Subject:

EE1 Procure to Pay Changes Summary

Guidance:

The Office of the State Comptroller – Office of Operations is pleased to announce SFS is now available for normal procurement and payments (P2P) operations after the Enterprise Enhancement (EE1) project upgrade in functionality.

The following summarizes some of the benefits and efficiencies in P2P operations facilitated by EE1.

Contracting

Contract lines – Contracts within SFS now have the capability to define specific components of the contract (lines), such as deliverable or period of time, and link separate chart of accounts values to each line. Each line can be “opened” as needed to allow P2P activity for that line.

Elimination of the “2 step” OSC audit approval process – System and operational enhancements no longer require the issuance of a purchase order for a contract to secure OSC audit approval for that contract, now enabling purchase orders to be used as true ordering documents and not just an encumbrance instrument.

Funds Reservation - SFS will now use the purchase requisition to ensure that funds are reserved within the budget to meet all open contract liabilities subject to OSC approval.

“Purchase Order” agreements – To streamline contracting practices, all agreements will now be entered into SFS as contracts, eliminating the previous practice of multiple streams for standalone PO contracts.

Revenue agreements – All revenue agreements, whether they require OSC approval or not, are now streamlined into a single process as customer contracts. This eliminates the need to process revenue contracts which require OSC approval within the procurement contracting processes. Points of emphasis on this area are that these contractors must be customers within the SFS customer files and processes to update the agreement are limited to on-line access and not accessible via a bulkload functionality.

Procurement

Purchase orders – Business changes result in the purchase order truly representing the request by the State of NY to a specific vendor for specific goods or services. This eliminates the needs for creation of purchase orders for funding purposes only, or, when combined with the use of deliverable specific contract lines, the need for additional notifications to begin work on deliverables.

Requisition to Purchase Order Integration – The procurement process has been streamlined to allow for automated purchase order creation and processing, including automated selection of vendor and delivery of the purchase order to the vendor. This “auto-sourcing” capability will be utilized by the OGS Business Services Center in select procurements but has the capability for expansion.

Integration with eMarketPlace – SFS is now integrated with the OGS NYS eMarketplace to allow for “online shopping” experience to meet procurement needs. This integration includes the selection of items to purchase, electronic dispatch of purchase orders to vendors, creation of the funding reservation in the SFS, and electronic receipt of invoices, including the creation of a voucher for payment.

Electronic Delivery of Purchase Orders to vendors – SFS now enables electronic delivery of purchase orders right to a vendor, eliminating the need to mail, print and fax, or manually email PO’s purchase orders to vendors.

Electronic Invoice Submittal and Automated Voucher Creation - SFS now has the capability to accept electronic invoices from a vendor and automatically create a voucher from that submittal for agency approval. This establishes an electronic invoice processing standard for the State and eliminates the mail times for paper invoices and the cost associated with invoice and voucher handling for both the vendor and the state. Currently 13 vendors are involved in piloting these features.

See more detailed information on these features and opportunities, please see the Office of the State Comptroller Guide to Financial Operations and the Statewide Financial System SFSSecure website.