Improving the services of disbursements section of a national drugstore

• Main Author: Bravo, Jimmy D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Compensation management; Accounting; Benefits and Compensation; Finance and Financial Management
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6426; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/13484/viewcontent/IAR_Jimmy_Bravo1_Redacted.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This action research addressed the issue of delayed processing of employee accounts such as cash advances, expense reimbursements, petty cash and revolving fund replenishments as well as the weak implementation of cash advance policies in our company, National Drugstore. The issue led to employee complaints and ballooning outstanding cash advance balance in our financial books. These issues and its escalation to the Management Committee (MANCOM) affected the morale of the Disbursements team whom I supervise being the company Financial Controller or Head of the Financial Control Department. Through our collaboration and coordination within the Financial Control Department, this action research improved the performance of the Disbursements Section through timely processing of various employee transactions. Within Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 of this action research, our team implemented several interventions which include a systematic process to monitor flow of financial documents and service level agreement (SLA), release of email notification to employees once financial processing is completed, timely recording of cash advance liquidations, strict implementation of cash advance policy, and revision of company policy in order to require employees to provide details of their expense claims by using templates that lessen the time spent by Disbursements staff in reviewing such claims. The principles behind the ADKAR by Jeffery Hiatt and the Change Management by Kurt Lewin guided our team in helping the Disbursements Section implement the interventions which ultimately improved employee accounts’ processing time in compliance with the SLA, brought down the level of cash advances in the books and ensured 100% accuracy in the balances.