University of Minnesota
Controller's Office
http://controller.umn.edu/
612-624-1617 or finsys@umn.edu

Accounts Payable, Procurement Card (PCard), and Travel

This includesmaking non-payroll payments to suppliers and employees, vendor maintenance for non-payroll payments, travel advances, emergency checks and foreign payments, payments for withholding to the State, 1099 Miscellaneous Income reporting and payments to the IRS, data entry of payment and financial transactions, payment corrections, and the University's Procurement Card program.

Facts, Figures, and Recommendations

Ever wonder how much it costs to process an invoice, how long it takes for vendors to cash checks, or how many duplicate payments are erroneously made?

Disbursement Services has compiled some interesting facts and figures about the University’s Accounts Payable operations, including a number of helpful and important recommendations.  All of this information is currently available here.

Level III transaction data from merchants

The level III data on PCard purchases provides a more detailed description of the purchase, which may assist in identifying possible fraudulent activity when comparing the level III details to the details on the receipts. The level III detail should be compared to the receipts, when reconciling and approving pcard transactions.

A list of merchants provide level III data for Pcard purchases is available here. The number of merchants providing level III data is constantly changing; as a result, the list may not be all inclusive.

This list will be updated periodically.

Vendor Authorization Form (VAF)

The Vendor Authorization form and other finance-related forms can be found in the UWide Forms Library. This form must be completed and sent to Disbursement Services before a vendor can be set up in the financial system.

Disbursement Services' goal is to process vendor forms within three to five days of receipt. Almost one-third of the forms submitted require additional time due to the information not being legible or required documents not being submitted with the form. To expedite the processing of vendor requests, please follow the guidelines listed below:

Vendor Authorization Form (VAF) UM 1679 – Common Problems & Processing Tips

  1. Best practice when requesting a vendor to be set up is for the department to obtain the information directly from the vendor and type the data onto the Vendor Authorization form (pdf). Handwritten forms are extremely difficult to read and can result in incorrect vendor information.

  2. The Description of Services/Reason for Payment is a required field on all VAFs.

  3. For new vendors, requesters are required to send vendors a W9 (pdf) to complete. The completed and signed W9 should be submitted along with the VAF (pdf).

  4. If the new vendor is a Sole Proprietor or Individual, departments are required to complete and submit the Independent Contractor Authorization Form (pdf) along with the VAF and W9.

  5. For changes to existing vendors, requesters complete the appropriate fields on the VAF. Unless there is a vendor name change or tax ID change, a W9 is not required. The Independent Contractor Authorization form is not needed for changes.

  6. Large volumes of Vendor Authorization Forms are being submitted without the "Requested By" section at the bottom of the page completed. This section is critical for a vendor set up because it contains the fax/email information of the requester. If the information is not completed, Vendor Maintenance does not know who to contact if there is a question regarding the form but most importantly we do not know to whom to send the vendor number if this information is missing.

  7. Do not submit a separate fax cover sheet with the VAF form because the cover sheet may get separated, which may have contained important information. Also, the additional page takes up valuable space in ImageNow.

Please call the University Financial Helpline at 612-624-1617 or email finsys@umn.edu with questions.

Procurement Card Processing Calendar

The PCard processing calendars can be found on the Policy Web site as appendicies to financial policy on Using the University Procurement Card.

The last day to reconcile and approve pcard activity is the 10th of the month following the activity. If this is a weekend or holiday it will be the next business day.

Forced reconciliation is the 15th of the month following the activity, or the next work day if the 15th is a weekend or holiday.

Use the Billing Date to print Purchase Detail Reports. Print the report the day AFTER the billing date using the billing date.

Purchase Detail Reports and supporting documentation are due to Disbursement Services by the end of the month following the activity. Example: January 2009 reports are due by February 28.

PCard Frequently Asked Questions

Where is level 3 data? What is level 3 data?

Level three data (aka level III data or level 3 data) lists out which items were purchased. For example, airfare purchases will contain level three data that includes ticket information. Target, Amazon, Office Depot purchases will usually include a list of specific items purchased. It depends on the merchant whether there is any level three data or not. A list of some merchants that provide level 3 data is posted here.

To see level 3 data in EFS, navigate to:
eProcurement > Procurement Card Center > Reconcile > Reconcile Statement...
And search for the cardholder activity you want to review.

From the Procurement Card Transactions page, there will be a "pad of paper" type icon like this:
level 3 icon

It is usually in about the middle of the row just after the currency code column and before the "details" hyperlink. If you hover your mouse over the icon, it will say "Line Details". Click on this icon.

If there is "level three" data, there will be four sections on the screen that appears. The "level three" data is in the bottom section and you can see the items purchased listed, usually way off to the right (might have to scroll over).

PCard reconcilers and approvers tips

There is a new job aid available that shows how to narrow the amount of data returned when working with PCard activity (reviewing, reconciling, approving). Anyone with PCard access can use these tips to display fewer results. These tips are very useful when you work with many cards or many transactions on a card and want to address just one card or one portion of the activity at a time. This announcement will be included in the release notes emailed to the community on Monday.

Procurement Card (PCard) improvements for approvers and reconcilers (11/16/09)

This communication is to make you aware of coming changes to the PCard Reconcile Statement page affecting both approvers and reconcilers of PCard activity. Please read this summary. These improvements are scheduled for November 22, 2009 but if issues are encountered during final testing, they may not be installed until the December release.

My PCard report is missing

A blank report is typically caused by 1 of 2 things

1. An invalid Run Contol - the Run Control ID can not have any spaces or numbers in it. When she first navigates to eProcurement > Procurement Card Center > Reports > Purchase Details, the system will allow her to Find an Existing Value or Add a New Value. As long as the Run Control ID is valid, you can use a previously created one. "PurchDetail" would be a valid name.

2. The billing date is off. Double check to make sure the year did not change, as it gets cut off sometimes and is hard to see. It has to be the exact billing date.

I'm tying to get a Procurement Card Details Report from the new system. I am following the Job Aid step by step, and it's not working, why?

This is a Crystal report, and it will not run on the PSUNX server (which is the default). Please leave the server blank on the second screen of your Run Control when running Crystal reports. If you have a Crystal report process stuck in queued status, cancel the request, if you can, through the Process Monitor.

Steps to cancel a process through the Process Monitor. (pdf)

Will Procurement Card transactions done in foreign currency show up on my reconciliation report in the foreign currency or will it be converted to U.S. Dollars?

All transactions will be already converted into U.S. Dollars using the appropriate exchange rates for the date of the activity.

Forms Policies Job Aids

Financial Policies

The following policies can be found at the UWide Policy
Library.

Job Aids

Forms

The following forms can be found at the UWide Forms
Library.