Many campus partners have expressed concern over the years about the amount of effort involved in getting a supplier setup in our financial system (FITC) to receive payments. Follow-ups about documentation resulted in multiple emails between the SSC, Department personnel, and the supplier which was an inefficient use of everyone’s time. Outside of the inefficiency, departments were hesitant to collect W9 and banking documents because of the sensitive data they contained.
In response to these concerns, Financial Management Systems (FMS) completed a project to launch a Supplier Self-Registrations on 3/31/2026. This feature allows new suppliers to directly register and provide their sensitive data into our financial system rather than passing documents through email. With fraud prevention as a top priority, it was critical that KU put a process in place to protect the sensitive information of our suppliers. Second, along with the suppliers directly self-registering, our supplier management team will now directly interface with the supplier as a central point of contact, eliminating the department as the middle-man in the communications.
Each of these improvements will save many KU team members time and energy getting suppliers in our systems efficiently to allow us to pay them for services they provided. This is a great example of how system utilization can drive significant improvements in service to our suppliers and more efficient use of KU’s most valuable resource, our time!
Fellow Change Agents:
- Judy Hamner
- Melissa Stewart
- Mike Lewis
- Sydney Keizer
- Sarah White
- Karen Schaller
- Deb Carter
- Missy Somers
- Tanner Grubbs
- Penny Anderson
- Nolan Haire
- Luke Raynor
- Caty Movich
- Jamia Bell
- Matthew Farrier
- Nicole Suchy
- Bridget Patti
- Annie Hunt
- Shaundra Droge
- Amy Patty
- Amber Wood
- Mary Sue Sledd
- Zach McElfresh
- Willisha Thompson
- Pam Tso
- Annie Rajaei
- Paul Borchardt
- Teresa Mock
- Katherine Lea
- Marty White
- Robin Richmond
- Charlie McCool
- Donna Hughes
- Caitlin Day Wedel
- Jessica Chilcoat
Impact of idea:
- Quicker supplier setup means fewer delays in paying our suppliers and fewer delays in processing requisitions to start new projects.
- Centralization of the supplier self-registration process reduces the level of effort in the departments by reducing the data entry and document collection currently being done as well as fewer follow-up emails.
- Greater than $50K in efficiency gains annually related to saved time for SSC, Department support staff, and faculty.
