This message has been sent to faculty and staff on behalf of Dean Stuart.
I am pleased to announce that we will implement enhanced financial services across the Faculty to streamline how transactions such as expenses are processed and supported, and provide faculty and staff with faster and more efficient reimbursements. This will result in a new Finance Service Team structure and revised business practices beginning in January, 2014.
The new Finance Service Team is divided into five cluster teams who are each responsible for supporting faculty and staff in a specific “cluster” of units. The clusters are groups of Departments, Schools, Centres or Dean’s Office units. This approach will not only allow us to provide faster reimbursements, but also provide stronger support to units, improve adoption of financial best practices, and provide enhanced career and professional development for finance staff across the Faculty.
More information about revised business practices – specifically, how expense and reimbursement procedures may shift for each area of the Faculty – will be available in the New Year. In the meantime, if you have any specific questions, please contact your respective unit’s administrative office.
The implementation of the Finance Service Team comes after more than a year of planning. It follows the implementation of a new university-wide Finance reporting structure and a Faculty review process. Led by Evie Mandel, senior director of finance, many staff and faculty participated in workshops and related activities to help us define the way forward. I would like to personally thank everyone who took part for your participation and input, which has strengthened and shaped this new approach.
Thank you all in advance for your support and patience as we move forward to implement these enhanced services across the Faculty.
Sincerely,
Gavin C.E. Stuart, MD, FRCSC
Dean and Vice Provost Health | Faculty of Medicine
The University of British Columbia