Purchasing Pipeline 2024 Q1

Updates in P2P

Change Orders

When creating a change order to a purchase order, in addition to selecting a reason, you will also be required to add a comment explaining the changes being submitted in the change order.  This will provide detail for the approver(s) of the change order and prevent delays or send backs.

Independent Contractors

Recent updates and details have been added to the website regarding classification and requirements for Independent Contractors.  In the Workday supplier record, if a supplier is in the “3-Independent Contractor Group”,  you will be required (after 2/2/24) to answer “disagree” to the Independent Contractor question on the requisition preliminary questionnaire and include the required paperwork (Independent Contractor Determination and Certification, Initial Assessment, Professional Service Agreement) when submitting a requisition.  You may have submitted a requisition in the past for an independent contractor and were not requested to provide paperwork.  This validation step is to ensure we mitigate risk to the organization and have the appropriate documentation on file.

Supplier Price Justification Questionnaire Enhancements

The Supplier Price Justification Questionnaire, required for any requisition $25,000 or greater, has been updated to align with a new Supplier Diversity Policy. Enhancements include the consolidation of two questionnaires (grant and non-grant) into a single questionnaire and the simplification of diverse supplier questions.  An overview of the changes can be viewed here.

For additional information regarding the Supplier Diversity Policy, Q&A Sessions will be offered on the dates/times below:

February 13th 10 – 11am Zoom Link

February 13th   2 – 3pm  Zoom Link

Capital Change Orders 

Recent changes have been implemented to streamline routing of change orders to Strong Memorial Hospital and Medical Faculty Group capital purchase orders.  One of the changes eliminates the routing of non-dollar changes (i.e. Ship To or PO Owner changes) for approvals which will improve change order approval turnaround times.

New P2P Security Access Process Coming in March

In an effort to standardize and simplify the Workday security request process (i.e. Procurement, Financials, etc.), the process to request P2P access will be changing in March.   A demo of the process will be reviewed in the February P2P Monthly User Meeting on February 13 at 10:00am.  Meeting link  Stay tuned for future communications and updates regarding this change.

Creating Requisitions – Use of Goods vs Services Lines

Before creating a requisition, you should consider whether you are ordering goods or services, so your requisition is set up correctly to avoid invoice payment issues against the resulting purchase order.

• Goods: An item that can be delivered such as supplies or a piece of equipment, furniture or most anything that can be itemized per line item(s) – usually the supplier quote is a good indication of itemization. Goods must be ordered as needed and will have a quantity, unit of measure and cost.
• Services: Some types of service being provided such as printing, consulting, snow plowing. Services must fall within a date range (start date and end date) and have a dollar amount.

ACH Request Guide for Departmental Users

Due to prior feedback from departments who indicated having this process documented would be helpful, Accounts Payable has prepared a reference guide on how to handle a request from a Supplier who needs to be paid via ACH, or needs their current ACH bank details updated. Departmental users should utilize the ACH Request Guide for Departmental Users  which has been posted on the P2P website.

Tips and Tricks: Accounting Date versus Budget Date in Workday

 Invoice Date – Entered at the time of invoice entry.  Date comes from the supplier as indicated on their invoice to us.  An invoice does NOT post to a ledger until it is fully Approved (Status updates to Approved) – see Accounting Date.

Due Date – Determined at the time of invoice entry.  Date is derived by Workday when the Supplier and Invoice Date is entered for an invoice: Workday looks up the Payment Term for the Supplier, applies that to the Invoice Date, to determine the Due Date.  AP staff can enter a Due Date Override as needed such as if supplier normally paid Net 30 but down payment must be paid immediately.

Accounting Date – Determined when the invoice is fully Approved (Status updates to Approved).  At that time, Workday first looks at the Invoice Date to determine if the Month of the Invoice Date is an Accounting Period that is Open, if so the Accounting Date will be the date of the invoice.  If the Month of the Invoice Date is an Accounting Period that is Closed, Workday will then look sequentially for the first Open Accounting Period:  If an invoice dated May 2023 is not fully Approved until today, Workday looks at May 2023 which is Closed, then June which is Closed, etc until it gets to October 2023 which is Open – the invoice will have an Accounting Date of 10/1/2023. Note that future Accounting Periods are opened on the 15^th of each month.  For example, November 2023 was opened on 10/15.  If an invoice dated 12/2 is fully approved on 11/15, the Accounting Date will be 12/2 even though it was approved earlier.

Budget Date – For supplier invoices, Budget Date is derived from the Invoice Date.  I expect Invoice Dates and Budget Dates to almost always match.  Budget Date can be edited via Journal Entry as appropriate (such as when the wrong date was entered for a SIR payment which are sometimes honoraria that are not processed right away and don’t have actual invoices with dates) and is most likely to happen when Grant FAO is involved.  Budget Dates are especially important for GRs and PRs.

Payment Date – Not associated with postings on ledgers.  Settlement run filters look at the Due Dates of invoices to determine which invoices are picked up in that settlement run.  The Payment Date is the date of the Settlement Run in Workday.  Ad Hoc Payments are different in that Payment Date is the Date entered/integrated for the AHP (examples: EPIC file date = Payment Date, manually entered AHP Date = Payment Date) which is not linked/derived when settlement run is created.

SIRS for Petty Cash

Per JP Morgan, employees requesting Petty Cash checks via a Supplier Invoice Request must cash those checks at a JP Morgan Chase branch. Other banks may have different policies regarding the beneficiary name on checks, and since UR AP is required to exclude the custodian’s name from the check’s payee name field, you may run into issues if you don’t use a JP Morgan Chase branch that are outside of our control.

Allscripts Supply Chain Solutions is scheduled to be upgraded on April 12, 2024, so that we can leverage new features and continue to receive support from Allscripts.

Testing began in November and more information will be provided as we approach go-live in April.

Contract Life Cycle Management

We are excited to announce that Jaggaer Contracts+  was selected as the enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution.  This solution was selected with support from over 20 departments across the University and Medical Center.  Jaggaer Contracts+  supports management of contracts from initiation through execution, performance and renewal/expiry.  It will enable significant improvements in efficiencies through a central repository, contract clause templates and libraries, automation of workflows, and electronic signature functionality.  CLM software helps to limit an organization’s exposure to risk by reducing missed obligations and increasing compliance with legal requirements.  It also enables improved financial stewardship, supplier consolidation and standardization opportunities through improved visibility.

Jaggaer Contracts+   implementation planning will commence in February. The initial scope includes Corporate Purchasing, University Information Technology, and Information Systems Division contracts. Additional departments will be selected for subsequent rollout phases at a later date. More information will be provided as this critical solution is implemented to reduce risk to the enterprise and contain costs.