In order
to better serve our customers, the Office of the Controller hired a new
Purchasing Manager in April 2006. The
Office of Purchasing Services was also realigned so that the reporting
relationship is to the Director of Business & Auxiliary Services instead
of the University Controller. The
purchasing manager will be able to better serve our institutional departments
by assisting them in writing specifications, bidding and processing purchase
orders. An accounting manager was
hired to handle the day to day operation of the accounting department. This change will enable the Assistant
Controller is concentrate on our reporting and procedural requirements and
asset management accounting process.
Electronic
funds transfer was implemented during FY 2006 for travel reimbursements to
employees. This process allows travel
reimbursements to be processed and direct deposited into employee’s bank
accounts. This process has decreased
the number of checks written which has provided cost savings in check stock and
in reconciling outstanding and paid checks on a weekly basis. Along with this new process, we implemented
an electronic notification (email) system to notify employees when travel
funds were being deposited into their bank accounts. This email replaced the normal paper advice
that is normally sent out for direct deposit transactions. This improvement resulted in time savings
and cost savings in advice stock.
The Office
of the Controller also obtained a new merchant account for the cashier’s
office. Obtaining this new merchant
account resulted in a lower credit card commission rate that will ultimately
result in approximately $9,000 savings in credit card fees each year.
The
accounting staff also worked extremely hard during year end close out for FY
2005 in order to close the books and complete the Annual Financial Report in
a timely manner. In previous years, we
were allowed at least two months to complete the close and financial report. This year we were required to close and
prepare the financial report in one month. This new schedule helped the state issue the CAFR (Consolidated Annual
Financial Report) on time.
As part of
our ongoing process to improve upon our customer service skills, all
accounting services staff participated in two, half-day customer service
workshops. |
