2014 FSD CUSTOMER SURVEY

RESPONSES TO THE SURVEY FROM FSD

Question 3 - What service are you most dissatisfied with and why? How do you suggest it can be changed?

RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Cashiers on ground floor are so unhelpful, unfriendly and never smile - they are a first point of contact for students, and it is a very sad reflection on FU as a whole. / Customer service training provided. Cashiers need to lift their engagement with customers both staff and student. Training has been conducted covering 5 essential points in providing good customer service, -Greeting,Attitude, Communication, Rapport building and Farwell. This has also been extended to casual staff.
We are also expanding our online payments function so that there is less need for face to face transactions. This is driven by giving more choice to customers and having a 24/7 service availability. Parking permits were put online this year with over 1,800 sold. A side benefit of less customers requiring face to face service is that queues are reduced, further improving customer service.
The new Flinders Connect project will result in Cashiers no longer existing in its current form, with most transactions either online or handled by Flinders Connect.
Adhoc nature of the finance training for new staff - relies on area hand over / training largely. Needs a more comprehensive all inclusive induction approach. / The induction processes is the responsibility of the individual areas to organise for their new staff and are also the best to determine the level of training required for the new staff member but we are happy to work with areas to assist.
Finance system training guides are located at - or alternatively book into a Finance Navigation course which is held monthly. Link -
or contact Sharon Warland on 13412 to arrange a private training session.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Monthly report formats - all the reports are different. They don't show a budget, forecast and actual comparison which means I need to look in multiple places and keep my own spreadsheet for tracking. / “FIC” Financial reports contain Budget, Forecast and Actuals and the variances as options when running. This comment may relate to other reports – require further information.
There is now a report available that shows these comparisons (FIC Variance Report including Full Year Projection). Most of the projects still do not have a budget in the system and therefore cannot be incorporated in the reports. The University’s budget is determined at
a higher level and it is not mandatory to have budget at a project level.
Simplify the systems / The finance systems need to meet a myriad of internal and external needs – transaction processing, internal reporting, tax compliance (eg GST, FBT), funding body compliance and external reporting compliance.
We are planning to review non salary natural account codes this year and any suggestions about how we can reduce the number are welcome.
We did seek to remove the technical salary accounting codes last year as there are no external requirements for this and this would have cut salary natural account codes down by one third. However two Faculties were keen to retain these codes as it helps them manage their salary expenses, so we retained them.
Any simplification suggestions can be emailed to
Payment method (EFT or Cheque) requests for Student requisitions not being actioned correctly. Unsure the system can accommodate? / Unsure what is meant by not being actioned correctly?
Flinders is in the process of phasing out cheques – these are inefficient for both parties.
Some things take too long. eg 8 to 12 weeks to increase credit card transaction limit??? Some credit card applications take months as well. / Once credit increases are received by FSD this can be done within 2 days. Credit card applications only take around 7 days to process through NAB. NAB did have some issues in 2014 with credit cards but these appear to have been resolved.
Please escalate issues to the Accounts Supervisor James Conlon 12058 if there are issues that are not being resolved in a timely way.
Invoices incorrectly processed due to poor training and quality control. / Several new staff were appointed around the time of the survey. Also the Basware upgrade did have some initial problems which have now been correct. Accounts are of the opinion errors are now minimal, but if any problems please let the Accounts Supervisor, James Conlon know. 12058.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Invoices uploaded to Basware - recipients got mixed up all the time. Would appreciate if staff sending off invoices to department for coding be more careful and spend a bit more time reading what's on the invoice. / Errors appear now to be minimal however often suppliers do not clearly address the invoices which then results in staff having to contact the supplier.
We encourage areas ordering goods and services to ask suppliers to cite the area/contact name on invoice.
Accounts did experience several staff changes in 2014 which may have attributed to invoices sent in error. New staff are provided with hands on training at commencement of their employment.
Timely information re payments of invoices on BasWare - would need to ring if payment information was transferred to the invoice history in archive. / At the time of the survey there may have been some interface issues with the history going to archive. Testing has been done and there are no issues.
If there are still concerns please contact the Accounts Supervisor James Conlon 12058.
Accounts Payable are process focused not service focused. Distribute invoices hoping business areas will find the right person to send to rather than trying to find the right person first. Ask business areas to contact suppliers for valid tax invoices rather than doing it themselves. The Division is heavily compliance focused with very little service focus. / As mentioned previously Accounts did have high staff turnover in 2014. Accounts Payable doescontact suppliers where no contact details are supplied and if the invoice is not compliant. It will help everyone if staff engaging suppliers ask the supplier to include a contact name and area on the invoice.
Basware letting through duplicated invoices - three in one week?! / Both the TechOne finance system and Basware have duplicate invoice controls. There was an error in BasWare but this was fixed in September 2014. The University has extremely low rates of duplicate invoice payments.
Budgeting is focused on corporate reporting & ignores the needs of business areas or the opportunities for the info to be useful to the business areas / project managers. / Budgets are mostly allocated at individual project level. Please discuss with your Business Manager or Resource Officer to ensure your budgets are allocated to your projects.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Strategic Procurement provides nothing. How do we appoint a preferred supplier? / The Strategic Procurement Manager post has not been replaced and most purchasing remains a devolved activity. Preferred supplier arrangements are in place for a number of items including office supplies, travel agents, car hire, accommodation, promotional items, IT products, protective clothing etc. Please see
In 2015 we are planning to add further preferred suppliers through our Procurement Australia link.
The Division is heavily compliance focused with very little service focus. / The Division strives to provide good customer service but we are required to ensure compliance with University policies and external obligations eg Fringe Benefits Tax that we have no discretion over.
We welcome suggestions to change University policies to remove unnecessary compliance – please contact the Director, Daniel Flaherty on 12457 or
When documents are updated an email should be sent out rather than staff using the same forms as they had previously only to have to do this again. A group email similar to the type HR send out with the change advice. / Agreewith the comment and will implement.
  • Budget process
  • Need proven tools and a bit more time
/ The budget process is driven by a number of factors including receiving student Load from Planning Services Unit in late August, revenue and research budget calculations and approval of carry forwards to name a few. Faculties and Portfolios begin preparation in early August following Q2 and Forecast preparation. Their budgets are then integrated into the Untied University budget. We also prepare a Tied budget. Time frames are driven by Council meeting dates and Finance and Investment Committee meeting dates where the Budget will be recommended for approval requiring a completed budget by late October. Due to our reliance on receiving information from a number of areas and other major tasks just prior to budget preparation, the budget preparation time is quite restrictive.
When emails come from the FUST office with no name sometimes it would be good to know who to refer to if there is a question about the email. / Agree and this will be implemented for future emails.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Lack of details on Authorised Delegates for accounts /values. / Basware financial delegations will be included on the web and updated regularly. Delegations has been completed, to be verified and placed on the web by end of April 2015.
When contacting the staff for assistance they are unhelpful. / We are sorry that you had that experience. Other feedback from our customers is 75% of customers were either very satisfied for satisfied with FSD customer service. Please let the Director, Daniel Flaherty know if you have concerns12457 or daniel.flaherty@ flinders.edu.au

Question 4 – Can you tell us one change FSD could drive to provide simplification?

RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Changes to the approvals in Basware - currently emails go to multiple individuals (in our case 5-6) even where the responsibility for approval is with one individual. Emails are then sent many, many times as reminders (when, say a 3 day gap in reminder would be more appropriate). / To investigate with Basware if less frequent reminders is an available option.
The University’s standard terms of trade are 30 days from receipt of an invoice, but in some cases are less. To allow time for scanning in Basware, distribution to the coder, referral to the approver (or sometimes multiple approvers), upload to the finance system and then payment, it is necessary to send regular reminders. We believe that Basware is an easy to use system and in many cases it should only take a few minutes to process an invoice.
Coding already provided on the payment requisition form/ cash reimbursement form, but when it comes to Basware approval the recipients still need to key in the same set of account codes to the system again. / We are pleased that the most recent Basware upgrade that went live in September 2014 means that this is not the case anymore. Basware now reads the codes entered so rekeying is no longer necessary.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Monthly report formats - all the reports are different. They don't show a budget, forecast and actual comparison which means I need to look in multiple places and keep my own spreadsheet for tracking. / “FIC” Financial reports contain Budget, Forecast and Actuals and the variances as options when running. This comment may relate to other reports – require further information.
There is now a report available that shows these comparisons (FIC Variance Report including Full Year Projection). Most of the projects still do not have a budget in the system and therefore cannot be incorporated in the reports. The University’s budget is determined at a higher level and it is not mandatory to have budget at a project level.
Review and revise the natural accts - they've evolved at the whim/needs of and for discreet areas - should be uni-wide for 1-step transaction tracking to help the whole uni properly identify areas/items of expenditure / Review of natural accounts is an FSD project in 2015 which is being managed by Ivana from the FUST team.
Natural accounts are also used for the Annual Financial Statement purpose to meet external reporting requirements.
Centralisation of all University Insurance requirements. / Insurances are centralised in FSD, however HR manage the University’s self-insurance for workers’ compensation in SA as they have the necessary expertise. Is there a particular insurance you are concerned about? Contact the Insurance Officer, Steve Semmler 12618.
Have one finance system instead of Basware, Spendvision, Tech 1 etc / There is a substantial cost to replace the existing finance systems with a single system that can provide all the existing functionality of existing systems. Our assessment is that the costs exceed the benefits. However the University is moving to a single sign on so that staff will log on once to access all systems they have access to, rather than once for each system.
Eliminate the multiple emails received via Basware / This is in reference to the users profile set up in Basware. This area is a maintenance function of the FUST Office. Contact the FUST Office if you would like your email group or reminders changed.
Allow managers to approve purchase orders on iPhones or iPads / At present the finance system does not have this capability but TechnologyOne is planning to release new functionality that will enable approval by mobile devices.
Purchase orders are approved in TechOne only, not Basware. Current version of Basware does not have this capability. To be further explored with Basware Account Manager.
STOP different faculties having different processes from what is listed on the Uni website. How can staff know what policy and procedures to follow if they hear 'oh sorry, Medicine do it differently' / Excellent point. We have strived to provide customer service that meets everyone’s needs but this does come at an efficiency cost. We will be looking at ways to simplify and standardise processes, in consultation with Faculties and Portfolios.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Monthly newsletter. / The FUST Office is sending out monthly tips and then these are placed on the FSD web page. We will add other news items to that email.
Easier transfer of Basware approval when one approver is absent / Choice of two approvers for all Basware usage areas. / To transfer approval authority please contact FUST office on 13412 and FUST will let you know what is required in your specific circumstance.
More transparency during the budget process to save Faculties second guessing/parallel calculations / The Budget team meet regularly with Faculty and Portfolio senior finance staff during the budget process to ensure that information is shared.
Electronic forms / Electronic forms is a project being looked at by Business Improvement . They are currently working on automating HR forms as the first priority.
1. All standard report templates able to drill down online
2. Able to query TechOne on AP for a given time period / 1. This is on our long term development list but as other alternatives are available such as GL enquiries, BI enquiries, it is not a likely development for 2015, given other priorities.
2. This is already available as a standard query. Contact the FUST office for training13412.
RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Increase financial authorisation limits for EDs; raise from $200k to $350k perhaps even consider $500k with a condition i.e. for equipment acquisitions only. / This would need to be approved by Council. There are very few transactions over $200k within Faculties. We will raise this with the SVP as part of reviewing the Expenditure policy.
If Tech One could show only the authorised delegates for accounts set when raising a PO. / This is technically possible. It would be a high maintenance solution – to be reviewedby end of June 2015. Delegations to be included on the web by end of April 2015 and will be updated regularly.

Question 5 – The Financial Services website is regularly updated. Is there specific information you would find helpful to be put

on the website?

RESPONSE / FSD RESPONSE
Provide decision (diamond shaped) flow charts (with Yes/No question or True/False test) for financial procedures, e.g. GST coding, purchases, etc. / Tax is a complicated area and it is not practicable to provide flow charts to cover every example. Enquiries should be directed to the Taxation Accountant for a response to ensure the correct treatment is applied. Guidance is provided on the FSD web site for items such as FBT on meals and entertainment
We will take on board development of flow charts for major tasks such as raising POs and processing invoices.
Find it easy to use and everything there I need (LOVE functional index of contacts!). / Thank you. It’s nice to receive positive feedback from our customers.
Easy step by step instructions on using Basware and Tech One for basic looking up and processing. / Already on the finance web page – link and

How to schedule reports to be emailed from Tech one. / Agree. This is completed, users are informed via Bulletin, instructions are available on the FSD web site, Finance System Tips -

Question 6 – Are the Finance Monthly Tips Useful?