Purchasing & Procure to Pay

Requisitions, purchase orders, goods receipts and supplier bills on the Purchasing console, with three-way matching, duplicate checks and supplier payment runs.

The Purchasing Console

The Purchasing console is the purchase-to-pay workspace for back-office staff: raise requisitions, approve them, issue orders, book deliveries in, get supplier bills matched and posted, maintain suppliers and pay them. Every step is checked by the same rules wherever it is taken, so the console offers only the moves you are allowed to make.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Purchasing:

Purchasing — the purchasing workspace; the badge counts requisitions submitted and orders pending approval

Admin Panel → Payables:

Invoice Match Queue — supplier bills held because they do not agree with the order or the delivery

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

Purchasing — the same workspace from the Architect Panel
Suppliers, Cost Centres, Supplier Statuses and Supplier Classes — the supplier master and its reference lists
Purchase Requisitions, Purchase Orders, Goods Receipts and Supplier Invoices — the raw document lists, for looking up and auditing

Who uses it

The console admits holders of ERP: Purchasing, ERP: Payables, ERP: Approvals, ERP: Inventory and ERP: Finance. What each person can do inside is decided per document type:

Purchasing (buyers): create requisitions, orders and receipts; read bills.
Inventory (storemen): create goods receipts; read requisitions and orders.
Payables: create supplier invoices; read the rest; see the payment run.
Approvals: read and decide requisitions, orders and bills routed to them.
Finance: release payments and lift supplier holds.

The company grant applies on top: you only see and act on documents of companies you have access to.

The screen

Work waiting: Open requisitions, Orders awaiting approval, Receipts not invoiced and Bills on match hold. Each card opens the list it counts.
Tabs: Requisitions, Purchase orders, Goods receipts and Supplier invoices (only those you can read), My approvals (for approvers, with a count), Suppliers, and Pay suppliers (Payables and Finance).
Raise a requisition opens the requisition form for anyone who can create one.

One document

Open any document to see its header, lines (item, quantity, price, tax, account and cost centre), related documents and history. What you can do lists the moves open to you now, such as Submit for approval, Issue to supplier or Book in, and Create ... buttons for the next document in the chain. A move that needs a reason asks for one. Supplier invoices also show the Invoice match panel and Re-check against the order.

Purchase orders, goods received notes and bills carry the Print and send and Attachments & notes cards, so an order can be e-mailed to the supplier as a PDF and the supplier's own invoice filed beside the bill (see Document Output & Letterheads).

My approvals

The My approvals tab lists purchase documents waiting for your decision, with the supplier, company, amount, who asked and what decision is asked for, and buttons to approve or reject (a rejection needs a reason). The same items appear in the platform-wide Approvals Inbox, which also holds workflow approvals; see The Approvals Inbox.

Suppliers

The Suppliers tab lists suppliers with filters for Code or name, Company, Class, Status and Hold. Purchasing, Payables and Finance can create and edit suppliers: code, name, company, class, status, payment terms, currency, default expense account and tax code, contact details (the contact e-mail is where remittance advice goes) and address.

Anyone who maintains suppliers can press Hold and give the reason, which the buyer who is refused will read. A supplier on hold cannot be ordered from or paid. Only Finance or ERP administration can Release a hold, so a buyer cannot clear a stop placed by accounts. A supplier status with blocks ordering ticked has the same effect on every supplier that holds it.

What goes wrong

"You do not have access to any purchase documents": your group has no ERP role or no company. Ask an ERP administrator.
A card is missing: cards for documents you cannot read are hidden; the storeman does not see bills.
Bills on match hold opens a list rather than the queue: the Invoice Match Queue is for Payables and Finance; others see the bills only.

Worked example

A buyer opens Purchasing and sees three orders awaiting approval and five receipts not invoiced. A storeman, who holds only ERP: Inventory, sees the Goods receipts tab and the order list but no bills. The accounts payable clerk sees two bills on match hold and opens the Invoice Match Queue from the Payables section of the sidebar.

Recommendations

Give each job its own role: buyers, storemen, payables and Finance.
Use the cards as a work list; each opens exactly the documents it counts.
Keep supplier contact e-mails current; orders and remittances are sent there.
Use Hold with a clear reason rather than deactivating a supplier you may use again.

Requisitions and Purchase Orders

A requisition is what somebody has asked to buy, before anybody has committed to it. A purchase order is the commitment to a supplier. Approving the requisition and issuing the order are the two control points, and both can be routed through an approval matrix.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Purchasing:

Purchasing — the Requisitions and Purchase orders tabs, and Raise a requisition

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

Approval Matrices — the shipped Requisition approval and Purchase order release matrices

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

Purchase Requisitions — the badge counts requisitions waiting on an approver
Purchase Orders — the badge counts orders issued and not yet fully received
Cost Centres — the badge counts cost centres with nobody to approve their spend

Raising a requisition

Press Raise a requisition. Choose the Company, a Suggested supplier if you know one, the Currency and Needed by.
Add lines: Item, Description, Qty, Unit, Unit price, Tax, Cost centre and Account. Totals are worked out by the server.
Press Save and submit for approval, or Save as draft to finish later.

A requisition with a line that has a quantity but no price is refused at submission, naming the line. Approvers, budgets and approval value bands all read the value, so an unpriced requisition would be approved at nothing.

Approving a requisition

Without a matrix: anyone holding the Approve purchase requisitions permission for that company sees it in My approvals and can Approve or Reject. Rejecting needs a reason.
With a matrix: enable the shipped Requisition approval matrix and submission opens an approval run. Its example stages send everything to the cost centre's budget holder (the owner on Cost Centres) and anything over 10,000 also to a second approver. Approval matrices are configured as described under Approval Matrices.
The requester can Recall a submitted requisition to Draft, or Cancel it.

From requisition to order

Open an Approved requisition and press its Create button for the purchase order, then enter how much of each line to order. A line left at 0 stays open.
The draft order opens. Use Edit purchase order to choose or change the supplier, the Supplier's order ref., prices and dates while it is still a draft.
The requisition moves to Ordered by itself once everything on it has been ordered.
If that order is later cancelled, the requisition goes back to Approved so it can be ordered again, unless another live order still covers it.

Ordering is refused for a supplier that is on hold, inactive or at a status that blocks ordering.

Issuing the order

Issue to supplier (Draft to Issued) needs the Issue purchase orders permission. Issuing locks the lines, commits the spend against the budget and tells planning the supply is coming.
With the Purchase order release matrix enabled, use Send for approval (Draft to Pending Approval) instead; once approved, Issue to supplier is offered. Its example stage is a single Buyer release.
Issuing is checked against the budget for the order's cost centres and accounts, which can refuse it. Budgets and commitments are set up by Finance; see the ERP finance documentation under Budgets.

Once issued, print or e-mail the order from Print and send, or let it go automatically to a supplier that trades by EDI or PunchOut (see EDI & Trading Partners and PunchOut Procurement).

After issue

Goods receipts move the order to Receiving and Received by themselves. Close finishes a received order. Close short finishes an order whose balance is never coming and releases what it still commits. Cancel withdraws an issued order.

When a document reaches a status it cannot leave (Cancelled, Closed, Rejected, Ordered), any approval still open on it is withdrawn automatically, so approvers are not left with a request for a document that no longer needs one.

What goes wrong

Submit is refused for an unpriced line: enter the price, or remove the line.
Issue to supplier is missing: you lack Issue purchase orders, or the matrix is enabled and the order must be sent for approval first.
Ordering is refused for the supplier: it is on hold or blocked. Finance can release it.
Submit is refused because no approver resolves: a budget-holder stage found no owner on the cost centre. Fill in the owner on Cost Centres.

Worked example

An engineer raises a requisition for 10 sensor kits at 180.00 on the Workshop cost centre and submits it. With the requisition matrix enabled it goes to the workshop manager, who owns the cost centre, and approves it. The buyer opens the approved requisition, creates a purchase order to the usual supplier and issues it; the budget check passes and the commitment is recorded. A month later the supplier cancels the line; the buyer cancels the order and the requisition returns to Approved, ready to order elsewhere.

Recommendations

Fill in cost centre owners before enabling the requisition matrix.
Keep Issue purchase orders separate from the people who raise requisitions.
Close short rather than leaving part-received orders open; it frees the budget.
Price every requisition line, even with an estimate.

Goods Receipts

A goods receipt records what actually arrived against a purchase order. Booking it in moves the stock and raises the goods-received-not-invoiced accrual in the same step, so the books are right at period end even when the supplier's bill has not come. A receipt booked in by mistake can now be reversed as a whole.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Purchasing:

Purchasing — the Purchase orders tab to create receipts, and the Goods receipts tab to book them in

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

Goods Receipts — every receipt; the badge counts deliveries recorded but not yet booked in

Who does it

Holders of ERP: Purchasing or ERP: Inventory can create and book in goods receipts for the companies they have write access to. The storeman therefore needs only ERP: Inventory, not the buyer's role.

Booking a delivery in

Open the purchase order (it must be Issued, Receiving or Received) and press its Create button for the goods receipt.
Choose Receive into: the stock location the goods go to.
For each line, the panel shows Ordered and Still open; enter what arrived in Take. A line left at 0 stays open for a later delivery.
For tracked items, enter the Lot or the Serial numbers.
Confirm. The draft receipt opens; record the supplier's Delivery note number on it if you have it.
Press Book in.

What booking in does

Stock: each item line is received into the location (lines without an item, such as services, move no stock).
Ledger: the line's account (or the stock account) is debited and the goods-received-not-invoiced account credited, at the order price, as a goods receipt journal.
Budget: the commitment the order recorded is relieved by what arrived.
The order: moves to Receiving when part has arrived and Received when everything has. Nobody sets these by hand.

The order's own Fully received button is offered only when the receipts really do cover the order. If the rest is never coming, use Close short on the order instead; it releases the open commitment.

Reversing a receipt

Use Reverse the receipt (Received to Reversed) when a receipt was booked against the wrong order, with the wrong quantity, or for goods that went straight back.

Open the received goods receipt and press Reverse the receipt.
Give the reason; it is kept on the receipt's history.
The receipt's stock movements are reversed, its accrual journal reversed, its budget relief undone, and its quantities handed back to the order, which moves back to Receiving or Issued.

Reversal is refused once anything has been billed from the receipt. Deal with the bill first. A draft receipt that should never be booked in can simply be cancelled, and its quantities return to the order.

When the bill comes first

If a supplier's bill is posted before the goods arrive, the part not yet received is charged to the line's expense account rather than clearing the accrual. When the goods then arrive and are booked in, that charge is taken back for the quantity received, so nothing is expensed twice.

What goes wrong

The Create button for a receipt is missing: the order is not Issued yet, or nothing is still open on it.
Book in is refused for a tracked item: the lot or serial numbers are missing or do not match the quantity.
Reverse the receipt is not offered: the receipt has been billed. Cancel or credit the bill first.
Fully received is not offered: receipts do not cover the order. Book in the rest, or close the order short.

Worked example

An order for 600 sensor modules is issued. The first delivery of 400 arrives; the storeman creates a goods receipt, receives it into Goods In, takes 400, enters lot SM-2410 and books it in. The order shows Receiving, stock rises by 400 and the accrual holds 400 at the order price. Next day they realise 50 of those belonged to another order; they reverse the receipt with the reason "split across two orders" and book in two correct receipts instead.

Recommendations

Book in on the day the goods arrive; until then the stock and the accrual are missing.
Record the supplier's delivery note number; it helps when the bill is matched.
Reverse rather than adjust: a reversal undoes stock, accrual and budget together.
Close short orders that will never be completed.

Supplier Invoices

A supplier invoice (a bill) records what a supplier says you owe. It is submitted, approved for payment and posted, which clears the goods-received accrual, reclaims the input tax and raises the creditor. Two checks now protect it: the same supplier invoice number cannot be keyed twice, and a bill that does not agree with its order can be held for review.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Purchasing:

Purchasing — the Supplier invoices tab, and the Bills on match hold card

Admin Panel → Payables:

Invoice Match Queue — bills held by matching

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

Supplier Invoices — every bill; the badge counts bills approved for payment but not yet posted

Who does it

Bills are created by holders of ERP: Payables. Approving one for payment needs the Approve supplier invoices permission. Posting needs post access to the company. Buyers can read bills but not raise them.

Keying a bill

Open the purchase order (Issued, Receiving, Received or Closed) or the booked-in goods receipt the bill is for, and press its Create button for the supplier invoice. Enter the quantities billed.
On the draft, use Edit supplier invoice to enter the Supplier's invoice no., the invoice date, due date and the prices as the supplier charged them.
File the supplier's own PDF in Attachments & notes with What is it? set to Supplier's invoice. It opens beside the bill when anyone reviews it.
Press Submit for approval.

A bill can also be keyed without an order, for example a utility bill. Whether that is held depends on the match policy.

Approval and posting

Approve for payment (Submitted to Approved) is offered to holders of Approve supplier invoices, and appears in their My approvals. A holder can also approve straight from Draft.
Return for amendment sends a submitted or approved bill back to Draft.
Post to the ledger (Approved to Posted) debits the goods-received accrual for what was received (at the order price), debits input tax, and credits the creditor as an open item under the supplier's code, due on the bill's due date.
When a match policy applies, any price difference on the bill is posted to the policy's purchase price variance account as its own journal, so the accrual clears to nil.
For an order bought two-way (services billed without a receipt), the commitment is relieved at the bill rather than at a receipt.
The bill moves to Paid by itself when a payment settles it.

To change the due date of a bill that is already posted, use Correct the due date... on the bill. It needs ERP: Payables or ERP: Finance, a reason, and post access, and it changes the ledger open item and the bill together.

Duplicate bills

When a bill is submitted, or approved straight from Draft, its Supplier's invoice no. is compared with every other live bill from the same supplier, ignoring case, spaces and separators. A match is refused with "Supplier invoice '...' from this supplier is already on bill ... - it would be paid twice. Cancel this one, or correct the number." Cancelled and rejected bills are ignored. A bill with no supplier invoice number is not checked, so make the number part of your keying routine.

Matching

If a match policy is enabled, approving the bill first compares it with its order and receipts. A bill outside the policy's tolerances is refused approval with "This invoice does not match its order: ... Accept the difference or correct the invoice." The held lines show on the Invoice match panel and in the Invoice Match Queue, where a Payables user can accept the difference with a reason. Re-check against the order runs the comparison again after a correction. Matching is described in the next article.

What goes wrong

Duplicate refusal: check the other bill named in the message. If this one is the duplicate, cancel it; if the number was mistyped, correct it.
Approve for payment is refused by matching: open the Invoice Match Queue, or correct the bill and re-check.
Post is missing: the bill is not yet approved, or you lack post access.
"This bill is not posted yet" when correcting the due date: change it on the draft with Edit instead.

Worked example

A supplier's invoice INV-2207 arrives for 400 sensor modules already booked in. The payables clerk opens the goods receipt, creates the supplier invoice, enters INV-2207 as the supplier's invoice number, files the PDF beside it and submits it. The Finance manager approves it from My approvals; matching finds price and quantity within tolerance. The clerk posts it and the accrual clears. A week later the same PDF is keyed again by a colleague as "inv 2207"; submission is refused as a duplicate and the second bill is cancelled.

Recommendations

Always enter the supplier's invoice number; the duplicate check depends on it.
Bill from the receipt where goods were received, so quantities agree.
File the supplier's PDF on the bill; reviewers and auditors look there first.
Keep keying and approving with different people.

Three-Way Matching

Three-way matching compares each supplier bill line with the order behind it and the goods actually received, before the bill can be approved for payment. A bill billed for more than arrived, charged above the agreed price, or with no order at all is held until somebody accepts the difference with a reason. Matching is opt-in: with every policy off, bills approve as they always did.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Payables:

Invoice Match Queue — held bills, the goods-received-not-invoiced reconciliation and the match policies; the badge counts bills held and not yet accepted

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

Invoice Match Queue — the same queue
Invoice Match Policies — the policies as a datastore; the badge counts policies switched on
Invoice Match Results — one row per bill line, for looking up and auditing

Who does what

The queue opens for ERP: Payables and ERP: Finance. Finance sets the policies and reviews the queue. Acting on a held bill (accepting a difference, posting its variance, asking the supplier for a credit) is for Payables only, and the person who keyed or edited a bill cannot accept its difference: the queue says Keyed by you - another Payables user accepts.

Setting up a policy

One example policy ships, Default supplier invoice matching, switched off: 3-way, no quantity tolerance, price within 5% or 10.00 per unit, a line differing by more than 1,000 always reviewed, held on breach, variances to account 5990. To create or change one:

Open the queue's Policies tab and press New policy (or Edit on an existing one).
Name, then scope it: Company (or Every company), Document (or Every bill) and Supplier (or Every supplier).
Match: 3-way: order and goods receipt, 2-way: order only (for services nothing is received against), or None (no check) to switch one supplier off without deleting the policy.
When a bill is outside the bands: Hold it until somebody accepts the difference, or Refuse it (correct the bill).
The bands: Quantity over by (%) and (units), Price over by (%) and (per unit). For each pair, the more generous of the two applies, so a small line is not held for a rounding difference.
Always review a line differing by more than: a cash cap that holds a line whatever the percentages allow. This is the important one: 2% of a 3,000,000 order is 60,000.
Purchase price variance account: where price differences are posted.
Hold a bill line with no order behind it: untick it if you knowingly buy some things without orders.
Tick Enabled and Save policy.

The most specific policy wins: company plus supplier plus document type, then company plus supplier, then company plus document type, then company, then every company.

What is compared

Quantity: what has been billed so far plus this bill, against what was received (3-way) or ordered (2-way).
Price: the bill's unit price against the order's.

Each line gets a status: matched, variance (a difference within tolerance), billed over order, billed over receipt, not received, price or no order. Approving a bill with a line held and not accepted is refused with "This invoice does not match its order ... Accept the difference or correct the invoice."

Working the queue

Open Held bills. Filter by Company and Show (Held, not yet accepted, Accepted differences or Every matched line).
Each bill lists its lines with Ordered, Received, Billed before, This bill, Order price, Bill price and Difference. Open the bill to see it, with the supplier's own invoice beside it if filed.
Decide. Accept... asks Why is this difference acceptable?; the reason is required and is what an auditor reads first. Or correct the bill (or the receipt) and use Re-check against the order on the bill. Or use Ask the supplier for a credit note, which e-mails the supplier their own invoice file (or our rendering of it) and notes the request on the bill.
Accepting is not approving: once every held line is accepted, approve the bill as usual.

Post variance posts a price difference to the variance account straight away as its own journal dated with the bill. Variances on approved bills are also posted when the bill is posted.

Goods received, not invoiced

This tab reconciles the accrual for a company. Receipts accrue at the order price and bills clear it, so the ledger balance should equal the open receipts. It shows Ledger GRNI, Open receipts, Billed, not posted, Returned, awaiting credit and Unexplained, then every order line received and not fully billed. Anything unexplained is a difference nobody posted.

What goes wrong

"No match policy is enabled" at the top of the queue: nothing is being checked. Enable a policy.
You cannot accept: you keyed or edited the bill, or you hold Finance but not Payables.
The accrual never clears to nil: the policy has no variance account, or variances were left unposted.

Worked example

The financial controller enables the default policy for the UK company. A bill arrives for 400 modules at 12.40 against an order at 12.00; 3.3% is inside 5%, so the line shows variance and the bill approves, the 160.00 difference going to 5990 on posting. A second bill charges for 600 when 400 were received: the line shows billed over receipt and approval is refused. A payables clerk who did not key the bill asks the supplier for a credit note for the extra 200.

Recommendations

Start with one company and the default bands, then tighten per supplier.
Always set the cash cap; percentages alone are not a control.
Use 2-way for service suppliers instead of turning matching off.
Reconcile GRNI monthly and investigate anything unexplained.

Paying Suppliers

The payment run pays posted supplier bills in one pass: it proposes what is due by a date, grouped by supplier, you tick what to pay, and each supplier gets one payment allocated to the bills it settles. Settled bills move to Paid by themselves, and a remittance advice can be printed or e-mailed for each payment.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Purchasing:

Purchasing — the Pay suppliers tab (shown to Payables and Finance) and the Suppliers tab

Who does what

Paying is split between two desks on purpose. Holders of ERP: Payables key and post the bills and can review the payment proposal. Releasing the money needs ERP: Finance and post access to the company, because payments post to the ledger. A clerk who could both enter a supplier's bill and pay it could pay a bill they invented. A Payables user without Finance sees the proposal with the note that payments are released by Finance.

Making a payment run

Open Purchasing → Pay suppliers. Choose the Company and the Due by date, and press Show bills.
The summary shows what is owed and what is not yet due. Below it, each supplier's posted bills are grouped by currency, with the Bill, Supplier's no., Due and Owed, any unallocated credit, and the proposed total. Bills due by the date are ticked.
Untick what you do not want to pay, or change Pay now to pay part of a bill.
Enter the Payment date, choose From bank account, and optionally a Run reference (letters, numbers, dots or dashes). Each payment's bank reference is the run reference plus the supplier code; without one, the run is called PAY- followed by the date.
Press Pay selected bills.

Each supplier gets one payment journal that debits the payables control account and credits the bank, allocated to the ticked bills in the same step. Bills settled in full move to Paid. The result says how many payments were recorded and names any supplier that was not paid, with the reason. Pressing the button twice does not pay twice: the second attempt is reported as already recorded.

Suppliers on hold and other currencies

On hold: a supplier on hold is shown but not paid, with "Release the hold on the Suppliers tab first". Only Finance or ERP administration can release a hold.
Another currency: bills in a foreign currency are paid in that currency from the bank you choose, at the day's spot rate, and the screen shows the approximate value in the company's currency. The difference from the rate each bill was booked at is posted as a realised exchange gain or loss. With no rate for today the group says so and cannot be paid until one is added.

Remittance advice

After a run, each payment has a Remittance advice link. It opens a Print and send panel: print the advice, save it as a PDF, or e-mail it to the supplier's Contact e-mail. Printing needs read access to the company; sending needs ERP: Payables or ERP: Finance and write access. The advice lists the bills the payment settled.

Bills settled elsewhere

A bill settled outside the run, for example allocated in the ledger or matched on a bank feed, is brought to Paid the next time the run is used, so the proposal never offers a bill twice.

What goes wrong

"Nothing is owed by this company on its payables ledger": no bills are posted. Bills appear once they are posted.
"Payments are released by Finance": you hold Payables without Finance. Pass the proposal on.
"Payments post to the ledger - you need posting rights to this company": you hold Finance but only write access.
A supplier is skipped as on hold: release the hold first, if appropriate.
A foreign group cannot be paid: add today's exchange rate.

Worked example

On Thursday the payables clerk shows bills due by the following Tuesday for the UK company: twelve suppliers, one on hold. They check the proposal and ask the Finance manager to release it. The Finance manager opens Pay suppliers, unticks one disputed bill, sets the payment date to Friday, chooses the main current account, enters the run reference PAY-W41 and presses Pay selected bills. Eleven payments are recorded; the held supplier is listed as not paid. The Finance manager opens each payment's remittance advice and e-mails it.

Recommendations

Keep Payables and Finance in different groups; the split is the control.
Use a run reference per run so bank statement lines are easy to match.
Send remittance advice for every run; suppliers allocate faster.
Keep exchange rates current if you pay in other currencies.