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Shared Services Initiative / OEI Priority Initiatives

OEI Priority Initiatives

 

Travel and Expense (T&E)

The T&E project was underway prior to the Phase I Shared Services Benchmark project.  The University of Missouri had identified that the currently paper-intensive process to manage travel expense reimbursement was inefficient and could be more effective and this was confirmed by the benchmark results.  Compliance with existing travel policy is enforced by the Accounting Offices through manual review of all expense reimbursement requests.  Therefore the process lacks automation and requires manual intervention for ensuring policy compliance slowing down reimbursement to the traveler.

The project was put on hold and reevaluated under the OEI methodology that developed from the shared services benchmark initiative.  Significant changes to the policies, processes, functionality, communication strategies, and implementation strategies have occurred as a result.  Because of these changes the University believes the T&E project has been improved and will result in a better, more efficient, process for the traveler, their delegate, or the processors in the campus Accounting offices including:

  1. Fewer approval transactions required
  2. Automated population of T&E data requiring less data entry by the traveler
  3. Faster reimbursement of travel expenses for the traveler
  4. Better data for making travel decisions at the college, school and division level
  5. Better data  for achieving greater cost savings on vendor contracts

 

Changes in travel policies resulting from the OEI methodology-based review are effective July 1, 2011.  The T&E module will be phased in throughout the fall with all travelers receiving reimbursement through the T&E module by the end of 2011.

 

Compass (Commitment Planning and Support System)

The Compass project was in process prior the Phase I Shared Services Benchmark initiative.  The results from the benchmark, however, changed the nature of the project dramatically.

The expenditure base of the University of Missouri is heavily weighted, approximately 85% annually, in personnel costs which needs to be actively managed; especially given the present environment of limited resources.  But, the University lacks a coordinated budget development process to effectively manage these resources.  Further, budget reporting tends to be single purpose and is not flexible for “what if” analysis without a significant amount of rework.

Shaped by the OEI methodology, the University has embarked upon implementing Hyperion Budget and Planning software in conjunction with the Oracle HR Commitment Accounting module.  The goal of this effort is to Reduce the disparate planning processes (e.g. Access database, excel spreadsheets, etc.) in use today to a standardized budget template populated with production data resulting in a reduction in data entry, and dual data entry throughout the budget planning process.  Further, it will create a desired and automated set of management level reports to assist leaders throughout the organization in making resource based decisions.

The software will begin being used by service operations and auxiliaries in the fall of 2011 with academic departments participating in the spring of 2012; all in support of budgeting and planning for the 2013 fiscal year and beyond.

 

Vendor Payment Audit

As part of the Phase I Shared Services Benchmark project Accenture helped the University identify that there may be opportunities to capture savings through a vendor payment audit that could help fund other OEI priority initiatives.  Based on typical industry experience for an organization of our size and complexity, it is estimated that an audit of payments to the University’s major vendors for the past 3 years may yield as much as $1 million in savings.

Internal Audit will conduct this audit early in the summer of 2011.  Upon learning what likely savings will be, the University will determine how best to pursue refunds on erroneous payments.

Update on the Vendor Payment Audit, October 2011:

To address the OEI Vendor Payment Audit Priority Initiative, Internal Audit (IA) obtained a download of the University's disbursements for the period July 1, 2009 - April 30, 2011. IA matched the disbursements data on the following characteristics: vendor name, invoice number, invoice date, invoice amount, and comments and provided the results to the OEI and Procurement teams. In addition, IA, based on input from OEI and Procurement management, removed selected vendors and invoice types from the data as the OEI and Procurement teams deemed these of having a low risk of being a duplicate.  This data set was then provided to management for investigation.

The University chose to investigate payments that looked unusual in nature and reviewed all of those in excess of $5,000.  Only one payment was found to be a true duplicate and it is being pursued in conjunction with the vendor.  While this audit did not result in recovery of a significant amount of overspend, it reaffirmed the quality of our control environment around vendor payment processing and the University is encouraged by the results.

 

Administrative Portal

A portal is a personalized website which delivers targeted content specific to the user based on their needs and priorities.  A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way using a single sign on.  A true one-stop shop.  A portal can be much more than that, as well. It's not simply a collection of links, it can provide business process guides, collaboration tools, a content management system, and an improved user interface that is simple to use. For example, University users today must sign on to myHR to report their time.  Managers then sign on to the HR database to approve the time of their direct reports.  The portal would be able to have a channel dedicated to myHR as well as one for HR all from one screen from one sign on.  Other channels to be considered could be personnel actions processing (e.g. hires and terminations), journal entries, receiving procured goods, or preparing a travel voucher.  Under the new Web 2.0 architecture, the University’s portal will be process based;  guiding University users through a given administrative process rather than simply providing links to static information. That process would be complimented with related information and context sensitive help. For example, while procuring goods, the user may see a chart of their spending habits over the past year or perhaps they would have tracking information right within their portal to track a shipment. All of this is done through a wiki-like model where adding pages, content, related info is all done in real time through a click in your browser. This allows the portal to adapt quickly and avoid getting stale. 

Resource availability is being examined to determined when work on the administrative portal could begin.

 

Strategic Procurement Initiative

The University of Missouri System is working with many of the public four-year universities in the state to examine the projected benefits of participating in a statewide strategic procurement shared services program. This program would leverage the contracts the UM System already has in place to other institutions, resulting in supply and processing cost efficiencies that could ultimately result in significant cost savings.

A feasibility study will be initiative to determine the projected benefits of participating in a state-wide shared services purchasing program.  The collaborative feasibility study represents a continuation of the system’s two-year pursuit of its shared services strategic initiative to curb expenses and avoid duplication of administrative tasks in such functions as human resources, information technology, finance and procurement.

Depending on the outcome of the feasibility study, each of the institutions will consider whether it will participate in the proposed timetable for deploying a shared procurement services program.

 

Order to Pay

Order to Pay (OTP) allows the University to

  • Automate the invoicing process
  • Automate the payment process and capture early payment discounts
  • Reduce the amount of time and effort associated with voucher processing related tasks
  • Offer vendor flexible payment options such as check, ACH, wire and single pay credit card)
  • Using predefined University parameters for accepted discounts suppliers can choose to receive payments in a time frame that best meets their needs

Conservative projections show 65% of vouchers moving to this method in the first 5 years.  Order to Pay provides a portal through which suppliers upload invoices, assure that invoices match PO’s and then receive payment per pre-negotiated discount terms.

Based on the projections above the estimated total net savings and new revenue to the University as a result of implementing OTP will be in excess of $9.4 million over the first 5 years.  The results will to some extent depend on the effort exerted by the University in encouraging suppliers to enroll.  The initial implementation will take approximately 3 months with an ongoing roll-out after that. 

 

Document Life Cycle Strategic Alliance

The Document Lifecycle Strategic Alliance resulted from an extensive request-for-proposal process that sought a partner best able to assist the university in improving productivity while reducing costs associated with the life cycle of documents.  As a result of the findings, the University of Missouri System immediately transitioned from Ikon as its copier provider to Xerox for all new multifunctional devices.  Specifically, Xerox will supply the hardware, maintenance and such non-paper items as toner cartridges and staples for these new devices.  The process for ordering new multi-function copiers will be managed by each campus to ensure that campus policies and needs are best met.

In addition, the goal of this new alliance is to reduce paper use, power consumption and landfill waste by improving every aspect of the document lifecycle, including printing, copying, scanning, faxing, design and delivery of print materials as well as electronic storage and retrieval.  The University and Xerox will partner on specific projects which will enhance processes and leverage more effective document life cycle and electronic processes.

Reviewed 2012-01-11.