Travelers Reimbursed in Record Time

by Diane Harker

“…your processing time for turnaround reimbursement is very impressive.”

“I sent Kathie’s TEV over on Monday and the check arrived today (Thursday)! Now that’s quick ! “

“Your TEV is the BEST form on campus.”

These are just some of the comments from customers about the enhanced online Travel Expense Voucher (TEV) form and the resulting decreased processing time for travelers’ reimbursements.

For several years the Travel Office has provided an online PDF version of the first page of the TEV on its website. The first page of the TEV could be completed and printed by the department and submitted to the Travel Office. The second page had to be manually updated by the Travel Office with lines of object coding for the different categories of travel expenses and other accounting data required for FIN to produce the check.

Over the past eight months the Travel Office, with the programming support of Publications Services, worked to improve the on-line TEV. The project was designed to reduce the manual labor required to process TEVs resulting in more timely reimbursement to University travelers.

The first page of the TEV was retooled to incorporate travel exceptions (airfare and hotel). Programming on the second page of the expense voucher provides for automatic printing of proper object-sub object codes, budgets, liquidation codes and totals. The form now also requires that certain fields be completed by the department, reducing follow-up calls by the Travel Office to verify information and exceptions.

The new TEV form was pushed out on the web in late November after the Travel Office held two standing room only previews for campus users. Over 120 campus users attended the sessions and offered several additional suggestions for further enhancements that are just a few weeks away from implementation.

In November 2002, prior to implementation of the new TEV, only 53% of the TEVs were paid within five days or less of receipt in the Travel Office. In December 2002, the first full month after implementation, 82% of the TEVs were paid within five days. In January 2003, the last month for which data is available, the number of TEVs processed within five days had risen to 93%.

To quote Frank Montgomery, “… The improvements in TEV processing are IMPRESSIVE! Congratulations to you (Cindy) and all of the Travel Office staff…It’s a great story of process improvement to raise service levels.”