Carruthers Hall History: Invoices, Phone Calls, and Filing, Oh My!

How we did business not so long ago

Not so long ago, the filing system for Accounts Payable looked a lot different and was a bit more hands-on than now. 

Everything was filed on paper rather than computers--the filing system in AP took up an entire room! The team filed travel vouchers and combos, which were created by each department and had to be audited individually and manually with receipts. Then, all of these vouchers had to be stamped.

The process of actually filing those papers, in the huge, dusty filing room, went by voucher number. If a document happened to get misfiled, it could be very difficult to relocate it.  Often, departments across Grounds would call with questions about their documents, and AP staff members would have to locate the vouchers and address in detail the questions department callers had.

These phone calls flooded Accounts Payable all day, every day. The team talked to people from all different departments and formed connections with them as they communicated regularly.  

In terms of invoicing, all invoices that came through AP were keyed into CAPS. Every week, tubs of mail and invoices came through, and Mondays were the busiest day for collection and filing. AP staff opened all the envelopes, made sure the invoice had a PO, stamped them in a machine to ensure they were dated correctly, and keyed them into the system. The invoices would be sorted into batches of 25, and these would be divvied up amongst staff members to be keyed in. Once the invoices were in the system and ready for payment, they would be hand-filed by voucher number. 

After all this meticulous work, the payment run would be processed and workers would receive a list of what payments were going out--and there was a person who sat at the cabinet, pulling each corresponding invoice manually.

Thankfully, the convenience of computers has lessened the workload of paper filing and manual invoice recalling for Accounts Payable, who sure are glad the filing system has progressed significantly!

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Thanks to Shelly Winston-Bowers and Lisa Atkins for sharing these memories.  If you have some historical moments from UVAFinance/Carruthers history, feel free to share them with the Coms Team. 

Check out more Carruthers Hall history on the blog:  History of the Portrait/Chair, Mountains of Paper, Changes to Carruthers Hall Over the Years