Procurement and Business Services (PBS) continues to find innovative ways to deploy technology to help improve operational excellence and promote more effective and timely communication and collaboration among the team and the people they serve.  

Beginning in April, Business Assets will deploy new robotic process automation (RPA) technology, commonly referred to as a bot, to assist with identifying untagged property assets in Workday. The new bot will enable more targeted and detailed communications to help ensure all assets are tagged appropriately and comply with the University System of Georgia’s asset policies.  

If a Coordinator Cost Center has untagged assets (e.g. a laptop), the respective Property Coordinators (and Cost Center Managers) will receive an email notification from “GT Procurement No Reply” with information needed to accurately tag assets. 

For any assets that do not have a Coordinating Cost Center, the bot will send an email to the Financial Cost Centers with instructions on how to add a Coordinating Cost Center to the asset.   

More information regarding tagging assets can be found under the Asset Management Training section located here. 

In addition to using bots, Accounts Payable has begun using optical character recognition (OCR) technology to help streamline and accelerate the processing of invoices. By deploying OCR, the team is able to scan documents and automatically convert them into editable and searchable data. This technology allows the team to efficiently load invoices into Workday for further processing by Accounts Payable associates and enables campus personnel to track the status of invoices, providing greater transparency and accountability.   

How it Works 

Invoices are uploaded via OCR into Workday and are placed in "Draft" status. Subsequently, Accounts Payable associates review, edit, and submit these draft invoices for further processing. Once submitted, invoices will follow the established service level agreement of 1-5 business days for further handling and resolution. At this time, invoices with exceptions will continue to be routed via WebNow. 

In the future, all invoices (including invoices with exceptions) will be managed directly within Workday which will provide a one-stop-shop for seamless submission, processing, and tracking.  

In addition, campus personnel will be able to communicate directly with the Accounts Payable team by utilizing the "Activity" field at the bottom of the Workday Invoice screen. 

These ongoing enhancements aim to streamline Accounts Payable processes, fostering better collaboration and efficiency.  

Need help? 

PBS also offers weekly virtual office hours for the campus community to talk live with team members from Procurement and Accounts Payable to discuss any questions.  

In addition, Workday financial users can participate in Workday Wednesdays – a monthly webinar series hosted by the Workday Enterprise Applications team dedicated to Workday Financials support. The next webinar is scheduled for April 24, from noon to 1 p.m. Click here to join the next meeting. This is a private Teams channel and access will need to be granted. Use code 8kitf6h.