When it comes to money--from financial aid to fundraising--there's always paperwork involved, and usually far more than seems necessary. That's why administrators are always on the lookout for ways to streamline operations, improve customer service, and maybe even save some money along the way. Here's a look at how some schools are using technology to make a difference.

No more lines

Traditions are usually a good thing, but at Sam Houston State University (Texas), there's one tradition that administrators and students don't miss. That's the annual "Coliseum event" in which new and returning students converge on the school's Johnson Coliseum sports facility over the course of a few days to take care of late registration, submit financial papers, and get aid disbursement checks.

"It had been going on 15 or 20 years," says George Rollins, director of the school's Bearkat OneCard system. "Over the years we've gone to an online early registration system, and that's helped tremendously but, for whatever reason, transfer students and others just don't get around to early registration. There is always a good number of students who wait until the last minute."

And during that last-minute registration rush at the beginning of each semester, the university had for years distributed refunds via paper check during the Coliseum event, requiring significant staff time, added expense, and limited options for students. Problems were compounded by the fact that there was no common data available to be shared between the Financial Aid and Administrative Accounting offices, so errors and stop payments on paper checks were costly for the school

"Basically, it was a logistics nightmare," says Rollins. "There were long lines throughout the day. In fact, at one time we had a live camera feed on our school website so students could see how bad the lines were and whether they wanted to come register now or wait until the lines were shorter. It was a time-consuming, maddening process."