The Task Force for Global Health turns admin hours into life-saving work

Every hour matters when you're racing to contain an outbreak, distribute vaccines, or eliminate a deadly disease. The Task Force for Global Health has spent more than 40 years in that race, working with partners in nearly 140 countries to tackle neglected tropical diseases, strengthen health systems, and protect hundreds of millions of lives. The organization has equipped more than 22,000 field epidemiologists who've responded to over 14,000 outbreaks, and trained thousands of community health workers on the front lines of disease detection. As of May 2026, with help from these efforts, 63 countries have eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease.

The weight of manual invoicing

Powered by dedicated yet small teams stretched across vast, complex programs, every hour spent on administrative logistics is time that could be spent with  communities in need. Behind The Task Force's 19 programs, manual processes were eating into that time. 

“Every program handled invoices differently, with varying workflows, templates, and approval chains,” explains Truong Mai, Senior Technical Project Manager at The Task Force for Global Health. 

Documents were scattered across email inboxes and shared folders. When invoices reached the central finance team, they came in different formats.

This created a need to improve payment efficiency.  “Our consultants work hard for all the programs. We want to make sure payments reach them on time and are accurate, so no one has to go back and make adjustments,” Mai adds. On the other end, vendors and consultants had no visibility of the status of their payments, so they'd have to send emails to ask when payments would be received.

A centralized, intelligent approach

The Task Force for Global Health knew standardization was the answer, but didn’t know where to begin. That changed through Hack for Good, Smartsheet's pro-bono solution donation program, which connects Smartsheet experts with nonprofit organizations to tackle real operational problems and build tailored solutions at no cost.

The enterprise-grade solution, built with the Hack for Good team, replaced the patchwork of processes with a single, standardized workflow. Vendors now submit invoices via Smartsheet forms, and program-level approvals are routed automatically. “Previously, program staff had to monitor their mailboxes, making sure invoices were moving along,” explains Mai. “Now, they just get a notification, review the information, and click approve on Smartsheet.” If a correction is needed, a built-in revision loop sends the invoice back instantly rather than triggering a chain of emails.

A clear view at every stage

Once an invoice clears program-level approval, it appears in a dedicated queue, moving through processing and verification to the final payment in a clear sequence. 

“This enables the central finance team to track every payment across all programs in one place,” shares Mai. 

Centralized, automated dashboards give leadership and the finance team a high-level picture of budget versus actuals and invoice volume at every stage, improving visibility and decision-making.

The improvement in transparency extends to vendors as well. Mai explains, “Vendors no longer have to email us about their payment status because once it’s done, a workflow automatically notifies the vendor with the invoice number, amount, and payment date.”

More time for what matters

Time once lost to manual processes is now being put to good use. “Since our team no longer needs to go back and forth between email and shared folders, we’ve cut down invoice processing time by 25 to 50%, which means we can reimburse people faster,” says Mai. “Invoices also no longer get stuck at the program level.” Beyond invoicing, consolidating data for annual reports and major donor reporting, which once took weeks, now takes days.

Every hour the Task Force for Global Health saves on administrative work is an hour returned to the work it exists to do: the science, the partnerships, the fundraising that drive health outcomes across the globe. Their Task Force’s consultants rely on getting paid each month on time. If they are not paid, they have to find a way to front the money in the field, which takes away from their lifesaving work. “It really is a domino effect. The more time our teams save on logistical things, the more time they have to move their mission forward in solving some of the world's most challenging health problems," says Jessica Wurst, Manager of Communications and Development at the Task Force for Global Health. 

“Hours make a big difference, especially in outbreak response. Strong internal systems are what let us do life-saving work without delay. Smartsheet helps us get there.” 

One platform, nearly 140 countries, 200 projects

Beyond invoicing, Smartsheet is also part of much of the organization's work. Across its nearly 200 active projects, the platform serves as a centralized source of truth, replacing a patchwork of separate spreadsheets and documents that programs once relied on. With information at hand, cross-functional teams in the field and at headquarters gain real-time access to the same live data, regardless of time zone. “In the field, epidemiologists can access and input critical outbreak data from remote locations, even with limited connectivity,” Wurst adds. “With a common workspace, collaboration between groups becomes far more straightforward.”

Leadership can track progress at a macro level, spotting overlaps or gaps in resource allocation across programs. Meanwhile, donors and partners receive visual insights into disease elimination statistics through Smartsheet’s automated dashboards.  

The Task Force for Global Health is already looking ahead. The next step is automating the manual process of entering invoice information into the financial management system. The rollout is progressing program by program, with testing complete across sectors that cover roughly half of all personnel. “This initiative really gave us a vision of what standardization looks like, and how we can build a solution that can be used for other programs too,” concludes Mai.