Finance - Purchasing
Within Purchasing, you can add/view Invoices, Estimates and add Local Cash purchases.Â
The page will default to the current week, but you can change the year and week by using the drop down options.Â
If using EDI invoices, an alert will pop up to advise you of the number of invoices that currently require approval. You can click on Authorise to review/approve those invoices or click on Continue to skip this process, you will land on the Invoices area by default.
An example of the Purchasing page can be seen below:
Invoices
To manually add an invoice, click on the +Add button
Complete all the fields marked with a red asterix.
You may need split the invoice into categories for reporting purposes, once you have added your 1st category, click on the + button to add another category. Repeat this until you have added the required categories.
An example can be seen below:
You can also approve invoices awaiting approval from within this page by clicking on the Invoices Awaiting Approval button in the top right hand corner.
Once you have added and saved your invoice, you will be redirected to the Purchasing home page which will now included the invoice in question.
Estimates
There are 3 ways to create an estimate in IndiCater:
An estimate can be manually added here. The user can enter an estimate invoice or an estimate credit note. From within the Estimates tab, click on +Add.
An estimate will be automatically created by booking off an order in Requisitions which has been placed with a supplier when the user clicks the Book Off option.
There are 3 different reasons why the user may select the Book Off option:
a)Â Â Â Â Â They have received their goods with a delivery note instead of an invoice
b)Â Â Â Â Their head office team has made the decision not to activate the Book Off and Convert to Invoice option and so the only option the user will see is Book Off
c)     The order is for an EDI supplier which means the user won’t see any other option other than Book Off.
An estimate credit note will be automatically created during the Book Off process if the user has amended the quantity and proceeded with a request for a credit note when prompted. This estimate will be created for the value of the credit required.
Users have 3 options when it comes to processing estimates:
Convert – the user converts the estimate into an invoice. This is recommended for an audit trail purpose and should be used by clients using e-procurement as it means the purchasing data is carried forward into the invoice. Click on Show All, choose the required Estimate/s, then click on Convert and Confirm. The estimate will be replaced by an invoice. Please note, this option will only be available if the client has the Estimate Conversion option activated.
Reverse – this cancels out the estimate leaving the outstanding value at zero. An invoice will need to be manually added. To reverse, click on the Combine/Reverse button, select the supplier and choose the estimate, then select Reverse Estimate
Combine – this enables the user to combine multiple estimates into 1 invoice. To Combine estimates, click on the Combine/Reverse button, select the supplier and choose the estimates, then select Combine Estimate. The estimate will be replaced by an invoice.
User guides are available on these options. A user can also use the ‘Show All’ button to view all current Estimates. If any changes need to be made to an estimate, you can select from the list or use the ‘Search’ bar on the right-hand side and click into the invoice or credit note. An example of the Show All option is displayed below:
EDI and estimates
When booking off an order placed with an EDI supplier, an estimate will be created.
When an electronic invoice comes in, it looks for the PO number which is on the estimate and it also looks for the estimate value. If the 2 match, the estimate is automatically converted into an invoice and the user doesn’t need to do anything else.
If the value sits outside the tolerance specified in the database, eg the tolerance is £10, the estimate is £85 and the invoice is £100, the invoice will be flagged as requiring manual approval and will be listed in the Invoices Awaiting Approval area. Once approved, the invoice will be created.
If the PO number is not found in an existing estimate, the user will need to manually approve the invoice which will be listed in Invoices Awaiting Approval.
Credit notes behave the same way as invoices.
Local Cash Purchases (Petty Cash)
Assuming the supplier has been added, click on Local Cash, then +Add, complete the mandatory fields as you would for an invoice.
This will be similar to adding an invoice and upon completion, the cash purchase will be added to this page.
Invoices Awaiting Approval
As displayed in the first initial screenshot of this user guide, any invoices awaiting approval will be highlighted in the top right corner of the Purchasing page.
To view any invoices, simply select the box found and you will be re-directed to our Invoices Awaiting Approval page as shown below:
To approve an invoice, simply hover over the invoice in question and click select. In this example, we will use the top invoice for £109.20 Gross.
Upon selection, you will see a screen similar to this:
To approve or dispute the invoice, simply use the buttons found at the bottom of the page. Upon approving the invoice, you will be redicted to the Authorise Invoice page where this order willl no longer appear.
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