One of the things that seem to frustrate Community Action employees and managers is travel vouchers/expense reports.
Each month the employee that travels as part of their job is required to document their travel expenses and turn them in on time. This is typically done by filling out a paper form.
The paperwork then must be given to their supervisor who must approve it. And then if the reimbursed amount is over a certain amount, it must go to management for approval before going to accounting to be paid.
Often, accounting only pays expenses once a month. So, timing is critical to get the paper application routed through the office in time to make the cutoff. And if at any point in the approval process the travel voucher is rejected it needs to go back to the employee to correct. This approval process is further complicated in organizations that have staff work from different locations.
We have helped community actions and other organizations solve these challenges by automating the travel voucher/expense reimbursement process. We start by creating an electronic version of their travel voucher using Laserfiche Forms and put a link to it on their company website or an internal intranet. We then map out the complete approval process and automate it in Laserfiche.
Each month, the employee clicks on the link and fills out the form. The form is checked to make sure the information is complete and then is routed to the 1st approver in the process. The forms are sent to their work folder in Laserfiche Forms and an email sends with a link to the voucher. The approver can go to their work folder or simply click on the link in the email and either approve or reject the form. They are also able to add notes and comments. This process is done for each approver in the approval process. Finally, the document is routed to accounting.
For some organizations, e push this data into their accounting program to save data entry. Other organizations, the accounting staff will enter view the voucher in Laserfiche and enter the data in their accounting system. Then a field in Laserfiche is updated to tell the system that the voucher has been paid. Laserfiche then automatically files the document in its final resting place in Laserfiche.
Community Action Software – Travel Voucher/Expense Report Automation