the UF payment system.
Karen Fooks, director of UF Student Financial Affairs, said students will be able to see more information when logging in to their financial record.
Clicking on the new "My Campus Finances" tab in myUFL brings up 14 possible destinations, including making a payment, looking up payment history and setting up GatorParent accounts.
The old system, she said, took a while to get students reimbursed because a check had to be written, but refunds will be faster now.
Ed Poppell, UF vice president of business affairs, said one of the reasons the new financial system was put in place was because of the constant fee changes passed by the Florida Legislature each year. The complexities of all the different fees were taxing the old system. UF students will be able to access their complete history of payments and debts anytime with the new system.
"Fees, library fines, parking fines, you name it - anything you owe the university will be out there real-time, and you can access it 24 hours a day," Poppell said.
The new student financial system is one of six modules that make up the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions product. The other five areas are admissions, financial aid, campus community, contributor relations and records and enrollment. Poppell said the low state of the economy would likely slow the pace of implementing the rest of the software.
