The University of Wisconsin-Madison is working to address a backlog of thousands of expense reports, the Wisconsin State Journal reports, as hundreds of university employees and students await reimbursement for travel and school-related expenses.
UW’s travel expense audit team began temporarily assisting the university at the beginning of this week to tackle over 6,000 expense reports with processing times averaging 30 business days.
UW-Madison cited the July launch of Workday, the UW system’s new tool centralizing employees’ finance, human resources and training, behind the current backlog.
There had been a freeze on submitting reports a couple of weeks prior to the launch.
The university also attributed the backlog to a process change through which more expense reports are being centrally audited, along with increases in activity at the start of the fall semester.
The university’s finance teams have processed over 13,000 reimbursements since July 7. The goal is to reduce the expense report processing times to 20 business days in the short term and eight to 10 days in the long term.
Solutions involving artificial intelligence and other technologies are being explored by the finance division.
