State Department Adopts Gelco Expense Software

<H1>State Department Adopts Gelco Expense Software</H1>By Mary Ann McNulty

<I>Washington, D.C. </I>- The U.S. State Department is distributing Gelco Government Network's expense reporting software to employees around the world.

Since beginning the implementation this summer, the State Department has set up the product, Gelco Travel Manager, at 28 of the 36 offices in the United States, which process a total of 25,000 vouchers for travelers based here. In addition, staffers in 86 of the 236 international offices have received the software, which automates the authorization, cash advances and reimbursement vouchers used in government travel.

"We'll deploy it everywhere it makes sense, where we can save time and resources," said Stewart Kershner, travel project reengineering manager for the State Department.

The department expects the product to cut indirect costs of processing travel from about 20 to 10 percent of the direct travel costs. Compared with other government entities, State's processing costs are low. For example, other government agencies spend anywhere from 30 to 40 percent in indirect costs in processing those travel expenditures.

For the time being, however, manual systems may have to remain in place at low-volume locations as the department focuses its resources on posts where automation can have the greatest impact.

Cutting Down On Labor

Tracking the volume of vouchers processed in all locations around the globe is a labor-intensive project. "That's one of the reasons why we're trying to get an automated system in place," Kershner said.

State selected the Gelco product after a thorough analysis of its processes, needs, costs and potential savings. "We met with our customers-travelers, processors and approvers-and developed a set of criteria of what we'd like to do when we streamline or reengineer travel," Kershner said. "We identified how we'd like an automated system to work." Team members also sought advice from other government agencies that automated their travel processes.

Creating a paperless environment was a key goal. The State Department also wanted a system that allows reimbursement via electronic funds transfer into a bank account and integrates all data into the department's core accounting systems.

The department began testing the Travel Manager product (then owned by Federal Software) in October 1994. After the test, Gelco's was awarded a contract to provide software to process 40,000 vouchers a year worldwide, according to Bill Shively, executive vice president and general manager of Gelco Government Network in Reston, Va. But the product has the potential to process as many as 75,000 vouchers a year. The cost, which Shively declined to reveal, is based on the number of vouchers processed rather than the number of copies of software distributed.

"We have some larger accounts, but the significance of winning the State Department is who they are, the kind of traveler they have and what they've done to this point in reengineering," Shively said. "They're very progressive."

Gelco entered the government market just last year, when it acquired Federal Software and its Travel Manager products. More than 80 federal agencies use the software.

Gelco has begun drafting a new version of the software, featuring an easier-to-use graphical user interface, to be rolled out by year-end, Shively said. At that time, Gelco intends to combine other existing versions and market just two products, one GUI-based and the other character-based. Since acquiring Federal Software, Gelco has signed a deal with Patriot Systems that allows Travel Manager users to pull in airline, car rental and hotel pricing to document in the authorization request what the trip should cost.

Next year, Gelco intends to expand its marketing beyond government agencies to cost-reimbursable contractors, Shively said. Some CRCs follow government per diems exactly, while others seek reimbursement only for the per diem but allow their travelers to spend more on travel, he said. "We've seen a great deal of interest in this market expansion," he said.