Commodity-based Documents Overview

The primary instrument that initiates payment processing for commodity purchases is the Payment Request.  Depending on how the rules and options are configured, the Payment Request document can perform several functions.  These functions are strongly influenced by the Event Type selected on the accounting line, and the rules established on the Document Control (DCTRL) table.  The Payment Request has the ability to:

• Be the only transaction in an expenditure processing chain to pay for goods/services which will book the expenditure and establish a payable in the system

• Reference another document, so that referencing portion is liquidated

• Make a payment against multiple budgets that span multiple budget fiscal years

• Support multiple vendors at the line level, allowing multiple vendors to be referenced within the same Payment Request document

• Enter commodities and supporting commodity information, enabling direct payments (those with no supporting purchase order, as well as payments that reference prior transactions, for commodities to be processed within Advantage Financial

• Tracks the Fixed Asset Purchases. Refer to the Fixed Asset Payment Request document section in the Advantage Fixed Assets User Guide for more information about the Fixed Asset purchases

• Create credit memo requests to offset future requests for payment

• Authorize payments for inventory items

• Authorize payment for fixed assets

• Take retainage based on terms established on a referenced order

• Liquidate a Purchase Order or Requisition without requesting a payment for corrections

• Correct a Purchase Order that will reopen a commodity line and accounting lines with an option to also create a credit memo.  The Inverse choice in the Reference Type field enables this functionality

• Reference a Master Agreement directly without an order document, no liquidation needed

Advantage Financial allows you to request payment by using one of six payment request documents:

• Commodity Payment Request (PRC) - The PRC document is used to make payments to an external vendor for commodity based expenditure. It needs to be created manually.

• Internal Payment Request - Commodity Based (PRCI) - The PRCI document is used when the payment request is created manually to make a payment to a vendor that is classified as Internal on the Vendor/Customer table.

• Matching Payment Request (PRM) - The PRM document is created by the matching process to pay for an external vendor for encumbrances that include a commodity that requires either a two way or three way match for payment.

• Payment Request Match for Internal Vendors (PRMI) - The PRMI Document is created by the matching process to pay an internal vendor for encumbrances that include a commodity that requires either a two way or three way match for payment.

• Commodity Encumbrance Correction (CEC) - The CEC document is used to make encumbrance corrections. It needs to be manually created.  

• Matching PR - Negative (PRN) - A PRN document is used in place of the CEC Document when the inverse Payment Request is created via the matching process.   

Important concepts and features of commodity-based documents include:

• Commodity Payment Request Event Types

  The following are the nature of accounting activity associated with the Commodity Payment Request Documents: Payment Authorization - Payment Authorization is used to pay for goods or services that have been received. An invoice or the match process usually precedes payment authorization, however, the system also accepts direct or stand alone payments. When a payment authorization event type is chosen, it may reverse the impacts of the prior document, if a document is referenced, or just recognize the expenditure if no references have been made. Pre-payment - Prepayments occur when payments are made to the vendor before the expenditure has occurred. In this situation, the cash is decreased and tracked using a predefined prepaid expense account (asset) until the expenditure event is incurred. When the expenditure is incurred, it is recognized in a separate transaction.

• Referencing Prior Transactions

  In Advantage Financial, Payment Request documents can reference other documents, such as requisitions and awards. This will liquidate all, or a portion of, the pre-encumbrance and encumbrance, respectively.   (Please note that if a Payment Request references a Master Agreement directly then liquidation does not occur, since the Master Agreement does not contain accounting data.) Referencing prior documents allows for easy document entry because the information on the referenced document (such as funding distribution) is automatically inferred to the Payment Request.

• Referencing Master Agreement Documents

  A Payment Request document can directly reference the Master Agreement (MA) document.  The reference can only be done on the PRC in situations where users may need to directly pay a vendor without first needing to process an order document.  This includes cases where goods or services are delivered on a regular basis based on a Master Agreement (for example, equipment rental), as well as cases where an order is placed directly over the phone.   (Note: You cannot reference a Master Agreement Commodity Line that has the Inactive Line flag selected.)  The Payment Master Agreement Reference field on the Procurement Document Control (PRDOC) table determines which Payment Request documents can reference a Master Agreement.   Please refer to the Procurement Document Control Table section for setup information required for Payment Request documents referencing MA documents.   Please refer to the "Master Agreement (MA)" section in the CGI Advantage Procurement User Guide for more information. There are three ways to establish a payment referencing a Master Agreement in Advantage: Manually record the reference to the Master Agreement on the Payment Request document.  Please refer to the Manually Record Reference to the MA section for more information. Using the Master Agreement Search functionality.  Please refer to the ”Master Agreement Search Functionality” section in the CGI Advantage Procurement User Guide for more information. Processing a Universal Requestor document and selecting the Create Payment check box.  Please refer to the "Master Agreement Commodity Search - Select Lines” section in the CGI Advantage Procurement User Guide for more information.

• Commodity Based Encumbrance Search Page

  The Commodity Based Encumbrance Search (ENCSRCH) page is used to search for an encumbrance based on vendor and document details and to create a Payment Request document for all or selected accounting lines. In the General Search section of the page, you can select the Browse link to query the document catalog for all encumbrance documents with Document Type PO (except for Commodity Based Document Lapse (CBDL) documents) that match the search criteria for exact or wild card values.  Pending and cancelled POs are not displayed in the search results. In the Create Payment Request section of the page, when you select the Create Payment link, the values entered are validated similar to when a payment document is being created using the Copy Forward action on an encumbrance document; A draft payment request document referencing the selected accounting lines associated with the selected encumbrance document is created.  You can also select some or all accounting lines displayed on the grid to be paid.  On successfully creating the draft payment request document, you are navigated to the editable document so that you can continue with processing the payment request.  Note that similar to the general Copy Forward action, partial and closed accounting lines are processed based on the selected commodity line amounts and not on the selected accounting line amount. In the grid section of the page, the Select Lines link transitions you to the Commodity Based Encumbrance Search – Select Lines page for the selected encumbrance document.  Only one record can be selected at a time when using the Select Lines link.

• Modifying and Adjusting the Payment Request Document  

  Sometimes it is necessary to change document information after it has been processed.  Changes can only be made to the Payment Request document lines before it has been disbursed (paid by the Automated Disbursement process).  Once it has been disbursed, changes cannot be made until the check/warrant has been cancelled and the Payment Request document is re-opened.   Any changes to the document after the Payment Request has been accepted by the system need to be made using the Document Modification action. All versions of the modification are stored in the Advantage system so you can track each change made after the Payment Request has been accepted. This history can be viewed on the Document History log. Modifications made to a Payment Request that references another document also impact the referencing document, depending on the changes made. If the changes do not impact the accounting entries or system maintained tables of the previous document, the changes are updated to the Payment Request only.  If the payment has accounting impacts to the referenced document, extra accounting entries will have to be posted and update the referenced document.

• Partial/Final Payments

  Partial/Final payments can be done in two different situations: Disbursing a Payment Request: Since multiple vendors and disbursement options are allowed, the disbursement can occur on different days.  Until all lines are disbursed, the Payment Request document is partially paid. Liquidating a referenced document can be performed as follows:   More than one Payment Request liquidates a referenced document.   Payment Request document partially references a document with the ”Final” Reference Type selected and the system forces to close out the referenced document by reversing un-referenced portion. For more information about Partial/Final Payments, refer to Advantage Financial General Accounting User Guide.

• Recurring Payments

  Some payments may occur on a predefined frequency, such as monthly or quarterly.  In Advantage Financial, these are known as recurring payments. Recurring Payments can be created two ways in Advantage - either via Future Document Triggering, or by using the Schedule Invoice Generation functionality. Future Document Triggering The PRC or GAX document can be used for establishing recurring payments.   In order to create a recurring payment, you can use the Future Document Triggering option. If this option is selected, it indicates that when this entry is triggered, the original document will be copied to create the new document. This type can be setup for any frequency.  It is the only type that is valid for all of the recurring frequencies. For more information, refer to the "Future Document Triggering” section in the Advantage Financial Documents User Guide. Schedule Invoice Generation Many government entities process similar, recurring payments to vendors for goods and services such as leases, rents, or health and human services contracts.  Some of these recurring payments have predefined reconciliation periods when the previous amount paid to a vendor during a certain period is reconciled against what was actually delivered. If necessary, the next payment to the vendor for this contract is adjusted to bring the two amounts into alignment.  In some cases, these may be legislatively mandated payments made on a recurring schedule in advance of receiving a physical invoice for the services.   This process is used when vendor invoices are received on a monthly basis but payments may need to occur on a more frequent interval.  In many cases, these arrangements are made with vendors whose primary or sole customer is the government.  A primary feature of this process is that payments can be issued prior to receipt of an invoice.  As a result, users can configure order documents such that the system will initiate payments to vendors frequently enough to help them cover their operating costs.  While vendors are required to send a periodic invoice detailing the actual services provided, a physical invoice is not a requirement for payment in these cases.  However, once the invoice is received, the actual payment amounts must then be reconciled with the invoiced amounts.   Advantage Financial users will have the ability to designate an order/encumbrance as a recurring payment and choose a recurring payment schedule. The Scheduled Invoice Generation Chain Job, which can be run on demand, will generate invoice documents for the recurring amount and on the schedule identified.  The Matching Manager Chain Job, which can be run on demand, will then match the invoice to the order and generate payment request documents. Users will periodically reconcile entries on the Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) table based on an indicator on the Schedule Sequence.  Future invoice documents are not generated for the referenced Order commodity line until the reconciling entries are made on the SIG table. Recurring Payment Schedule (RPSCHD) Table - The Recurring Payment Schedule (RPSCHD) table defines the payment Schedules for recurring payments.   Each Schedule can have multiple time periods, or sequences, defined to it.  Having a Schedule split into multiple Sequences allows for specific Sequences to be defined as a Reconciling Period (when the Schedule has a Recurring Payment Type of Reconciling).   When an invoice is generated for a recurring payment during the dates of a Sequence flagged as a Reconciling Period, additional information is manually added to the Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) table prior to the generation of the recurring invoice document. A Schedule defined on the Recurring Payment Schedule (RPSCHD) table is entered on the header of Recurring Payment Order (RPO) documents.  RPO documents update the Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) table when submitted to Final and therefore the Schedule for each RPO is added to SIG along with other information about the RPO.   Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) Table - The Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) table provides a list of the past and the next scheduled recurring invoices to be generated.  Scheduled Invoice Generation records cannot be modified once a Recurring Invoice document has been generated. This table allows you to link to the Scheduled Invoice Generation Management (SIGM) table to manage invoices scheduled for generation for recurring payments.  You can also link to the Recurring Payment Schedule table. Scheduled Invoice Generation Management (SIGM) Table - The Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIGM) page is an alternate view of the Scheduled Invoice Generation (SIG) table and is used to query and update multiple SIG records simultaneously.  The Hold Payment, Single Payment and/or Disbursement Handling Code values can be updated from this table.

• Canceling Payment Requests

  A Payment Request can be cancelled if the PR document was entered in error. The cancellation of the PR is accomplished through the Discard action of the document.  PR documents that are partially or fully paid cannot be cancelled.  All cancellations will reverse the document's impact on all tables, and reverse ledger postings on the journals.