Rice Payroll moves timesheets online in effort to go paperless

By Tina Nazerian     9/16/13 7:00pm

Rice University's Payroll Office is in the process of going paperless, according to Director of Payroll Bobby McBride.

McBride said the inspiration for the change was that paper time sheets made record-keeping and auditing difficult. 

"We were receiving a lot of paper time sheets, [which] made the process of entering time and recording hours for employees a little bit challenging," McBride said.

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McBride said there was no cost to switch to the paperless system because the system is based on Banner, a database and record-keeping system already owned by Rice.

"Banner was purchased in 1993," McBride said. "The reason it took so long for the Web-based time entry system to be rolled out was that it wasn't as robust [then] as it is now."

The paperless system applies to every department, including Fondren Library, Human Resources, the Office of the President and the Office of the Registrar, and includes Federal Work-Study students, McBride said.

A committee of multiple departments and the Rice University Administrative Group made the decision to adopt a paperless system after starting meetings in the spring of 2012, McBride said. 

"There was a committee put together that was made up of Human Resources, Payroll, Finance [and Benefits Accounting]," McBride said. "Along with the Administrative Group here at Rice, we met and determined that it was time and that the system was at a place where it was capable of being rolled out." 

McBride said the majority of the feedback he has received so far has been positive.

"Everyone is glad that they're on [the new system]," McBride said. "Those that are currently on it enjoy it, and they would never want to go back to the paper [system]. Those not on it yet are eager for us to come out and train [them]."

The Payroll Office has encountered some issues with the setup due to departmental differences, according to McBride. 

"Each department is different. You have different processes and different ways of doing things," McBride said. "And so one thing this Web-based product allowed us to do was to centralize processes. In doing so, [one] of the hiccups we encountered was to make sure that we took care of everyone's setup needs specifically so that they could have a seamless transition." 

Wiess College sophomore Neeti Mehta said the transition was not entirely smooth at first. 

"The first few pay periods, it wasn't really working very well, but I think everything's worked out now," Mehta said.

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