The Purchasing
Process
PeopleSoft Financials Purchasing . . . 2
Ordering . . . 2
Approval . . . 3
Receiving . . . 3
Vendor Matching and Payment. . . 4
What’s Changed with Version 8.4 . . . 5
Web Accessibility . . . 5
Security . . . 6
New Navigation Tools and Features . . . 6
Home Page . . . 6
Menu Navigation Tree . . . 6
Favorites . . . 7
Personalized Navigation . . . 7
The Search Page . . . 8
What’s New with Requisitions and POs . . . 8
Page Groups . . . 8 Icon Buttons . . . 8 Defaults Page . . . 9 Express POs . . . 9 Budget Checking (BCM) . . . 9 E-Mail Capability . . . . 10 Distribution Changes . . . . 10 Encumbrances . . . . 10 On-Line Help . . . 10 Notation Conventions. . . 11
1
PeopleSoft Financials Purchasing
The purchasing process at Princeton University involves entering the order through a requisition or purchase order, initiating the approval of the order, and receiving (or acknowledging receipt of) the order in the PeopleSoft Financials system.
Ordering
In PeopleSoft Financials, the purchasing cycle is initiated through the creation of either a requisition or a purchase order.
A requisition is an official request for supplies, items, or services, from one or several vendors. Through requisition ordering, users can order items from more than one vendor on a single requisition. Once the requisition is approved, vendor-specific purchase orders are automatically generated and dispatched to the appropriate vendors.
Approval process is initiated
Requisition Ordering
Purchase Orders are generated and dispatched to vendors Requisitions
are created
(Requisition Approved)
With proper authority, purchase orders can be created without a requisition. These purchase orders expedite the process of obtaining a PO number when the PO number is required sooner than the typical requisition process allows. However, note that the items ordered through a purchase order are restricted to a single vendor.
Note: The Purchase Order process should be used sparingly, since the
process produces an immediate purchase order, and bypasses most of a department’s workflow and approval levels.
PeopleSoft Financials Purchasing
Approval
Once a requisition or purchase order is entered, it then moves into the workflow, where it is either approved or denied. If the user who entered the requisition does not have the authority to approve it, the requisition appears on the worklist of another user, who then approves it. Once the requisition is approved, a purchase order is created and dispatched to the vendor.
Receiving
A vendor sends the items of the purchase order to the requester. At the same time, the vendor sends an invoice for the order to the Treasurer’s Office for processing and payment.
Receipt of order acknowledged in system Vendors receive
POs and process orders
À
¾
Vendor sends invoice to Purchasing 3-Way Matching Payment to Vendor Payment Process Receiving Process Requestor receives orderWhen a requester receives an order, he or she is required to acknowledge the receipt of the order in the PeopleSoft Financials system. Following this acknowledgement in the system, the Treasurer’s Office staff enters the vendor’s invoice information into the PeopleSoft Financials system, and an automatic process known as matching is performed to ensure that the purchase order, the receiving document, and the invoice all correspond within a preset tolerance. If all record information corresponds, payment is made to the vendor and the order process is complete.
Important! Receipt of goods or services must be acknowledged in the
PeopleSoft Financials system by the receiver of the goods, in order for the vendor to receive payment.
Vendor Matching and Payment
Vendor payment is initiated following a verification process known as
matching. Matching is a process that takes place once an order is received
and acknowledged in the system by the requester, and the Treasurer’s Office is in receipt of the invoice for the order from the vendor.
There are three levels of matching. Three-way matching is the default level of verification performed against every order. When three-way matching is performed, the purchase order, the vendor invoice, and the requester’s acknowledgement (receiver) in the system are compared to ensure that all three components match within a preset tolerance. If all three components match, payment to the vendor is approved.
The other levels of matching are two-way and four-way matching:
With two-way matching, the purchase order and the vendor invoice are
compared to verify that the invoice from the vendor matches the purchase order submitted by the requester. Two-way matching is most often used for subscriptions with recurring deliveries (i.e. newspaper subscriptions).
With four-way matching, the standard three-way matching of the
purchase order, vendor invoice and receiver is performed, with the added step of an inspection of the goods or services received. Both of these verification processes are used less often than the default three-way matching process.
What’s Changed with Version 8.4
What’s Changed with Version 8.4
For users already familiar with the current implementation of PeopleSoft Financials 7.5, this section provides an overview of the new features and changes provided in the upgrade to PeopleSoft Financials 8.4.
Web Accessibility
The 8.4 release of the PeopleSoft Financials system is web accessible and uses standard web navigation techniques, with which you may already be familiar. A standard web browser, such as MS Internet Explorer, is the only software required on your machine to access the new PeopleSoft Financials system.
Access to the PeopleSoft Financials system is controlled by password-protected User IDs. Your password is your Lightweight Directory Access Password (LDAP) that you use for e-mail and access to Princeton’s network.
Access to the PeopleSoft Financials system from outside of the Princeton network domain requires establishment of a Virtual Private Network connection (VPN) from your remote computer, through an Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as Optimum Online or Comcast. If you need help setting up the VPN connection, search for the keyword VPN on the OIT
Knowledge Base at www.princeton.edu/kb, or contact the Help Desk at
258-HELP for assistance.
Security
The PeopleSoft Financials system no longer uses operator classes. A user is now assigned a role, for example, Dept. Manager, Employee, Lab Manager, or Stockroom Manager. Each role has one or more permissions attached. These roles perform different functions; therefore each has different permissions within the PeopleSoft Financials system.
Because of these new roles, users can now have one role for one set of project/grants and another role (with a higher level of security) for another set of project/grants.
New Navigation Tools and Features
Several new tools and features have been added in PeopleSoft Financials 8.4, which provide navigation shortcuts to pages, and assist with record and field value searches. Each is described in the subsections that follow.
Home Page
Just like your Internet browser, PeopleSoft Financials has a home page. This page contains the Financials menu frame, from which all PeopleSoft Financials pages are accessed.
Menu Navigation Tree
In place of the ‘Go’ menu, PeopleSoft Financials 8.4 now uses a directory tree of collapsible and expandible folders for standard page navigation. See “Using the Header Bar Navigation Controls,” on page 21, for information on the menu frame.
The menu tree is placed at the left side of the Financials page rather than across the top as in 7.5. The menu can be minimized, as needed or automatically, to make more fields visible in your browser window.
What’s Changed with Version 8.4
Favorites
Favorites are like bookmarks to your most frequently visited web pages. In fact, you may use the standard Internet browser bookmarks to access the PeopleSoft Financials splash page.
Favorite PeopleSoft Pages
PeopleSoft Financials provides an additional means to add and maintain a list of favorite Financials pages in the Financials menu tree. Using the My Favorites menu item is the recommended method of bookmarking pages
within the PeopleSoft Financials system.
Picking a page from the My Favorites folder opens the page associated with the favorites shortcut. Details about adding and accessing Favorites are provided in “Creating ‘Favorite’ Navigation Shortcuts,” on page 23.
Requestor Favorite Items
Requestor Favorite Items has been replaced by a link (09 - Requestor Items) in the ...More... drop-down list at the bottom of requisition pages. This link lists master items that you have ordered in the past.
Personalized Navigation
The My Personalizations menu option allows you to set automatic menu collapse (to maximize space for displaying fields on pages) and to set the tab key behavior on Financials pages. See “Personalizations,” on page 44 for full details.
Menu Collapse
The Automatic menu collapse personalization option controls the display of the menu navigation tree: full view or collapsed view. To allow for the most screen real estate, the menu can be set to automatically collapse when a transaction is selected and a PeopleSoft Financials page is opened.
Tab Navigation Settings
The tab navigation settings enable you to control how the Tab key will function when tabbing from field to field, allowing you to bypass various buttons and links, and limit the tab stops to data entry fields.
The Search Page
The new Search page, which replaces the previous Update/Display Search List functionality, includes advanced search options that allow you to specify search criteria such as =, <, >, and not equal to. The search options
also include begins with and contains which allow you to enter partial
values that may appear at the beginning of, or within, a search field.
The new Search page provides advanced search options to help locate records
The search results list provides the opportunity to review the result of the record search before selecting a record for further processing. If the desired record was not found using the current search criteria, new search criteria can be entered and another search can be performed.
The Search page is especially helpful in finding a record or records when only partial details are known about the record or records you are
attempting to retrieve, and you need to view a summary of the record details before choosing a record.
What’s New with Requisitions and POs
This section summarizes the changes that pertain to the process of creating requisitions and purchase orders.
Page Groups
Requisition and purchase order page groups now include fewer pages; more data entry can be performed on a single page.
What’s Changed with Version 8.4
Icon Buttons
Most page buttons have been replaced with descriptive text links.
The icon buttons that appear on the pages still have the explanatory pop-ups, which can be viewed by holding or hovering your cursor over the button without clicking.
Defaults Page
The new defaults page, Header Defaults, is more robust in the new release of PeopleSoft Financials. In this release, Category and UOM values can be set to apply to multiple items or all the items of your order, in addition to the standard charging details of Dept, Project/Grant, and Fund values. The following figure is an illustration of the new Header Defaults page.
Category and UOM values may be set as defaults.
You can assign multiple project/ grants to each line of the requisition.
If you change the header defaults after entering lines, you have the option of overriding all lines previously entered, or applying the new defaults only to the new line. This page defaults to the Override button, which overrides your user defaults with what is entered on this page.
You can also assign multiple Project/Grants to each line of the requisition
from the defaults page by clicking the Add button and entering the
details of the additional Project/Grant.
Budget Checking (BCM)
BCM is now called Commitment Control and uses one button , instead
of three.
E-Mail Capability
E-mail can now be sent from one user to another when creating or approving purchase orders or requisitions. The e-mail process is not automatic, but it is accessible when notification is imperative.
Distribution Changes
Changing project/grants (or other chartfield values on a distribution line) can be performed later in the procurement cycle; that is, you may now change a project/grant at the receiving stage so payment can be made against a project not already encumbered.
Encumbrances
The ability to better manage purchase order encumbrances is now available with the Purchase Order Reconciliation Workbench feature.
On-Line Help
The PeopleSoft Financials 8.4 system contains online help created specifically for the Princeton Financials system.
Notation Conventions
Notation Conventions
The following conventions are used in this document:
Convention Example Used for
Menu names separated by the greater-than symbol
Select Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Maintain Purchase Orders.
Navigation path
Text in bold, sans serif
1002 Field values—values
you select or type Text in italic, sans
serif
printername Text or codes
indicating the format of the value you enter in a field
Text in italics, with a light bulb in the margin
Tip! Direct purchase orders
can be saved anytime...
Tips—information that is useful, but not required
Text in a bordered paragraph, with a pushpin in the margin
Note: If you have final approval authority, you receive the message...
Notes—information you need to know
Italic text in a bordered paragraph, with an exclamation point in the margin
Important! Fund codes
and Project/Grant numbers must...
Important information that you must be aware of to avoid problems
Bold text preceded by a checkmark in the margin
To create an Express Purchase Order:
The start of a step-by-step procedure
