Process Improvements

image courtesy of Apolonia/freedigitalphotos.net

A job opening for a Customer Service Manager caught my eye this morning when I checked my office email. No, not because I was interested in the position, but that it started off with “Are you relentless in the pursuit of identifying a root cause and making process improvements?”  I am and we (OpenRDA) are. It made me think of the following story.

Several years ago, I was assisting a user correct the effect on cash in Financial Management from a Payroll module process.  An accrual payroll had been done (expensing to the prior fiscal year) with the direct deposits and checks dated/issued in the new fiscal year.  For that process, the user had selected the same fiscal period when the direct deposits/checks were “cleared” as was used for the payroll expense. Of course, the fiscal period for this process should always follow the date of the direct deposits/checks (which may or may not be the same as the expense) since these are credits to cash. He asked me “if that’s the case, why do you allow us to choose a different fiscal period?” Excellent question and that soon led to a process improvement.

Similar changes to the OpenRDA software followed for vendor withholding and vendor payments (fiscal period for the “clear” process should always follow the date of the checks/electronic transmittals since cash is credited), and financial receipts (fiscal period should always follow the date of the deposit since cash is debited). In ensuring that the accounting is always correct, we’re not trying to make the jobs of our users more difficult/time-consuming; we want you to get it right so that your general ledger will be correct and that your audit goes smoothly.

I hope that all of you have a happy and safe Halloween tonight. Be sure to read my blog postings next week for another upcoming process improvement for OpenRDA.

Phyllis

pdflowers@openrda.com

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