Aida Memo

MEMORANDUM

To: , Chief Financial Officer

From: , Contract Specialist

CC: , Director of Contracts and Acquisitions Management

Date: February 7, 2012

Re: Request to Conduct Research on a More Efficient Invoicing Workflow

INTRODUCTION

I am writing to request your permission to research the potential benefits of moving to an electronic invoicing system/ workflow process in our organization. The high volume of invoices that we experience in our Contracts and Acquisition Management office has increased our need for an efficient invoicing process. There is a lot of stress put on our contract specialist due to our current manual entry of invoices. The manual entry of invoices affects the whole U.S Department of Education since every invoice that the department receives comes through our office. If we were to implement an electronic invoicing process, the processing of invoices would be streamlined, and free up our contract specialist to focus on their duties as business advisors.

CHALLENGE

The Department of Education’s invoicing process is handled almost solely by CAM personnel, relying largely on the contract specialist to manually facilitate the review and distribution of received invoices. Since the invoices are handled manually there is an increased chance of error which sometimes causes interest payments or failure to take advantage of discounts that are given for early payment. Our contracts specialists aren’t able to devote our time to the business advising for our customers. When we do have time to give advice, it may be poor because of the stress of dealing with invoices. The Department’s invoicing process is less than ideal and not as efficient as possible. We are not achieving maximum use of resources and savings throughout the invoice payment process.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION

I am proposing that we move to an electronic invoicing process to help mediate the inefficiency in our invoicing process. In order to achieve and enjoy the...