Team puts travel voucher process under microscope Published Aug. 21, 2008 By Tech. Sgt. Drew Nystrom Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) -- Air Force Reserve Command officials here hosted a total force team of financial experts from around the Air Force Aug. 11 through 14 to improve delays in processing travel vouchers. The team, under the direction of Richard P. "Gus" Gustafson, the deputy assistant secretary for financial operations at the Pentagon, used the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century process to identify inefficiencies and ways to eliminate waste and needless duplication. In addition to delays, some Airmen must pay their government travel card debt with personal funds. The Air Force is aware of these and other concerns, and its top financial officer gets briefings at least twice a week specifically about the voucher process. "This situation is unacceptable to not only front-line Airmen, but also to Air Force leaders as well," Mr. Gustafson said. The team developed proposals to address more than 60 areas for possible improvement. Topping the list was the amount of rework needed throughout the process to ensure vouchers flow smoothly through the Air Force Financial Services Center at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. The current system requires people to scan and attach receipts to the voucher. "Everything at Ellsworth is a scanned document," Mr. Gustafson said. "We no longer have the capability to make changes. Those days are gone. You have to pay more attention to what you're putting on your voucher than ever before." To help travelers, Air Force officials will develop a tri-fold pamphlet detailing tips for effectively completing a travel voucher and a single standardized Air Force-wide checklist to ensure a high-quality output the first time. The experts also found differences in the ways some financial service offices are adapting their processes to the vouchers being routed to a centralized location. This, combined with staffing and systems issues, has led to nonstandardized practices affecting processing times. The team plans to establish and communicate standard procedures for the financial service offices and technicians at the central processing center. Until the travel voucher process is more refined and process improvements are implemented, Airmen are encouraged to engage their chain of command if they encounter problems. "If you're not paid in 15 days, I'd be over at the financial services office asking, 'Where's my money?"' Mr. Gustafson said. "If you don't get a satisfactory answer, that is what a chain of command is for. Your leadership can't do anything about something they don't know about." As a long-term solution to improve services provided to Airmen, the Air Force will develop a standardized self-populating electronic voucher program that functions much like popular income tax software. Mr. Gustafson said the team identified three main points for him to take back to the Pentagon. Those points are the need to communicate more effectively the transformation of the voucher process to Airmen, the need to pay more attention to the unique needs of the reserve component and the idea that, over time, the new process will work and is going to be better for all Airmen. Comment on this story (comments may be published on Air Force Link) View the comments/letters page