Until recently, creating a new fund could be a lengthy, complicated ordeal. As of December 2025 though, requests for the creation of non-research funds are reviewed and approved almost instantly – saving thousands of hours of work McGill-wide.
Such funds are like internal McGill bank accounts. Each is created for a specific purpose, like a campus renovation project, or for use by a particular administrative team or academic department. Faculties and units typically hold many separate funds.
New, simplified process
More than 1,000 new non-research funds are requested each year, and until recently each individual request required downloading, completing and signing a PDF form and then manually advancing it – via email – through an average of five approval steps across multiple teams in Faculties and Financial Services. If submissions were incomplete or unclear, or contained errors, the ensuing back-and-forth could take weeks or even months to resolve.
“The new process has eliminated the PDF and replaced it with a standardized online form that automatically flags data entry errors, identifies the type of fund needed, understands what information is required, and reviews and approves requests automatically,” said Lara Pereira, Controller and Co-Interim Associate Vice-President, Financial Services.
“We built this with tools we already had, like Power Automate and MS Forms,” she said. “Team members like Charles Wan, our Financial Data Analyst, developed that expertise in-house and transformed a complex process into a much simpler experience.”
Less time and effort
Requests for new research funds will still be processed manually for compliance reasons, and about five per cent of non-research requests still require individual attention.
“Still, we’re eliminating at least 3,000 emails per year, not even counting all the time people used to spend flagging missing information and correcting mistakes. We’re already seeing far fewer errors and incomplete submissions, and vastly less rework,” said Pereira.
“All across McGill, not just in Financial Services, we’re going to save a huge amount of time every year – hours that can be put to much better use than resubmitting forms to fix errors.”
Henry Tin, Finance Manager at the Schulich School of Music, agreed.
“I’m impressed with the new process,” Tin said. “It saves time for both administrators and academics – guiding users through only the relevant questions and streamlining approvals.”
The initiative is one of many aligned with the aims of Horizon McGill. Pereira said she hopes it will inspire other Faculties and units.
“The big takeaway for our team is that we don’t necessarily need expensive new tools,” said Pereira. “Sometimes, we just need to make better use of what we already have.”