Workday Finance Business Process Improvements

For the past several months, the Finance team has been working to make Workday Financial processes more efficient and user-friendly. These updated business processes will launch Sept. 19.

The goal of these changes have been to optimize our campus-facing Workday Finance business processes, with the guiding principle of improving efficiency by reducing process duration and the number of people involved, while still maintaining strong financial controls.

As we prepare to launch these changes, we want to give you a preview of what to expect (view a complete list of changes):

Smarter Approvals:

• When the Cost Center is changed on a transaction (e.g. Supplier Invoice Request), a new step will ensure the approver for the new Cost Center has an opportunity to review it. For example, if the cost center is changed from Biology to Physics, the Physics CCM0 will now see the transaction for approval.
• The system will have “advanced routing” to prevent individuals from having to approve the same transaction twice if it comes to them in different roles.

Fewer Steps and Faster Processing:

• The Manager approval step for staff Expense Reports will be removed to increase efficiency.
• The SBA approval step for Requisitions with items shipped to a home address, which was added during the pandemic, will be removed.

Better Notifications: System notifications will be added to key processes to inform initiators when an event has been completed, such as a Purchase Order being issued or a new supplier being set up.
We are excited about these improvements and expect they will have a positive impact on your daily work in Workday Finance. Questions about these improvements can be directed to Natalie Hill.