Sharing the Vision: Accounts Payable

 Contributed by Amanda Lockhart Davis

I've had the pleasure of being here at UVA since early December, digging into the nuts and bolts of my job as Director of Accounts Payable, getting to know my team, and learning about the needs of our customers.

I joined the procurement team knowing we'd be working through the continuous improvements that come after a large system implementation and the associated business process changes.  After these first few months of getting settled and identifying priorities, I wanted to share with you my vision for accounts payable moving forward: 

1. Organize  - Prioritize - Solution:  This is step
one, and it's ongoing and overarching.  Our work has many
interdependencies, and we're still sorting through many challenges post-go-live
of Workday Financials.  With your input and the partnership of our
internal teams, our team is prioritizing the issues that are causing the most
pain to you and our vendors and getting solutions in place as quickly as
possible.

2. Obtain the necessary education and training for myself and my team: For
us to serve our partners across Grounds and our vendors in the community, we
need to bring our best selves to our jobs.  To do that, we need to have
all the skills and tools required to best do our jobs.  I've been focused
on getting our team up to speed on the tools UVAFinance uses to
manage customer issues and the systems we need access to in order to
troubleshoot those issues.

3. Partner with our stakeholders and stay regularly engaged:  Who
are our stakeholders?  If you're reading this, you are a
stakeholder!  You're a finance partner at UVA!  We also serve our
internal team in UVAFinance and vendors in the community.  Our team's
priority is to provide excellent service to all, and that means we must listen
to you continually and understand your needs.  This means you'll see us
listening in at meetings and you'll be hearing from us in communication
channels.  We're carefully monitoring the cases in AskFinance and working
not only to solve individual cases but also to improve our processes based on
the trends we see.

4.  Prepare my team for a successful year: I knew coming
into this role that the team I was joining was amazing, and I've not been
disappointed.  As this wonderful group's leader, I have the task of
keeping their morale up and keeping their best interests at heart, and that's a
goal I take seriously.  

I look forward to getting to know many more of you in the schools and units
this spring.  Look for more from me in upcoming meetings and here in the
UVAFinance blog!  As always, if you have questions or concerns about
accounts payable, please reach out to us at askfinance@virginia.edu.