To Duke Business Managers: Accounts Payable (AP) and Procurement Services (Procurement) have agreed to implement an important business process change effective May 27, 2008 (the same day as Imaging goes live in AP). On that date, our new software will begin automatically generating a fax transmission to the vendor when we receive an invoice without a purchase order (PO) number or with an invalid PO number. The fax transmission will inform the vendor of appropriate Duke business practice (see attached for a standard fax transmission letter) and request effort from the vendor to get to resolution -- working with their Duke contacts as necessary. As context, Duke receives approximately five hundred (500) invoices with no PO or an invalid PO each month. AP staff members individually research each of these “problem” invoices, working with internal contacts throughout Duke to identify the responsible party for the transaction and then soliciting an approval for payment. This process is extremely time-consuming for our customers throughout Duke and for AP, and it serves to perpetuate a business practice that increases cost to us and them in numerous ways. The majority of these transactions should require a purchase order to be issued in advance of receiving the goods or services. While we anticipate this may cause some concern with our vendors, we believe that over time both the vendor and we will benefit. The vendor will be paid on time and we will avoid the back-end rework and costly overhead associated with procure to pay transactions that fail to follow best business practice. Vendors may contact our internal customers after receiving this notice, and we want to be sure that you have the necessary information to explain the rationale for the decision and encourage the vendor and the Duke staff member to follow the appropriate process. It is our hope that the related issues will be short-lived, and that our internal customers and vendors will become much more mindful of appropriate business practices as an outcome of this business process change. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, and please feel free to share this message with others in your area who might be affected by this change.
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