The Finance 2 Go initiative in the Faculty of Health Sciences has won a national prize in the 2023 Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) Quality and Productivity (Q&P) Awards Program.

The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) launched Finance 2 Go in response to the large numbers of infrequent users and non-finance staff engaging with the finance system, resulting in transactions that were often returned for corrections, sometimes more than once. This led to inefficiency and a high degree of user dissatisfaction.

The Finance 2 Go initiative combines process improvements and technology with mobile support, offering a more efficient and effective way to process financial transactions within the Faculty’s complex environment, which includes funding and delivering health professional education and working with hospital affiliates.  

The team is comprised of three full-time and six part-time staff and also offers job opportunities to undergraduate students from the DeGroote School of Business. The team gathers documents from participating departments and supports the financial data-entry process.

“The impact that the Finance 2 Go team has had on the Faculty of Health Sciences is immense, reducing administrative burden, errors and duplication of effort and helping to enable operational excellence,” said Laura Harrington, assistant vice president and chief administrative officer in the FHS.

“The team has embraced our strategic priorities through this model as they help us continue to foster an organization that is nimble, creative and responsive, ensuring fiscal and operational strength, stability and efficiency.”

Since the project launched, the faculty’s financial services team has seen a significant reduction in processing times, error rates and returned items. Use of Finance 2 Go has grown from less than one per cent of overall transactions in 2019 to 26 departments and units, and more than 800 individual travel and expense claimants.

Return rates and re-working of submissions have dropped in half. Additionally, there has been a 27 per cent drop in the portion of expense claims submitted by non-finance roles.

This has resulted in greater productivity for non-finance employees, who can now focus on the core aspects of their jobs. Finance 2 Go’s document transfer and communication processes can be adopted by any department, faculty, or institution.

“Our goal was to reduce complexity and user frustration. We have significantly reduced the number of infrequent users and shown that developing expertise in transactional work leads to greater efficiency,” said Susan Galloway, executive director, finance in the FHS.

“Our team is now embracing and developing technological solutions that will make the process even more streamlined and will improve the user experience for all."

Congratulations to the Finance 2 Go Team on this well-deserved award!

Learn more about Finance 2 Go in this Daily News article.