While there is really only one "type" of invoice (where a supplier bills you for something that you have purchased), there are a few different ways to process/approve invoices in SpendMap, depending on the circumstances.
The following topics are reviewed in this section;
PO-related invoices are those that you match to Purchase Orders or receipts (i.e. a "two-way match" or a “three-way match”) in order to approve the invoices for payment. The idea here being that you don’t want to pay for something until you’ve actually purchased the products or services and received them (and, of course, that the price on the invoice is correct).
In a manual environment, this is commonly accomplished by forwarding a copy of POs and receipts (packing slips) to someone (typically someone in the Purchasing Department or Accounts Payable) who will hold onto the supporting documents until the invoices arrive and then the POs and packing slips are cross-referenced with the invoices to confirm that the supplier should be paid.
The same thing happens in SpendMap. Just as you would match a paper PO and a paper packing slip to a paper invoice before cutting a check to the supplier (a three-way match), when you receive an invoice from your supplier, you can match it to the (electronic) PO and receipt information that are already in the system.
You can perform a three-way match to approve PO-related invoices in your Invoice Work Area.
By approving invoices for payment in SpendMap, you no longer have to worry about keeping paper copies or physically moving the documents around your company. Each PO and receipt transaction is saved automatically in SpendMap when they are processed, so you can just pull up the PO and receipt information on the Invoice Approval Screen.
In addition to a reduction in document management efforts, unlike when approving invoices manually, you don’t have to manually key in a dozen or so fields for every invoice into your A/P system, which is likely what your Accounts Payable team is doing now. SpendMap already has most of the invoice details from the PO transaction (e.g. PO number, supplier code, item description, pricing, taxes, account coding, etc.), so other than the invoice number and invoice date, most of the data entry goes away, so there’s less typing, less chance for errors, faster invoice turn-around time, etc. See A/P Interface, below, for more details.
In most cases, the receipt of a product or service precedes the approval of the invoice, in which case you can simply complete a three-way match to approve the invoice, as described in PO-Related Invoices, above.
But in some cases, such as when making a deposit or progress payment, you may have to pay for something, at least in part, before anything is actually received.
That’s where SpendMap’s Prepayments Feature comes in. When deposits or other prepayments are made, SpendMap will keep track of the amount paid to the supplier, which will be taking into account when processing subsequent invoices for the Purchase Order, to make sure that you pay the correct amount in the end. So, if you buy something for, say, $100 and pay a $25 deposit before receiving the item, upon receipt you should only have to pay the $75 balance.
When approving subsequent invoices for a PO for which a prepayment has already been made, the dollar amount of the invoice will default to the remaining dollar amount (i.e. less the prepayment), rather than the full PO amount. Similarly, SpendMap will take the prepayment(s) into account when determining if an invoice requires discrepancy approval.
You can make a prepayment, using the [Add] button on the Invoice Header Screen. Prepayment invoices can either be processed right away or they can be routed for on-line approval before being sent to your A/P system to cut a check to your supplier. See Invoice Approval Routing, below, for more details.
Like Prepayment Invoices, this is really not a different “type” of invoice but rather a variation on PO-related invoices, used when an invoice shows up from your supplier before the products or services have been received.
When suppliers send invoices before delivering the goods or services that you purchased, assuming you don't want to make a Prepayment per above, you can either 1) refrain from entering the invoice until the items are received, or 2) you can use this "Invoice Missing Receipt" feature to enter the invoice in SpendMap to get the paperwork off your desk but keep the unprocessed invoice “on hold” in your Invoice Work Area until the associated receipt is processed and matched to the invoice, thereby “releasing” the invoice for payment.
So, you are still completing a three-way match but instead of matching PO > Receipt > Invoice, you match PO > Invoice > Receipt.
You can add a missing-receipt invoice, using the [Add] button on the Invoice Header Screen.
If you have a distributed receiving environment (i.e. Buyers or Requisitioners are responsible for receiving their own orders), they can receive an automatic notification to let them know that there is an invoice on hold waiting for them to process the receipt.
Once the receipt is processed, it can be matched to the invoice using Auto-Match Invoices Missing Receipts or by using the applicable option in your Invoice Work Area.
An invoice discrepancy occurs when the dollar value of an invoice doesn’t match the value of the PO. This might be the result of an over shipment, a difference in the taxes between the PO and invoice, a freight charge that wasn’t on the PO and was added during invoice approval, or just a unit price discrepancy.
When an invoice doesn't match the original PO, the invoice discrepancy can be routed for on-line approval before “releasing” the invoice for payment and sending it to your A/P system to cut a check to the supplier. See Invoice Approval Routing, below, for more details.
While we always suggest pre-purchase spend control and recommend against waiting for the invoice to show up before “approving” an expenditure, in some cases it’s just not practical to create a PO for everything that you buy. Common examples include things like rent, utilities, etc.
Assuming you don’t want to just pay these invoices and some sort of approval is needed before cutting a check to the supplier, in a manual environment, since there’s no PO to match to, non-PO invoice approval is typically accomplished by forwarding a copy of each invoice to the end-user (i.e. requisitioner, department head, etc.) to confirm that they received the items and that the price on the invoice is correct. Just like with the manual PO-related invoice approval process described above, this often involves significant document management efforts, lost documents, delayed payments (and perhaps late payment charges), etc.
In cases like this, SpendMap can simplify the invoice approval process, even when there is no PO or receipt to match to.
Once entered into your Non-PO Invoice Work Area, Non-PO Invoices can either be processed right away or they can be routed for on-line approval before being sent to your A/P system to cut a check to your supplier. See Invoice Approval Routing, below, for more details.
While a properly matched PO-related invoice typically won’t need additional approval (the PO is proof that the expenditure was already approved), it is common to route Prepayment Invoices, Invoice Discrepancies and Non-PO Invoices for on-line approval before issuing payment to the supplier.
NOTE: Invoice approval routing is an optional feature. If you prefer, you can process these non-standard types of invoices with no additional approvals. You can select your approval/routing preferences for each type of invoice, in Invoice Options.
For those that do choose to route these invoices for approval, SpendMap offers two options, with varying levels of sophistication and functionality. For smaller organizations that have a limited number of invoice approvers, non-standard invoices that need approval can be sent to the Invoice Discrepancy Work Area where one or more approvers can review and approve or reject invoices on a first-come-first-serve basis.
For larger organizations with many staff members that will be approving invoices (such as when end-user requisitioners or department heads approve invoices for their own business units or when different people approve based on the value of the charges), these invoices can be routed for approval using the Requisitioning Module and it’s sophisticated, rules-based approval engine. That is, invoices can be routed for approval using the same business rules used to route requisitions for approval (e.g. by cost center, by dollar value, by commodity or type of spend, etc.). Alternatively, you can assign special/different approval levels for Invoices, in Miscellaneous Approval Rules and Settings.
Invoice approvers can optionally receive an e-mail notification when they have new invoices to approve.
Once Invoices are approved in SpendMap, they can be exported to your A/P system for processing (i.e. to cut checks for the suppliers, post to your G/L, etc.) with no duplicate data entry.
