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Stanford University Libraries Redesign Report
Process Change 4
Monographs: Local Processing
Process Change 4
Consolidate the processes of receiving and
posting of payment for materials received and
invoiced manually.
Assumptions
- Initiating payment processing at the point
of receipt will eliminate duplicate record
searches and receipt verification.
- Required financial controls can be provided
by separating invoice and payment approval from
receipt verification and invoice creation.
Activity / Transactions Eliminated
- Receipt verification and invoice
creation
-
Eliminate duplicate searches and receipt
verification for monographs shipped with
paper invoices
Firm order 3,300 transactions
Approval 12,600 transactions
Standing order 1,700 transactions
In addition to working with vendors who can
send us electronic invoices, we will continue to
encourage other vendors to send as many shipments
as possible with paper invoices enclosed. When a
carton is received with an invoice and the
shipment is complete, that group of materials
will be kept together for processing by staff who
both receive and post payment. The receiver/payer
builds the on-line invoice, and as each piece is
received on-line, posts the price and other
information needed for payment. The completed
paper invoice is then annotated as "approved for
payment." Payments Unit staff review the invoice
for approval criteria and complete the payment
transaction as agreed upon with University
Accounts Payable.
Approximately 15% of receiving transactions
(firm order and approval plan) would be absorbed
in the combined receiving/paying process.
Approximately 2% of this estimate is based on the
assumption that some non-qualifying vendor
approval plans (e.g., Latin America) could be
treated as "no returns" profile plans.
Cartons which do not contain complete
shipments or which do not contain an invoice are
directed away from this process to a Problem
Desk.
In the analysis of the receiving and payment
processes, the Team observed that the receiving
unit calls up each record to create receipt
lines, and then the payment unit re-searches each
record on an invoice in order to create payment
statements . In addition, the Payments Unit
performs some tracking of items to ensure that
all items on an invoice have been received, or
otherwise accounted for (e.g., returned, wrong
item sent) before paying. It appears more
efficient to eliminate the duplicate searching
and to reduce the time spent tracking down
received items to complete an invoice.
To guard against fraudulent use of University
funds, the current process requires using
separate staff for receiving and for preparation
for payment The Team was advised that it is a
valid business practice to combine the steps of
receiving, invoice creation, and payment posting,
as long as the final approval step is separate
and vested in a different staff group.
- Encourage vendors to send shipments with
invoice enclosed
- Acquire appropriate hardware and software
(e.g., "payments interface") for the
workstations on which this work is
performed
- Program additional quality control
measures, e.g., security limitations on
invoices over certain dollar amount, additional
checks for duplicate invoice payment
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Last modified:
August 12, 2005 |
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