University of South Australia

The implementation of TechnologyOne Financials solution streamlined the processing of 60,000 invoices annually

Case study highlights

  • Eliminated manual handling of paper
  • Standardised invoicing across all campuses
  • Simplified processes for 900 employees

Challenge

Since its establishment, the University of South Australia has grown in size and complexity; university employees are now processing more than 60,000 paper invoices a year. In their legacy invoice payment business process, paper documents were being moved between employees on different campuses and were frequently being duplicated or even lost. An internal study found that an average of eight copies were made of each invoice as it circulated between administrative departments.

“The growth of the university has undoubtedly been fantastic for our academic community,” says Financial Systems Manager, Michael Nettle. “However, it also placed a lot of administrative pressure on the finance and executive teams.”

Management of invoices was a growing problem for the university, and led to a number of problems including lost paperwork, inefficiencies due to manual processing, difficulty to respond to queries promptly, poor cost transparency and late payments.

The records also took up a lot of physical space and were only available to the person who possessed them. For Mr Nettle, it was important that the university find a solution that would make invoices securely available to all relevant employees, wherever they were.

“Our goal wasn’t just to improve efficiency,” he says. “It was also to gain greater transparency, so we could evaluate, at any time, the exact financial position of the university.”

Mr Nettle also wanted to more easily monitor compliance, ensuring that all invoices were processed according to a defined procedure. He hoped that an all-in-one approach would allow him to standardise invoicing across the four campuses, boosting efficiency and performance.

Solution

In 2012, TechnologyOne began working with the university to develop a web‑based approval process that would automatically convert invoices into digital files for easier processing, storage and cross-campus collaboration.

The solution – TechnologyOne’s Business Process Management (BPM) with My Tasks functionality – is now used by more than 900 employees, including 557 invoice approvers, 75 reviewers and 281 coders.

Outcome

The University of South Australia is now taking advantage of TechnologyOne’s Ci Anywhere My Tasks functionality to seamlessly manage all incoming invoices. My Tasks can be accessed anywhere and at any time, creating a considerably more efficient invoice approvals system.

With the implementation of Archiving, accessing information is far more efficient, as the module displays the most current data available, meaning staff are able to find what they need in a matter of seconds.

The centralised finance team has also increased productivity, as staff are now able to take control of information and access data with far less difficulty.

Manager, Financial Systems, University of South Australia
University of South Australia

We’re now processing any number of invoices smoothly and accurately without needing to deal with vast amounts of paper.

Client's perspective

“The finance team previously dealt with queries from employees about how to access information on a daily basis; whereas now staff are able to access the system and find information themselves, saving valuable time,” Mr Nettle said.

Using the Archiving module, the University archives all transactions that are more than 13 months old, ensuring previous years’ data can be compared with current data. This means end-of-year processes are far more streamlined, as the most relevant information is readily available in the main database.

The TechnologyOne module will also help the University meet future goals, as it can maintain transaction processes while accommodating any growth in data.

“Obviously in the future the transactional data will only increase, but using Archiving means we will not see the same erosion of performance that we had prior to implementing Archiving,” he said.

Spotlight

The advantages of using My Tasks were immediately apparent to the university’s administrators. With digital copies of each invoice readily available, it is far easier for the finance team to check which invoices have been approved and who has processed them.

The new Ci Anywhere functionality also eliminated the problem of invoices getting lost or being needlessly duplicated. Instead, each employee responsible for an invoice accesses the same digitally stored copy, improving collaboration and allowing the finance team to share notes on any complex or unique documents.

“With My Tasks, we’ve taken a huge step towards future-proofing our internal finance system,” says Mr Nettle. “We’re now ready to process any number of invoices smoothly and accurately without needing to deal with vast amounts of paper.”

According to Mr Nettle, the success of My Tasks is typical of the results he’s come to expect from TechnologyOne.

“TechnologyOne is a responsive and innovative company,” he says. “It’s fantastic to work with a team of dedicated people who so clearly understand our needs and challenges.”

About University of South Australia

Founded in 1991, the University of South Australia comprises four campuses spread across South Australia’s capital, Adelaide. It is the state’s largest and youngest university, with 33,000 students within Australia and abroad. It currently offers more than 400 on-site and remote degrees, covering fields as diverse as business, commerce, health, law and the humanities.

University of South Australia website

Publish date

01 Jan 2015

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