Central services
Notes on the Central Services department for the 2022 financial year
The Department of Central Services is divided into three departments: Finance, Purchasing and Information Technology. With a total of around 30 employees, the three departments are internal service providers for the Student Accomodation, Catering and Social Services departments, among others. The permanent improvement of internal processes is a primary goal. In addition to carrying out operational work, the Central Services department creates added value for the other departments and divisions and sees itself as a source of inspiration for topics and measures.
Finance department
The Finance department consists of a total of around 20 employees and is roughly divided into the two traditional areas of financial accounting and controlling. The subordinate accounts payable and accounts receivable, asset accounting, rental accounting and cash accounting departments provide support in the processing and posting of all business transactions in financial accounting. Financial accounting focuses on the preparation of monthly, quarterly and annual financial statements, the management of investments and financial resources as well as all tax issues. In addition, Controlling concentrates on determining and analyzing key figures and reports for the specialist departments and management, profitability analyses and deriving recommendations for action. The focus here is on preparing the annual business plan, including personnel and investment planning, as well as risk management.
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The various crises in 2022, including the after-effects of the coronavirus crisis, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and inflation, had an impact on Studierendenwerk’s financial situation in 2022 and will have an even greater impact in the coming years. Price increases on the procurement side for catering facilities, other products such as electronics and purchased services will have a negative impact on the annual result for 2022, which despite all of this will still close the year with a net profit of € 459.7 thousand (previous year: € 3,538.7 thousand). It should be noted here that these cost increases, as well as rising personnel costs due to the new collective wage agreements, will only affect Studierendenwerk Münster in 2023 due to existing fixed prices for energy contracts. A large part of the cost increases described above cannot simply be passed on to the students, as they are already at their financial limits in many cases. Studierendenwerk Münster is therefore planning for a negative annual result for the first time in the 2023 business plan. This negative planned figure is due in particular to the € 3 million increase in energy expenses compared to the previous year.
Various support measures from the state of NRW and the responsible Ministry of Culture and Science started in 2022 and will continue in part in 2023. For example, there are efforts to provide financial support for energy costs or for psychosocial counseling. The financial support measures as part of the coronavirus rescue package expired in 2022. As the aforementioned measures are special payments, the fundamental disparity between the development of students’ social contributions and the development of the general grant from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in recent years remains. In the coming years, together with the organized student body, it will be necessary to press for more adequate state funding for NRW student services in political committee work. See the following chart for the development of social contributions and state subsidies over time:
Despite the many external crises and problems, projects and special topics were also driven forward in the Finance department in 2022 in addition to day-to-day business. The electronic invoice receipt process introduced in January 2022 was further developed and improved over the course of the year. The provisional conclusion of this topic is planned for the second quarter of 2023 with the switch to a revised workflow process. Further improvements were also achieved in the area of digitalization for the preparation and documentation of the 2022 annual financial statements. With regard to the Diamant accounting software used at Studierendenwerk Münster, the decision was made to switch to the latest Diamant 4 version in 2022. The switch will take place in summer 2023.
Purchasing department
At an operational level, the purchasing department, which consists of five employees, advises the other departments and divisions on new and replacement purchases, bundles the Studierendenwerk’s requirements and is responsible for the procurement of goods and services for both the food and non-food areas. At the strategic level, the purchasing department is responsible for selecting suitable suppliers, negotiating prices and conditions as well as market research and market analyses. The Purchasing department also negotiates and coordinates long-term framework agreements for services such as plumbing, painting, electrical work, etc.
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At the start of 2022, the newly created client was implemented in the TL1 (Telos) merchandise management system. The article master was restructured and reorganized due to specifications from the software manufacturer. The resulting advantages and disadvantages were examined and evaluated in 2022. The plan for 2023 is still to eliminate the difficulties arising from the new setup. The Coptec purchasing platform was also introduced and actively used. This includes product and price research, product availability and the connection to our merchandise management system.
Due to the problems of war, crop failures and the pandemic, a large number of suppliers were approached to ensure the availability of goods in both the food and non-food sectors. Negotiations ensured that products could always be delivered in consistent quality. To this end, it was also necessary to switch from familiar products to alternatives that were not so badly affected by the enormous price increases. The switch to alternative products in particular caused problems in menu planning, as in some cases it was not known until the day of delivery which products were supplied with which ingredients. The final solution to these new problems is planned for the coming year.
Due to the expiring framework contracts, which are concluded for regularly recurring, fixed services such as painting, plumbing, heating and elevator work, negotiations were held with our service providers in 2022, which in most cases led to an extension of 12 months without wage and material price increases. Without exception, these contracts will be requested again in 2024 in order to better assess the market situation.
Last year, the glass instead of PET project was implemented in collaboration with the catering facilities department. The products of the international Coca-Cola group were replaced by the regional company liba. In addition, the chicken eggs previously used were switched from a national supplier to a regional farm, Hof Brüning-Sudhoff, which only keeps free-range eggs.
In order to counteract the continuing shortage of goods on the market and the corresponding price increases, negotiations were held with one of the largest wholesalers – Transgourmet – to secure the requirements in the food sector.
In 2023, the aim is also to push ahead with the expansion of the external purchasing platform Coptec. In addition to Studierendenwerk Münster, other Studierendenwerke from NRW are also interested in finding new suppliers to publish their product ranges on the purchasing platform in order to simplify article and supplier research. This also includes expanding the connection to the merchandise management system.
Information Technology Department
A team of six administrators takes care of the IT infrastructure, support and assists the departments in carrying out their projects. In order to cope with the wide range of tasks, the IT employees have formed focal points in areas such as network and server administration and user support. In the first half of 2022 in particular, a lot of work was done from home, although some of the IT colleagues were always on site.
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As everywhere else, the effects of the coronavirus crisis and increasing digitalization have meant that workstations at Studierendenwerk have had to be equipped with new, additional or modified hardware. Working from home has become an established part of everyday working life and has been supported by the introduction of additional digital software solutions. The focus here is on the document management system (DMS) introduced in 2020, which was continued with additional modules.
In order to remain flexible and cost-effective, the hardware per employee is being reduced and the workstations in the departments are being converted to notebooks and docking units. In addition, two monitors are a declared goal for every employee and additional scanning systems help with the digitization of invoices, delivery bills or files for the DMS.
In response to the increased number of combined face-to-face and video meetings, more equipment was installed in the departments’ meeting rooms.
IT supported the catering area in 2022 with the introduction of digital hygiene and quality management by providing devices and network technology. The various locations had to be supplied with Wi-Fi and hardware had to be configured. Another topic was cashless payment in the catering establishments.
The changed way of working with fewer and fewer paper documents naturally also has an impact on the load on the storage systems and the increasing importance of backups. In IT, additional storage media were therefore purchased and the backup system was put to the test and hardened. The issue of security has also become an increasing concern for the Studierendenwerk due to the higher number of home office workstations and more aggressive attacks on the Internet. Measures such as upgrading to a modern firewall system, structuring the network and introducing SD-WAN connections to the individual dormitory locations as well as awareness training for employees were therefore decided.
However, the focus was not only on employees with a PC workstation, but also on the question of how to integrate the many employees in the kitchens of the canteens and bistros or in building services as well as the gardeners and carpenters into corporate communications. An employee app was therefore purchased in September 2022, which was prepared by IT, Public Relations and other helpers for its launch in February 2023.
The trend towards more digital processes in the Studierendenwerk, which has already become apparent in the last two years, will continue in the coming years. The expansion of the DMS will remain a focus, as will other software solutions such as the online appointment booking software, the expansion of cashless payment transactions and software solutions for sustainable product planning in the canteens. In the network meetings of the Studierendenwerke NRW, awareness has also grown that cooperation is absolutely necessary in view of the large volume of IT issues that will have to be dealt with in the future. Possibilities are being explored as to how joint implementation can be organized and which topics are suitable for the differently positioned student unions.
