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University Procurements and Disbursements departments have been directed by the VP of Finance & Operations Carlos Hernandez and President Dana Hoyt to send letters to all vendors requiring them to submit invoices via the BearKat Buy Invoice Portal effective January 1, 2017.

Teri Oparanozie learned of this from Norma O'Bannon and alerted Ann Holder and others.  Ann invited Norma O'Bannon and Renee' Starns to meet with the library to discuss the impact on the library.  Norma asked for the library to send a list of written concerns before the meeting. Teri obtained input from Technical Services, Interlibrary Services, and the Director's Office staff and wrote a description of how orders and invoices are currently handled by the library and our concerns with the Invoice Portal. See link to that report below.

On May 3, 2016, Norma O'Bannon (Director of Disbursements and Travel Services), Renee' Starns (Executive Director of Procurements and Business Services), Rozlynn Kieschnick (Asst Dir of Disbursements & Travel Services), and Tessie Rappesy (spelling?, Assoc VP Finance and Operations) met with Ann Holder, Jackie Conrad, Bette Craig, Sarah Greenmeyer, Michael Hanson, Teri Oparanozie, Kat Landry Mueller, Zach Valdes, Trina Walker, and Jermie Aldridge.

Norma announced that since they now have a better understanding of the library's situation from the information they received, library vendors will be exempt from using the Invoice Portal.

In addition, when the library enters invoices into BearKat Buy, we will no longer be required to create a Receipt record (because we do the receiving in our own library systems so we do not have to do it again in BearKat Buy).  Invoices can be attached in Comments directly in the BearKat Buy purchase order.  This is called 2-way matching which matches the purchase order with the invoice versus 3-way matching that matches the purchase order, receipt, and invoice. If there is not enough money allocated in the purchase order to cover the invoice, an error will occur and Disbursements personnel would notify the library.

However, after testing this, we found that it is better to create a Receipt with a receipt number so we can have something to match with the BearKat Buy invoice number (which always starts with an E so we call it the E number.) I don't know if the vendors were ever changed back to 3-way matching or if they were left as 2-way matching. We have been able to created receipts without a problem and have not been notified that Disbursements has had any problems either.

Other issues also came up during the meeting including paying vendors before invoice deadlines and P-cards for the library.  Norma emailed a summary of the meeting decisions:

All,

Thank you for taking time out of your busy work schedules to meet with us concerning the Invoicing Portal.  Below is a recap of the decisions made during the meeting.

• All Library (book, publication, etc.  electronic/paper) orders will continue as is.  These vendors will be exempt from using the invoice portal, if vendor contacts Library concerning portal please ask them to disregard the portal invite letter.
• Library will review the attached list of vendors, and will note which vendors can be turned to reflect “2-way matching”.  Once Disbursements receives list of vendors used for book/publication/loans, etc., we will flip to “2-way matching” and notify Library of effective date.
• Procurement & Business Services will review the net 30 pay date to possibly issue the check earlier than net 30 so the check is received by the vendor prior to or by the due date.
• Disbursements will omit the fax number from the vendor set up, so it does not transmit to BKB for PO distribution.
• Jackie will contact Controller’s Office concerning a new account code and routing for current code “728400” (library purchases only).
• Library will request approval for additional Pcards to be used for interlibrary loans, and Technical Services purchases. (Norma said that if the P-card is being used for a vendor, then the vendor does not need to be set up for 2-way matching. Jackie Conrad informed Norma that Interlibrary Services will not be using a P-card because Bette Craig prefers to continue paying from invoices as she is currently doing. Jackie will re-emphasize that Tech Services does want a P-card but will only use it for a few vendors so they should go ahead and set up our vendors for 2-way matching.  I guess if we need to specify the vendors we will use with the P-card, the main one is Amazon.  Others are smaller vendors that will have to be looked at on a case by case basis.)

Again thank you for your time.  If you have any concerns or issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Respectfully,

Norma O’Bannon

Director, Disbursements & Travel Services

SHSU

Trina Walker and Teri Oparanozie went through the list of vendors that Norma O'Bannon sent to us and selected those that should be switched to 2-way matching and that will be exempt from using the Invoice Portal. Jackie Conrad added about 3 vendors to this list and said Bette Craig sent a separate list for Interlibrary Services vendors.

5/17/2016 I emailed Norma to ask her about the status of 2-way matching for the vendors.  She said she: we are just now in the “Testing” phase of the setup.  Our hopes are to have all “two way matching completed in a week or so.  We will let you know as soon as we have the “two-way” matching set for all of you designated vendors.  Would you please forward me Ms. Craig’s list, I have misplaced it.

As the library uses other vendors we will need to notify Norma O'Bannon or Rozlynn Kieschnick to set up the vendor for 2-way matching and exemption from the Invoice Portal.

Here is a copy of the letter that Accounts Payable has been sending to vendors about the Invoice Portal in case one of our library vendors gets the letter and asks us about it.  We should tell them they should not use the portal for library invoices.