The Enterprise Services Center (ESC) E2 Advance Implementation Team worked with stakeholders and customers to create a more efficient way to automate advances from the E2 Travel System to the Delphi system of record. The E2 Travel System allows for secure electronic processing of travel invoices and creating and making travel reservations. ESC Travel and Systems Team members include Karen Feland, George Eddens, Monica Ingerson, Josh Crissinger, Michael Ann Bradley, Dana Holliday, Diane Champeau, Jennifer Smith, Candice Galeski, and Holly Muck.

Processing travel advances involves manual, labor-intensive work and typically requires numerous workarounds with multiple steps that have to be completed. These workarounds consisted of processing a paper copy through several manual steps. Once this was achieved, another labor-intensive process was needed to reduce the outstanding advances from the final payment. These convoluted tasks were required to complete over 630 travel advances each year. The process was part of the E2 functionality but required systems updates to implement.

As of FY ’22, innovation of the new automated process improved the ability of ESC to provide prompt and accurate payments and saved the federal government approximately $100,000 in labor costs.