During the April 2014 STAARS Outreach, our State Comptroller mentioned transitioning to Electronic Funds Transfers (EFTs) as one of the process improvements we plan to pursue. Based on the enthusiastic response, it is obvious everyone understands our dependency on paper is inefficient and a drain on our resources and time. As part of our effort to reduce our dependency on paper, we have much to gain in terms of cost savings, convenience, and efficiency using EFT.
The Advantage software can automatically or manually generate a payment in the form of a warrant or EFT based on the vendor’s preference. In pursuit of efficiency gains, as we design STAARS, we intend to significantly reduce the number of printed warrants in favor of EFT payments to vendors. We must encourage our vendors to opt-in to the use of EFTs instead of warrants to meet our efficiency objectives. Assuming cash is available, EFTs provide vendors cash-flow benefits because they are assured that payments will be made automatically on the date they are due rather than having to wait for checks that may or may not be “in the mail”. Other benefits include greater security, reduction in the number of lost warrants, and, for the State, lower printing and postage costs for mailing warrants. EFT also reduces the resources used in the creation and transmittal of paper warrants.
Many vendors have inquired about EFT payments and some would prefer to receive their payments electronically. In the future we will notify our vendors about registering with the new Vendor Self Service portal. This portal will allow the vendors to setup the needed information to do business with the State as well as providing their payment preferences. This is a great opportunity for gaining efficiencies for the State and for the vendor community.