Buying goods and services from other campus units will not be more difficult -- or much different -- with Workday, the software Iowa State will use for its finance and human resources work as of July 1.
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"We do a lot of billing of one another within the university. The process of billing one another isn't going away, it's the terminology for it that won't exist in the future," said Heather Paris, associate vice president for finance and support services. "Workday's internal billing replaces the process within the Kuali Financial System (KFS) system we currently use to generate those charges."
Order like usual
Campus departments provide goods and services that other departments use, for example meeting space, food, equipment and business cards. How departments order those things won't change, and neither will the method departments use to receive and track orders. Much like switching from one credit card to another, buyers and sellers will use Workday worktags instead of account numbers to identify the funding source for purchases.
"The only difference at the front end is using a different number. Instead of the (account) number I'm using now, I'm going to use a new (worktag) number that means the same thing in Workday. It's just structured differently," Paris said.
Help if you need it
Improved service delivery (ISD) teams will be available to help. For example, departments still can order a platter of buttermilk brownies from ISU Dining and rent audiovisual equipment for a meeting in the Memorial Union. ISD specialists can step in to help determine the appropriate Workday worktag or if the employee who usually takes care of ordering is on extended leave.
"If someone who is ordering something needs assistance, specialists within the ISD teams can provide any level of assistance," Paris said.
ISD specialists also will help departments selling goods and services with their back-end work. Currently, billing information is loaded into KFS at the local level. As of July 1, ISD specialists will be responsible for inputting billing information into Workday for the units they serve that provide goods and services.
