See the main story accompanying this sidebar, "GSA Deploys End-To-End Travel Technology"The Department of Housing and Urban Development already has seen benefits from the General Services Administration's end-to-end program it rolled out Oct. 1. The E-Gov Travel Services program has cut HUD transaction fees by more than half after transitioning it to an online booking program. It also eliminated the costs of running and developing internal support systems and dramatically reduced expense reimbursement time by automating the approval and disbursement process.
HUD director of travel management Barry Kahn analyzed corporate benchmarks to determine expectations for HUD's online adoption rate. So far, he said, HUD has achieved more than 70 percent adoption.
On average, the GSA's online transaction fees are $10 compared with $28 for an offline transaction, according to Bob McCauley, vice president and program manager for CWT/Sato Travel.
To help drive adoption, Kahn held onsite training sessions at HUD offices around the country. "Training is vital," said Kahn, who expects to implement the end-to-end system departmentwide by year-end. "After implementing, be sure to provide adequate help to travelers. That will make or break your system. If you don't give help to travelers, they will turn sour very quickly."
Lining up the financial and accounting systems with the online booking tool, approval process and expense management tools has been key to the program's success, said Kahn. The new platform has enabled HUD to automatically link with the Department of the Treasury, cutting the reimbursement cycle from more than two weeks to about two days.
For some agencies, "that was a real bottleneck before. When we were on paper, it could take two weeks or more from when the traveler created the reimbursement voucher to when they got paid," said Kahn. "Now there is no delay from when the document is approved. It is processed immediately in the accounting system."
According to CWT/Sato Travel's McCauley, the voucher processing cost on average was $75 per voucher for the prior paper-based systems. Through automation, the same process has been reduced to $13.75 per voucher.
HUD has 9,000 employees, including 2,000 frequent travelers, who account for about $5 million in ticketed volume. HUD uses EDS for the end-to-end solution and CWT/Sato Travel provides fulfillment. According to Kahn, "My transition was smoother in the sense that we are using the same ticketing agency."