Fiscal Year End for Purchasing Kristen Berning Purchasing Services Fiscal Year-End for Procurement is NOT an event, rather, it’s an ongoing project for all of us.

Things have piled up! Let’s dig out together.

You are responsible. Requisition preparers Procurement specialists Goal: All requisitions have a valid budget AND are either sources to a PO or is canceled. Procurement specialists Goal: All POs have a valid budget AND are either dispatched or closed. I’m starting with the who’s doing what so we are all on the same page A happy req is a happy PO. A sad req should be a dead req. POs should either be happy: dispatched with a valid budget, OR a dead PO.

2,200 of you do a lot of work! 185,000+ POs created in FY 2017 140,200+ were U Market POs 148,500+ created so far in FY 2018 115,000+ are U Market POs 34,600+ active POs 2,200 of the active POs are rolled POs 880 of them are SPA subawards How many of you are requisition preparers? There are 1,600 full requisition preparers and 600 U Market Only req preparers You’ve been really busy! Look at our volumes. Full details of our data is found online. There’s even a breakdown by cluster so you can see how busy your team has been!

Work toward FYE every month of the year! Don’t just worry about Fiscal Year-End, worry instead about the quality of every requisition and order as they are created. Every month monitor all your requisitions and POs.

We clean every month On second Sunday of the month Close 15,000+ POs All types of POs: fully received/vouchered AND have no activity in the last 30 days. CPS/blankets: expired end dates > 60 days. Close thousands of requisitions Canceled requisitions with no activity in 30 days. Requisitions tied to closed POs. Everything gets budget checked at the end.

Use the Burn Rate report Sent to procurement specialists the Monday before reconciliation Sunday. Requesters and procurement specialists can run this report at any time. Focus on: POs with end dates that are 60 days or more in the past as of the reconciliation Sunday. Fully invoiced and no activity in last 30 days.

FYE: What is a rolled PO? POs create encumbrances in the GL. POs can only be tied to one fiscal year. The fiscal year has to be open. Rolling is a series of system jobs and human tasks that move the PO from one fiscal year to another. The whole process can take up to five days.

Why do we roll our POs? We are nice. Other companies close everything and make people create a new PO in the new fiscal year. We are not normal. Most PeopleSoft clients do not roll their POs. We roll the highest volume of POs. Many clients shut down buying for 2-4 weeks while they close/clean up everything.

10,000 4,889 Rolled PO comparison FYE 2016 FYE 2017 Why are we so strict about what gets closed…

2016. The year-end that wouldn’t end. First FYE after PeopleSoft Upgrade. Low cluster requisition and PO cleanup. System got stuck in processing. Delayed opening new fiscal year. Requisitions did not get cleaned up in time, resulting in permanent budget errors forever trapped on reports. I refer to it as the FYE heard around the world, or the FYE that wouldn’t end.

Lessons Learned from FYE16 We were rolling too many POs. Clusters need to help more with cleanup. POs can only be rolled <1,000 at a time. POs with < $2,500 remaining are closed. Summary of FYE 2016: Workshops facilitated by Purchasing 70 procurement specialists and Cluster Directors attended five workshops Rolled approximately 10,000 POs U of MN rolls more POs than anyone System problems delayed EFS being open to users by one day 75% of POs with < $2,500 balance are paid out within six weeks (payments made as non-PO-related).

2017. Best. FYE. Ever. (So Far.) Nearly all units attended FYE procurement workshops. Clusters did an amazing job cleaning up their requisitions and POs. Everything went smoothly. Fiscal year 2018 opened up on time.

Fiscal Year-End 2018 Deep cleaning.

PO cleanup round 1: Volume reduction

PO reduction closures All U Market POs except those with equipment-related categories/Accounts. POs with less than $2,500 encumbrances. POs created ≥ 15 months ago with no voucher activity after 4/1/2017. Blanket orders totaling < $50K that are older than three years (created before 6/1/2015). These were the same as last year!

PO cleanup round 2: Things people do that make a PO ineligible to roll

Partial receipts: The silent killer.

Partial receipts Receipt and voucher have to perfectly match on quantity/amount. Discrepancies make a PO ineligible to roll, even if it’s just 1¢. This is the biggest reason why otherwise eligible POs don’t roll. Monitor for receiving issues. I’ll be doing a brown bag soon on receiving! Don’t get me started!

Free stuff? Would the store pay you to take groceries and this silly rabbit?

$0 = 0% chance of rolling POs will not roll if there is a $0 line. POs with $0 lines cannot be closed during the monthly reconciliation jobs. Force close processes will not work. Usually cause budget errors. All of the above have to be manually closed by one person.

“Zero is NOT your hero” See the job aid for dealing with free stuff. See the list of $0 POs we currently have. If a PO does get created with a $0 line: Tell the req preparer to stop doing this. Do not process a change order to add $, you will get an irreversible budget error.

Negative amount lines Entering a negative amount will mess up the accounting and double-encumber $. Trade-ins: only use the amount that the U will actually pay. Credit memos If we’ve already paid for it, process a non-PO-voucher (do not associate it to PO). If a payment hasn’t been made, ask the supplier to fix the invoice to reflect the credit.

Budget errors Make Kristen cry. Make you really mad. Stay forever as encumbrances on your reports. Are the worst possible situation at FYE.

Impact There are thousands of closed POs with budget errors. Most are from past fiscal years and cannot be removed. They slow the system down. It’s like garbage in the ocean: you’re never really getting rid of it.

Be proactive Purchasing Services queries for budget errors and contacts clusters when found. Procurement specialist must fix these. If no action is taken, Purchasing Services contacts your CFM for a valid ChartField string, then closes the PO. Zero POs closed in budget error at FYE17! Refer to the full list but here’s a few reasons why things close: POs with Unposted vouchers POs in match exception status POs with inactive supplier information POs with any other status than “dispatched” Change Orders in pending approval status Sent back change orders

What if my PO closes unexpectedly? Suppliers already have these POs and the terms and conditions still apply. In most cases it is the last payment. Pay using a non-PO payment process. Reminder that a new PO is needed for: Equipment. More than one payment left.

Clean up old requisitions Refer to the list of “aged open reqs”. Run the public query UM_DPO_AGED_OPEN_REQ_LINES Use eProcurement > Manage Requisitions to search for: Sent back requisitions Open (saved for later) Pending approval

It’s alive! Sent back requisitions are still alive! Just because an approver said no doesn’t mean the requisition is dead. Cancel it. Purchasing closes thousands of sent back requisitions every year.

EFS runs like clockwork Procurement jobs source approved requisitions to POs four times a day: 10:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. Watch for you confirmation emails or monitor your Manage Requisitions page.

Budget errors If requisition status is approved, check the budget status. Error = budget errors.

Budget errors are awful Refer to the list of these requisitions. Don’t just let them sit. If you don’t want it, you must edit it, change it to a valid CF string, save it, then cancel it. Any requisitions with budget errors that are not cleaned up will be forever stuck because the fiscal year will be closed.

Beware Do not just cancel these requisitions! There are thousands of closed requisitions stuck in budget error status. These zombie requisitions slow down the entire system (not just for purchasing activities but for everything). If you do “just cancel” these, the monthly reconciliation jobs will budget check it again, when it turns to complete. Then it will be “complete” and “budget error” status.

Fix sourcing errors Usually one or more lines is missing a supplier. Unresolved errors mean: PO will not get sent to the supplier. Trapped pre-encumbrance that, if not caught by FYE, are forever on reports. Only a procurement specialist or Purchasing Services staff can fix these. Approved and valid budget with no PO means there’s a sourcing error.

The plan & deadlines Thursday, June 21 Friday, June 22 Anything Purchasing needs to review due. Friday, June 22 Business as usual but stop at 2 pm! June 25-29 while you’re locked out: Mon – Thurs: PO cleanup & rolling of POs Thurs – Fri: cleanup of PO roll aftermath Sunday, July 1, FY2019 begins.

Plan ahead! All procurement roles will be locked out of EFS from 2 pm on Friday, June 22 until Sunday, July 1. That’s five business days. z.umn.edu/fye For you in the back…

Don’t wait. Start cleaning now and keep cleaning each month. Beat the rush for next year!

Fiscal Year-End 2018... If everyone works together, it will be a piece of cake!