Purchasing / Accounts Payable

The Purchasing/Accounts Payable (PURAP) module of the Kuali Financial System allows users to request goods and services, generate and transmit purchase orders, and process invoices and credit memos received from vendors.  The requisition, purchase order, payment request, credit memo and disbursement voucher documents (eDdocs) use the Workflow component for document approval followed by encumbrance, expense and liability entries in the General Ledger as required.  The robust search capabilities allow the user to track orders through to the payment process.  

Standard Requisitions
Requisitions can be submitted by any user of the financial system and will route based on department/unit specific configuration.  The requisition has the ability to route based on organization code and/or based on accounting information.  The requisition workflow is easily configured to work for various university needs.

Assign a Requisition to a Buyer
An approved requisition that does not become an Automatic Purchase Order is assigned to a Contract Manager (buyer) and placed in that Contract Manager code’s queue. The assignment of a Contract Manager can be done based on commodity code chosen on the requisition or as a manual process by someone within Purchasing.  

Shopping Cart (B2B) Requisitions
The Purchasing module provides established ties to connect an outside B2B system for catalog and non-catalog purchases.  Purchases made within the B2B system will be input into the Requisition document and will follow established workflow.  

Automatic PO
An approved requisition creates a Purchase Order.  There are two types of Purchase Orders:  Automatic Purchase Orders and Purchase Orders.  There are business rules that would allow a Purchase Order to bypass the Purchasing department of a university. When a Purchase Order meets these requirements, it becomes an Automatic Purchase Order (APO) and is then printed and submitted to the vendor by the requisition initiator.  Dollar thresholds for APOs can be set at a university level, or at a vendor contract level.

PO Processing
KFS Purchasing offers 7 document types of Purchase Orders.  Purchasing staff can split an in process PO, amend an open PO, retransmit, place a payment hold, remove a payment hold, close a PO, reopen a PO, and void.  Each document works independently with workflow and can be configured based on university needs.

Sales Tax
Integration with the KFS Sales Tax Service ensures accurate and timely recording of sales tax based on taxable setup by item types, commodity codes, accounts and object codes.

Quotes
In-process Purchase Orders can be sent out for a quote to various vendors, whether approved within KFS or hand typed. The information is sent out in a standard format with terms and conditions with the item information from the Purchase Order. Responses can be collected and then awarded to an approved vendor within KFS.

Payments
Accounts Payable has two types of eDocs that will generate payments in KFS.

Payment Request
The Payment Request (PREQ) document is processed to pay an invoice received from the vendor for goods or services associated with a purchase order.  There are two ways of creating a PREQ in PURAP.  The user can create the PREQ through the module and the system supports electronic invoicing as well.  

Disbursement Voucher
The Disbursement Voucher (DV) document is used to reimburse employees and non-employees for expenditures incurred on behalf of the University.  Some examples can be the reimbursement of subscriptions, membership or registration fees or payment of an honorarium to an outside vendor to mention a few.

Credit Memos
The Credit Memo (CM) document allows is used to process vendor refunds for goods or services related to invoices processed against Purchase Orders.

General Ledger Entries
Encumbrances, liquidation of the encumbrances, expense and liability entries are posted to the General Ledger as required and defined by the institution.

Vendors
KFS has a separate Vendor Module which through the use of eDocs, provides users with the ability to create and maintain Vendor records pertaining to the vendors created related to Purchase Orders as well as Disbursement Vouchers.  Each record maintains all information pertinent to a vendor, including the tax identification number, addresses, contacts and other details defined by specific institutions needed to manage their procurement process.

The Vendor module also provides a lookup function that allows the Purchasing/Accounts Payable user to quickly identify vendor contracts by description, by vendor and even by payment terms.