Editor’s note: In response to your feedback and requests, we’ve begun a new Link series called “Meet OP” to profile UCOP departments. This article is the second in the series.

The Business Resource Center Purchase Order and Payment (BRC POP) team is well-known to many at UCOP: they create purchase orders and process payments to vendors. Although other areas may get more attention, the work of this team is essential to keeping our operations running day-to-day.

Always looking for ways to increase efficiency, BRC POP recently implemented ServiceNow, an intake and workflow system which provides all-electronic approval and automatic routing of purchase and payment requests. This not only speeds up the approval process but eliminates the need for OP departments to keep their own logs while providing them with more tools and reports to manage their invoices.

BRC staff are also focused on making sure that OP staff feels welcome to talk with them. As Team Lead Brad Niess said, “We are in the client service/relationship business, and we want to encourage face-to-face, one-on-one client support.” To that end, the POP team recently introduced the “POP Stop” to provide in-person assistance with:

• Questions about purchase orders and vendor payments
• Navigating through Service Now
• Order/payment status
• Policy clarification

The POP Stop is located at Franklin 9311, with service hours of Tuesdays 2 to 4 p.m. and Thursdays 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. You can make an appointment by emailing BRCPurchaseandPay@ucop.edu or drop in during those times to receive assistance.

The POP team has also started holding client engagement meetings with their internal clients to review outstanding items, problem solve for upcoming issues, and obtain feedback on their service. Niess says the goal is to “build relationships and better understand the nature of the business in our client departments.”

Because payment processing work can become tedious and repetitive, Niess strives to keep everyone energized by “having fun with what we do.” They recently held an internal competition that divided the team into two groups which competed to process the most invoices in a week. The winners received a small prize and bragging rights.

All UCOP staff are invited to engage with the BRC POP team – they really want to know their clients and provide them with great service. In addition to the POP Stop hours, you can contact them at any time at BRCPurchaseandPay@ucop.edu.

We hope you’ll offer us your thoughts on this article or the Meet OP series by commenting below or emailing Link editor link@ucop.edu.

Reporting for this profile was provided by Carol Lake and Cindy Lau. Interested in doing some reporting for Link? Contact link@ucop.edu.

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