Your Ideas Matter

Streamline Student Late Fee Process

Student Accounts Specialist Justin Carroll identified a recurring issue in how late fees were assessed and reversed on student accounts. Departments were expected to use a late fee deferral service indicator to exempt certain students, but many instead submitted manual lists to Justin each month. This created an inconsistent, error-prone process where he had to manually review the late fee file and approve charges before posting.

To improve the process, the team ensured the deferral service indicator functioned correctly and re-established accountability across departments for using it properly. With that structure in place, they worked with SIS to implement automated late fee processing on the 18th of each month – removing the dependency on Justin's manual review.

Finally, to support tracking and transparency, the team created a new item type specifically for late fee reversals. This allows KU to monitor how many late fees are waived each month/year and ensures consistent documentation of credits, reinforcing institutional accountability, and, thereby, reducing workload.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Justin Carroll
• Angie Dopp
• Amanda Tucker
• Dee Anna Rendall
• Kay Walden
• Deborah Rollf
• Erin Otter

Impact of idea:

• Eliminated manual monthly review for late fees
• Strengthened use of the deferral service indicator
• Established automation for consistent billing dates
• Enabled tracking and reporting of late fee reversals
• Estimated annual staff time savings: $3,900 and 152 total hours

Create Researchers Toolbox

Laura Wolfe was consistently being asked for direction in which office PI's should use for different tasks.  Laura saw an opportunity to better support our PIs, research staff, and department admins by creating a single location for easy navigation of the numerous research related resources KU has to offer.  This resource could be an extension of AMS to help reduce overall administrative burden associated with sponsored awards.  This resource would include links to our Human Resources department, Financial quick links for immediate action, and details of all the administrative research tasks Award Management Services (AMS) supports.

Three individuals in Award Management Services teamed up and designed a new webpage to guide researchers to for support.  Researchers and support staff can now use this resource to know which office to contact and in some cases to immediately start a service request from the Quick Links section.  Other helpful information available are important policies, contacts, and links to the most recent Federal Research news.    

Researcher Toolbox | Office of Research

Fellow Change Agents:

• Laura Wolfe
• Rebecca Bilderback
• Olabimpe Okosun

Impact of idea:

The use of this toolbox page will free up time for researchers to focus on their research and reduce administrative burden, while also freeing up time for AMS.

Leveraging Purchase Orders to Streamline Invoice Processing

When the University team reviewed how invoices were being processed, they discovered a cumbersome and time-consuming workflow. Invoices were handled through a manual, non-PO process that required individual check requests and multiple handoffs between departments, the Shared Services Center (SSC), and Accounts Payable. This outdated method prevented leveraging IDR (Invoice Document Recognition) technology, slowing payment times and creating a heavy administrative burden.

To improve this, we set up POs with key suppliers like Anda, PBA Health, CINTAS, Kingston, Thomson Reuters, and others, covering a total of 2,789 invoices. Now, when the University places an order with a supplier under a PO, the supplier’s invoices are sent directly to the Accounts Payable email inbox. The IDR system automatically scans and processes these invoices for payment without manual data entry.

This change is already helping the University improve payment turnaround and meet the 30-day payment goal. More importantly, it’s reducing administrative work and allowing staff to focus on strategic priorities rather than manual invoice entry.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Angel Gillaspie
• Lee Goetz
• Haylie Lancaster
• Shauna Owens
• Dave Moore
• Dave Hunt         
• Lori Haaga
• Krissie Druen
• Lindsay Reiter
• Wilisha Thompson

Impact of idea:

Ability to automate ~2,800 invoices annually and $42,000 in productivity savings

Improve Officer Trainee payment process

The existing process for providing incentive pay for officers taking on additional duties to train other officers has been a source of frustration because of the manual tracking, cumbersome approval process, and then manual keying of each pay period covered by the payroll team.  The payroll team recommended adding an additional earnings code in HRPay for this specific type of incentive pay to help fix the issue. 

The team then did all the relative testing for the new code and processes involved.  By having the earnings code in HRPay, the hours can be entered directly in the payroll system and approved by the appropriate supervisors. Once approved, the payment gets picked up like any other approved payroll activity.  This removes the manual tracking in excel, the additional pay approval workflow, and prevents our payroll staff from manually entering each payment.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Penny Kellum
• Melissa Bissey
• Jennifer McBee
• Kwan McKee
• Abby King
• James Druen
• Nelson Mosley

Impact of idea:

$5,200 annually in efficiency savings by eliminating manual data entry and unnecessary workflow approvals

Requisition Workflow Improvement

A small checkbox in FITC was causing a big headache. When staff submitted non-catalog requisitions, they often overlooked the “Negotiated” box. If it wasn’t checked, the request would get routed for manual PO creation to the SSC team. That meant delays, extra emails, and multiple purchase orders for a single requisition. One team member, Ephrom, received multiple emails everyday just to fix these errors, each one taking time away from more strategic work.

To solve it, the team proposed a simple fix: update the system so the “Negotiated” box is checked by default, while still allowing users to uncheck it when needed.

That change is now live. The process is more efficient, errors are reduced, and fewer manual corrections are needed. This is saving time for both departments and SSC staff.

Fellow Change Agents:

• Zach McElfresh
• Colette Gillespie
• Judy Hamner

Impact of idea:

$4,875 in annual efficiency savings / 195 hours of staff time