Check the Same vendor next invoice box to save time when processing multiple invoices for the same vendor. When you have entered and saved the first of multiple invoices, a New Invoice window will be presented with the same vendor selection filled in. One-time Address and Check Pick-up data if any, will also be copied to the new invoice.

Invoice Number

Enter the invoice number exactly as it appears, with all letters and zeros before and after the number (for example, “000000A989L”).

Note: Some vendors refer to an invoice number as the “Billing” or “Reference” number.

If a vendor does not provide an invoice number, you must follow a specific invoice number format as defined by the Accounts Payable department. The Guide to Invoice Number Entry below will guide you through the correct formatting of an invoice number. After selecting a vendor, simply click Help, then Guide in order to access the invoice number entry guide. It is crucial that you accurately enter an invoice number to prevent duplicate payments and to make it possible for both the University and for vendors to track invoices. Refer to Vendor Payment Types & Corresponding Invoice Number Formats for a complete table of invoice number formatting.

INVOICE NUMBER FORMATTING

The invoice number, like the vendor, is a critical piece of information on any AP/CAR invoice. AP/CAR searches for the invoice number and the vendor of each invoice, as it is entered, in order to help prevent duplicate payments. Please see the Duplicate Payment Processing section below, for more information on this process). Correct invoice number formatting is designed to meet auditing and record-keeping requirements. The Accounts Payable department has designed an invoice numbering system whereby the invoice number is directly related to the “payment type” of the vendor record (as found on the AP Vendor Master file). Each vendor is categorized by “payment type” and the format of the invoice number must conform to rules defined by that payment type.

A “payment type” reflects both the kind of business a vendor conducts with the University as well as the method of billing the vendor uses when seeking payment. The most common type of business, providing basic goods (such as office supplies), is an “invoice number” payment type. When an “invoice number” vendor, such as Republic Office Supply, submits a bill to the University, the invoice number used in AP/CAR will be the same as the one on the vendor’s bill. This is the simplest case, involving no special formatting rules.

Another common payment type is “travel & business”. Vendors in this category are individuals within the University community, including faculty, staff, students, graduate research assistants and post-doctoral fellows. For example, a professor returns from attending a conference in another city and requests reimbursement of trip-related expenses. The invoice number for this travel expense invoice in AP/CAR will follow a format defined specifically for travel expenses, namely the letters TE followed by the date (in MMDDYY format) of the last date of travel.  If the professor’s trip ended on December 15, 2000, the invoice number would be TE121500 (TE stands for Travel End Date).

An invoice number format may consist of more than one component. A correctly formatted invoice number for an “invoice number” type vendor consists of a single component, the invoice number that is issued by the vendor and is found on the bill. The correctly formatted invoice number for a business expense reimbursement to a “travel & business” type vendor consists of two parts: a prefix (the letters PE) and a date.  PE stands for Period End Date or the last date of expense.

All payment types and their corresponding invoice number formats are listed under Vendor Payment Types & Corresponding Invoice Number Formats; however, you don’t have to memorize any of them! AP/CAR will quickly guide you through entering an invoice number in the correct format for any vendor, via a series of Invoice Number Entry View guide windows, one for each payment type. When entering a new invoice, select a vendor and then go to the tool bar. Click on Help, and then Guide to Invoice Number Entry. If you have selected the skill level setting novice, this guide window will pop up automatically when you tab to the Invoice Number field. A guide window will also pop up if you try to enter an invoice number that does not conform to the defined format for that vendor standard. The point at which the guide opens depends upon the user’s skill level setting.

Skill Level Setting

Setting the skill level to novice will cause an invoice number entry guide window to pop up automatically as soon as you tab into the Invoice Number data entry field. This can be very helpful for a new processor. As you gain experience with AP/CAR you may find it easier or faster to enter the invoice number without the assistance of the guide window (i.e., to enter directly into the Invoice Number field on the Invoice Header). In this case, you may suppress the automatic pop-up by setting your skill level to “advanced”.

Two skill levels are available: “novice” and “advanced”. To change the skill level setting:

From the Pending Invoices window, select the System->User Settings menu option.

The User Settings window will open:

Select your skill level and click the Accept button.

Note: If you enter an invalid invoice number the guide window will open to assist you. You may open a guide window at any time by using the Help->Guide Inv Num Entry menu option or by typing the keyboard shortcut <Alt+N>.

GUIDE TO INVOICE NUMBER ENTRY

Remember, each vendor is coded in the AP Vendor Master file with a specific payment type, and its invoice numbers must be formatted accordingly. You may opt for the Invoice Number Entry View guide windows to do the formatting for you. To quickly access the window from the New Invoice screen:

1. Select the vendor

2. Click Help and then Guide to Invoice Number Entry.

To have the Guide Windows display automatically, change your Skill Level Setting to "Novice".

In order to understand how the guide windows perform, let’s look at a sample invoice from a vendor, whose payment type is “Date of Billing”. The invoice number format standard for this payment type has three parts: billing month, billing year and gross amount. The guide window looks as follows:

Note: Since different vendor payment types require different invoice number formats, the content (i.e., the text instructions and corresponding data entry fields) of the Invoice Number Entry View will vary from vendor to vendor. AP/CAR determines the format for any vendor being paid. Notice that the title bar labels the window accordingly.

Visually, each Invoice Number Entry View (regardless of the payment type/invoice number format it represents) consists of two major areas of information:

1. Written instructions describing the proper formatting of the invoice number, presented in a notebook at the top of the window; and

2. Data entry fields representing the component parts of the invoice number (or direct entry of a complete invoice number).

The Invoice Number Entry View has two instructional modes, Direct Entry and Help/Template, indicated by the tabs of the notebook in the top portion of the window. The guide view opens in Help/Template mode by default. You may switch to Direct Entry mode by clicking on the Direct Entry notebook tab.

Note: Switching modes causes the corresponding data entry fields to be enabled or disabled accordingly.

Choose Help/Template mode if you don’t know the valid format(s) for a vendor and you want AP/CAR to do the formatting for you. In Help/Template mode, there is a notebook tab for each invoice number format associated with each vendor payment type. Most payment types are associated with only one format, in which case the tab will be labeled simply Help/Template.

Some payment types, such as Travel & Business, have several possible formats, in these cases there will be a tab for each format. For example, the Travel & Business guide window has tabs for both Advance and Reimbursement. The Advance tab guides a user in formatting the invoice number for a Travel Advance and the Reimbursement tab guides a user in formatting the invoice number for a Travel & Business Expense Report. In Help/Template mode, an invoice number is separated into its component parts and a user is guided through the entry of each component.

In the “Date of Billing” example, the first two components of the invoice number (billing month and billing day) are entered in combo boxes, which include all valid values for these fields. A combo box allows the user either to type in a value directly or to select the value from a drop-down list. For example, if the user types “J”’, the list of valid values drops down and the first value beginning with “J”, or “January”, would be highlighted. As the user continues to type, adding a “u” for example, the system highlights the next valid value, “June”.

Note also, that in this case, the Billing Day entry field remains disabled until the Billing Month value is entered. In this way, the AP/CAR system ensures the display of the proper number of days in each month, and thereby prevents the entry of an invalid day. For example, when December is selected as the billing month, the billing day list contains values 1 through 31.

When the user presses OK, AP/CAR converts and formats the component parts into a complete invoice number according to the format standard for the “Date of Billing” payment type:

position 1 alpha conversion of the billing month: December = L
positions 2-3 the billing day = 29
positions 4-17 gross amount without punctuation = 10000

The converted entries are combined in the order specified above, resulting in the correctly formatted invoice number, “L2910000”. The guide window is closed and the formatted number is automatically entered into the Invoice Number field.

Choosing Direct Entry mode allows you to enter a formatted invoice number directly into a single input field while at the same time viewing the complete conversion and formatting instructions in the notebook.

You may scroll through the notebook instructions by using the vertical bar along the right edge.

When you finish entering the invoice number, click OK. AP/CAR will automatically analyze the invoice number. If the invoice number is valid, the system will automatically enter it into the Invoice Number field, the guide window will close, and you can proceed to enter (or edit) other invoice data.

If your directly-entered invoice number is invalid (i.e., it does not conform to the format standard defined for the vendor payment type), the Invoice Number Entry View displays an Error page, similar to the one below, describing your options:

Again, you may scroll through the error notice (using the vertical bar along the right edge). In general, you may re-enter the invoice number, put the invoice in Working (or Error Recycle) status and come back to it later, or you may leave the guide view. To re-enter the invoice number, select a notebook tab for the entry mode you prefer, or press the Close button to return to invoice entry view. Pressing the Close button serves as a quit function as well.

If you need to research the error further, but want to preserve your entry in the meantime, put the invoice in Working status by pressing the Error Recycle button. You will see the following notice:

Note: A status of Error Recycle is equivalent to Working status, indicating that there are errors that must be corrected before the invoice can move out of the Working queue (on the Pending Invoices window) and into an Accepted state for the AP Department.

Also, for some vendor payment types, you may override the format standard, provided that you have a convincing reason to do so. All overrides are audited in Accounts Payable. To override, click on the Override button at the bottom of the Invoice Number Entry View. The following window will be displayed:

Enter the reason you are overriding the standard invoice number format and click Accept.

You may also open a guide window from Auto Payment - New Invoice entry view at any time by invoking the Help->Guide Inv Num Entry menu option or via the keyboard shortcut <Alt+N>.

If you have successfully entered a correctly formatted invoice number and subsequently need to view or edit the number, open a guide window and display the deconstructed invoice number in the Help/Template mode. For example, following the previous example, assume the processor has entered invoice number “L2910000” in the Invoice Header and now wishes to view or edit one of the component parts. By clicking Help and then Guide Inv Num Entry, the processor can view the invoice number entry view guide window and edit the component part(s) as necessary.

The component parts are displayed in the Help/Template fields as if they had just been entered. The fully formatted number is also visible in the Direct Entry field (though it is disabled because that mode was not selected). The processor may make changes as before or use the Close button to return to the invoice entry view.

DUPLICATE PAYMENT PROCESSING

In order to prevent invoices from being paid more than once, the AP/CAR system features a duplicate payment search function. AP/CAR performs the search automatically during the processing of an invoice at each of the following points:

1)  Each time the invoice number is entered or changed by the processor;
2) When a working invoice is retrieved from the pending queue by the     processor for editing;
3)  When an invoice is saved to the database.

The system hunts for invoices with the same invoice number and the same first 10 positions of the vendor number. If a search reveals one or more duplicates (either in progress or already paid), a window similar to the one below will open:

The Duplicate Payment(s) Found window is divided into three boxed sections:

1) The top-most box shows the vendor and invoice number (of the invoice currently being processed).

2) The middle box, labeled Duplicate(s) Found, contains a table showing summary information for each duplicate invoice found. Note that the table may be scrolled horizontally (and vertically).

3) The bottom box, labeled Enter Reason provides a text area where the processor may enter an explanation for overriding the duplicate condition, thereby indicating that the current invoice should be paid despite the existence of one or more duplicates.

In the Duplicate Payment(s) Found screen, scroll the duplicate entry horizontally in order to reveal additional summary information.

When presented with a duplicate condition, the processor must research the situation thoroughly in order to determine whether or not the current invoice should be paid. It may be helpful to see more than the summary information for the duplicate(s) found. To do so:

1) Select the duplicate for which you need more detail by highlighting the   corresponding row in the Duplicate(s) Found table.

2)  Press the Detail button.

3)  A second window will be opened, displaying a “read only”, inquiry view of the full duplicate invoice.

As in the Inquiry function of AP/CAR, the processor may click on each of the notebook tabs of an invoice to see the corresponding detail information. When enough information has been gathered from the detail view, click on the Close button to return to the Duplicate Payment(s) Found window.

If a valid reason exists for paying the current invoice, despite the existence of one or more duplicates:

1) Enter an explanation in the text area provided.

2) Press the Accept button.

This event will be recorded in the “Invoice History” and will be audited in Accounts Payable.

If, instead, you need to do more research to determine why a duplicate exists:

1) Press the Error Recycle button.

This will cause an Error history event to be recorded and the invoice will remain in a working state until the duplicate condition is removed or overridden.

To quickly access the Duplicate Payments Found window and then be able to enter a text override reason, highlight the (ER) Duplicate Payment exists line in Invoice History while in Edit view. Click the Review button on the right.

If you are processing a duplicate invoice and find out that it should not be paid, remove it from the Accounts Payable database. If the duplicate condition was found during initial data entry, and the invoice has not been saved to the database, press the Error Recycle or the Close button to return to the New Invoice entry window. Then press the Close button to exit the invoice entry window and answer No when prompted to save your work.

If the invoice was previously saved, use the Delete button on the Pending Invoices window to delete the duplicate invoice record from the AP database.

Gross Amount

Enter the gross amount.  The gross amount is the full amount of the invoice to be paid. For certain invoices AP/CAR will immediately perform some checks on the amount entered. For example, when entering the gross amount of a Travel Advance Request for a “Travel” type vendor, the system will verify that the amount does not exceed the maximum allowable. For a complete description of travel invoice processing, please refer to Travel Advance & Expense Report Processing.

If you wish to pay only a partial amount of the invoice total, enter the partial amount to be paid in the Gross Amount field and supply a written explanation on the paper invoice.

Freight Amount

Enter the freight amount, or the portion of the gross amount that represents freight charges, if any. If the freight charge is not included on the original purchase order, enter the freight amount into the invoice header of a purchase order payment so that it will not be included in the variance allowed for that payment.  Freight amount is not a required field.

Non-990 Amount

If the payee is a “legal” vendor and the gross amount includes settlement fees, the amount of those fees must be entered in the Non-990 Amount field. The University must exclude settlement fees when reporting 990 data to the government. For the majority of Columbia departments, which rarely have occasion to pay a legal vendor, this function will seldom be utilized. Unless the payee is a legal vendor, this field will remain disabled.

Please note that legal bills are paid by the General Counsel Office; however, business expenses from a legal vendor may be reimbursed through Accounts Payable.

Non-1099 Amount

Payees, such as consultants, who have performed services for or provided goods to the University are “1099” vendors, meaning that the money they receive from the University is considered reportable income.

If a payee, coded in the vendor master file as 1099-reportable, is receiving reimbursement for charges which should not be reported as 1099 income, such as “supported”, or non-taxable expenses, enter the amount of those charges in the Non-1099 Amount field. For example, if a payee is receiving an honorarium, or speaker’s fees, enter his or her supported travel expenses into the Non-1099 Amount field. If a vendor is not flagged as 1099-reportable, this field will be disabled for entry.

Please refer to Special Vendor Rule Processing for more information on “1099” vendor processing.

Invoice Date

Enter the date of the vendor’s invoice. When a vendor has not provided an invoice number, enter the latest date appearing on the invoice or the date of the DAF signature.

Delivery Date

If you have confirmed receipt of the goods or services described on the invoice, enter the date they were received. You are not required to enter a date into this field.

Due Date

The invoice payment due date is automatically calculated by the AP/CAR system as soon as a vendor is selected, based upon various business rules specified in the system by Officers of the Controller’s Department. The system-calculated due date may be changed by the invoice processor, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The Due Date may not be earlier than the Invoice, Delivery, or current date.

2. Tf the entered due date is earlier than the system-calculated due date, the user will be required to provide a reason for overriding the system-calculated date.

LEARN THE NEXT STEP in processing an invoice - SPECIAL HANDLING FUNCTIONS .

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