Common Problems of a Manual-Operated Workflow
Scenario: Trip expense submission
In filling out a trip expense form, an employee must manually calculate the total amount of reimbursement, while adhering to relevant company policy. Upon completion of the form, if an error is discovered, the employee must fill out a new sheet. Once the form has been completed and no errors are found, the employee delivers the form to the department manager for approval. The department manager is pre-occupied with preparing the budget for the department, and as such, puts the expense claim into a pile of papers on the desk. After a week's time, the manager discovers the expense submission, but forgets what it is for and calls the employee for details. The manager leaves a voicemail as the employee is on the other line with a client. Later in the day, the employee calls the manager back with the details of the form, and the manager signs off on the expense claim.
The expense form is then handed to the cashier in the finance department. After the cashier confirms the calculations and no errors are found, the cashier passes it along for payment. After several days without hearing a response to the initial submission, the employee calls finance to investigate the status of the claim. The cashier informs the employee to wait another two days for the payment. In total, the final payment took two weeks since the time the expense account was submitted.
The time, money and effort spent by companies to deal with expense claims such as the one above is immeasurable. Unfortunately, no one if ever is conscious of such waste, and in fact, methods rarely exist to quantify the expense of dealing with processes of this nature.
The reimbursement process in this example is relatively simple and straight-forward. The cumulative waste of every process; from simple to complex, can grow to alarming proportions.
Revised Scenario: Trip expense
submission
Computerized workflow software such as QCTI/DLFLo can completely change this situation.
Upon returning from a business trip, the employee fills out an online expense account form on his computer. Since the system has already filled in relevant fields according to the employee's input prior to the trip, he only needs to input data into the requested fields.
The system will automatically calculate the total value. If the employee had forgotten to fill in the form upon return of the trip, the system would have sent an email reminder to him. Once the employee clicks on the submit button, the electronic expense form is automatically transmitted to the department manager and appears on her task menu. If the manager does not deal with the expense claim in due time, the system will send a reminder email to her. Upon review of the claim, the manager can pull up the details of the trip from the trip expense flow chart. Once approved, the claim is passed on to the cashier who is not required to verify the total as the system has already done so. The processing for this claim is complete and the employee can expect his reimbursement within a short period of time. The entire process is efficient, and accurate.
In manually operated workflows, such as the scenario outlined above, data is passed from one individual to the next. In this situation, all the participants must know to whom and what departments the form must travel within the organization in order to be fulfilled. Unfortunately, the data passed from one person to another may become lost, and document filing and retrieval may become cumbersome. In addition, due to the lack of a file tracking system, process cycles, costs and employee working efficiency cannot be measured. The costs to a company in dealing with a lost file, claim inquiry, delay or re-submission can become overwhelming.
The following are typical processes that can be improved by an automated workflow system:
- Large amount of time and energy wasted on forms submissions and approvals
- Business process guidelines/stipulations difficult to adhere to
- Continued inefficiency with regards to form administration due to the lack of record/status tracking
- Inability to re-use and modify standard form templates
- Time, expense and efficiency are not quantifiable
- Key business processes delayed due to administrative conflicts
- High dependence on paper, causing document filing and retrieval issues
- Strong server and internal network not used to optimal capacity
