SECTION OVERVIEW AND POLICIES

The Statewide Financial System’s (SFS) auto-sourcing functionality allows online agencies to streamline the procurement process by systematically creating a purchase order (PO) from an approved contract release or purchase requisition. This section does not apply to Bulkload agencies because these agencies do not use SFS to dispatch POs to suppliers.

The purpose of this section is to describe the available methods for creating auto-sourced POs and to explain the process for each.

For online agencies, there are three situations in which the SFS auto-sources a PO, which are:

1. Sourcing POs from staged contract releases on an approved agency contract in the Procurement Contracts Module. This creates a PO in an approved status.
2. Sourcing POs from approved purchase requisitions that include only items contained in the Item Master. This creates a PO in an approved status.
3. Sourcing POs from general purchase types (i.e., centralized contract purchases that are not part of the item master and discretionary purchases). This creates a PO in a pending status.

Process and Transaction Preparation:

Staged Contract Purchase Order Releases

Online Agencies

Agencies’ Contract Processors can define intervals at which the SFS will automatically create, or stage, POs for contracts. The process is known as “staging contract releases” and can be used to schedule one or more POs for a given duration. This saves time because agencies do not need to enter information on a PO that is already included on the contract, contract line, and/or distribution line.

For example, a Contract Processor can stage 12 releases of fixed monthly lease payments for a property during the coming year. The SFS will then automatically generate a PO each month for the coming year, saving the Contract Processor the time he or she would have needed to generate 11 additional POs.

To stage a contract release, the Contract Processor will access the release link on the contract header and define the contract line(s) and amounts to be included in a staged release, as well as the frequency for these releases (i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly). The Contract Processor will also identify other information required for the PO, such as, Supplier Location.

Staging contract releases requires that the Contract Processor be familiar with each contract to ensure that the automatic creation of POs is appropriate for the goods or services received under that contract. For example:

1. For a contract to lease office space, where the monthly payment amount is the same and the vendor does not expect to receive a PO each month, the Agency may choose to release a single PO for a 12-month period where 12 equal payments can be made against the PO.
2. For a monthly service contract where the vendor expects to receive a PO each month to schedule work but the payment amount is the same each month, a schedule, or staged contract release, of 12 purchase orders, one created each month, would be appropriate.

Staged contract releases will be auto-sourced at the interval requested by the Contract Processor. The auto-sourcing process will systematically create POs in an approved, budget checked, and dispatched status. The PO is dispatched using the default method identified on the vendor’s location on the vendor record.

Auto-Sourcing Purchase Requisitions to a PO

Approved purchase requisitions are auto-sourced to a PO in an approved or pending status depending on the contents of the requisition.

1. POs created in an approved status: Purchase Requisitions comprised solely of purchases referencing an Item ID from the Item Master will be auto-sourced to a PO in an approved, budget checked, and dispatched status. The PO will be auto-dispatched using the default method identified on the vendor’s location on the vendor record. Note: The Item Master is a repository of items that provides buyers with a standardized list of approved items, rather than using description based ordering. When purchasing items that are included in Item Master, the requestor should select these items from the Item Master for input onto the requisition.
2. POs created in a pending status: All other general purchase type requisitions will be auto-sourced to a PO in a pending status. Purchasing staff are able to approve, budget check, and dispatch these POs to the vendor after the auto-sourcing process has sourced the approved requisition into a PO. The PO will be dispatched using the default method identified on the vendor’s location on the vendor record.
   
   If an approved requisition fails to fully auto-source to a PO (e.g., the purchase requisition does not contain a supplier ID), the requisition will appear in the sourcing workbench within the purchasing module and an agency Buyer will be able to review the error message, Reset/Purge the requisition in error, and make the necessary correction. The requisition will then be available for auto-sourcing again, or the Buyer has the option to manually source the purchase requisition to a PO.

For more information on Purchase Order Dispatch, please see Section 7 – Electronic Purchase Order Authorization and Purchase Order Dispatch of this Chapter.

Guide to Financial Operations

REV. 10/04/2023