Background & Work to Date
Financial & Business Services is excited to announce our latest initiative! This project has been in a design and document phase for several months. Under the direction of our Chief Business Officer, John Nixon, we are now ready to begin multiple projects designed to improve the end-to-end procurement and payment processes. Dr. Stephen Hess has returned to the University and will act as the Project Director for the P2P initiative.
Focus group analysis looked at all steps beginning with shopping for a commodity, then filling out purchasing documentation, presenting payment and finally reconciling transactions as they appear on the management report. This analysis helped FBS identify steps within the process that are ripe for change and modernization. We refer to this end-to-end process as “P2P.”
Introduction of an Online Marketplace & Improved Workflow
The most exciting aspect of this project will be the implementation of an online marketplace where campus “shoppers” will select and purchase necessary supplies and services. This University of Utah marketplace will remember basic information about the shopper, their department, accounting information, and past orders to streamline each transaction. Shoppers will have an online-shopping-cart user experience. We will work diligently toward an appropriate consolidation of all commodities and services necessary for departments to complete their University business – creating a one-stop shopping site to maximize efficiency and savings for the entire campus community. The online marketplace will make available contract information to improve purchasing decisions and will provide opportunities to use system driven workflow to reduce the use of paper-based procedures.
What P2P Changes can Campus departments expect?
In addition to the online marketplace, campus departments can expect policy and procedural changes that will optimize the efficiency of the tools developed, and will improve compliance to best practice procedural standards. Campus shoppers will be discouraged from using personal forms of payment when purchasing goods and services, and we will therefore expect to see fewer reimbursement requests. Campus users will find that policy and procedural requirements will encourage use of the most efficient payment methods available to departments and a consolidation of steps necessary to complete transactions. Many traditional “form-based” transactions will be transitioned to an online workflow solution. Business officers can expect better access to “spend data” and more streamlined and transparent methods of approval and workflow. Improved purchasing data will be used for improved contracts and pricing. We will build a system where improved purchasing behavior will achieve a better institutional procurement outcome.
What are next steps?
Some parts of this initiative are already underway:
- Many of you have seen an invitation to capture your signature online. The system we have developed is called Granting Financial Authority (GFA), and will become the framework to support many online workflow solutions. We plan to sunset the current signature cards by mid November 2014.
- You will soon be asked to cast your vote to pick our online marketplace name – we hope to hear from you!
- We will be reaching out to key purchasing agents within various departments to help guide two-week “sprint” periods of intense design and development of the business process modules within the P2P initiative.
Watch our web site for FBS news and P2P updates as the project proceeds. We will be using an aggressive implementation model that will have test group users using online procurement tools as early as mid-Spring Semester. We plan to have a suite of procurement tools available to campus users using the online marketplace by the end of this fiscal year. Users will continue to see improvements and streamlined procedures to be implemented after the release of the online marketplace. We encourage all people across campus engaged in the procurement or payment process to stay aware of the project timelines and goals.
