Providence - A group of universities plan to ditch their
current travel expense management tools in favor of a customizable solution
they are developing themselves to cut costs, share resources and allow for
easier customization. Expected to be fully deployed by April 2012, the expense
system is one module within the Kuali open source software suite.
The Kuali Foundation is a community of higher-education
entities that banded together to create financial and administrative systems.
It launched in 2005 with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the
National Association of College and University Business Officers. The first
four releases of the Kuali software related to general ledgers, budgeting and
accounts receivable. In subsequent years, the group added members and new
modules.
The idea of travel modules began to take root in 2006 at
Cornell University and Colorado State University, according to Keiko Takahashi,
a senior business analyst in The University of California, Irvine's Office of
Information and Technology, speaking here last month during a Society for
Collegiate Travel and Expense Management conference. The travel components will
be included next spring as part of a planned fifth release of the Kuali
Financial System.
The travel expense system, called the Kuali Travel and
Entertainment Module, currently is being tested by several Kuali partner
institutions: Colorado State University and Cornell are planning 2011
deployments; University of Connecticut, Indiana University, Michigan State
University, University of Arizona and University of California, Davis are
planning 2012 launches.
The tool was developed by software builder rSmart. To reduce
the cost of development, several institutions donated dollars, and in some
cases, bodies.
A first phase, from June 2010 to July 2011, included the
development of a travel authorization document, a travel reimbursement document
and a cash advance receivable management process, according to a presentation
at the SCTEM conference by UC Irvine's Takahashi and Karen Osborne, travel and
entertainment supervisor in the UC Davis accounts payable office.
A second phase, expected to run through January 2012,
includes development related to travel profile data, importing corporate card
expense data, automated agency data reconciliation, an entertainment document
and a moving/relocation document.
The tool would either directly deposit reimbursement in a
traveler's bank account or issue a check. It will capture receipts through
scanning or faxing, reconcile pre-trip vendor payments and send invoices to
travelers who owe funds after cash advances are reconciled. It also would
compute federal and/or state per diems, tax exemptions and other travel expense
nuances common in university environments. Each university could customize the
tool, likely through a recoding by information technology departments.
"Certain schools, after they implement, might build a
specific code and say, 'This might be good for everyone else,' " Takahashi
explained. "Then you submit the piece of functionality to be evaluated,
and if they say it is a great idea, then that becomes a part of the code. If
not, you have to maintain your modification forever. The idea is that people
will always write generically so that it will become a part of the code and
your IT maintenance costs will be reduced."
After Kuali is implemented, UC Davis will save "several
hundred thousand [dollars] a year," Osborne estimated, noting how the
university's current system, Concur Expense, charges a flat fee plus a fee for
each report. The university also pays for Concur system maintenance and must
recode the tool after each update.
The Kuali system "is a lot more streamlined and
easier," Osborne added. "With Concur, even though we are buying it
off the shelf, our school has a lot of odd policies so we have our developers
build all of these little customizations in there. So you're paying a really high
premium, but you still need your developer to add on travel."
A third phase, according to the presentation, would include
new workflows, documents for hospitality events and large conferences,
additional reconciliations with corporate card data and the importing of
"university agency airline and hotel data" to support reporting and
additional travel profile data.
This report originally appeared in The Beat.