Question

Receiving Non-Inventory PO


Badge +3
  • Do Gooder (Customer)
  • 1 reply

Interested in how other companies have granted security and assigned responsibility for receiving noninventory PO’s.  We have a fair amount of project work with Non inv PO’s.  Is all receiving done by shipping dept,  by proj managers , purchasing ?  how have you utilized security and ensured segregation of duties ?


2 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +21

Hi @dhook ,

 

We purchase a lot of non-inventory parts for various departments.  We have the department who orders the non-inventory parts receive the actual parts they ordered instead of central receiving.  

 

As for segregation of duties we use purchase requisitions so all employees in a department can create a purchase requisition which flows to the department manager for approvals.  With exception of Accounting and Purchasing they can not create purchase requisitions nor receive purchase orders but their managers approve purchase requisitions for their departments.

 

The department manager does not have permission to create or modify a purchase requisition just authorize them.  Upon successful authorization a purchase order is created by our purchasing department and its sent to the person who entered the purchase requisition so the PO # can be provided to the vendor.  When the product arrives its brought to the department which ordered it and that department receives it.   Anyone who is able to create a purchase requisition is also able to receive it.

 

Accounting pays the bills so they receive the invoices and perform the invoice matching in the system.  

 

In our company no department or single individual is able to perform all these tasks below.  If you create a purchase requisition and receive you do not do anything else.   If you approve purchase requisitions you do not do anything else.  If you create purchase orders you do not do anything else.  If you match invoices and pay invoices you do not do anything else.   The process works for us and it means we have at least 3 individuals and/or departments involved to keep an eye out.

 

1. Enter a purchase requisition

2. Approve requisition

3. Create purchase order

4. Receive purchase order

5 Match invoice

6. Pay invoice.  

 

Regards,

William Klotz

Userlevel 7
Badge +28

Agree with @william.klotz our setup is nearly the same as his except for step 2, we have an automated invoice processing and do the approvals on the back end between his steps 5 and 6.

Segregation of Duties doesn’t have to be purely by permission, it can also be through process and even history logging to prove that it isn’t possible for someone to do the entire process end to end without visibility.

We do have others in the building do receiving, but they don’t create the POs.  HR for example does the receiving for all contract workers.  We have a separate permission set for one person that gives the access needed to raise the purchase requisition, receive the PO, and authorize the invoice.  But it is the in between steps that require two other people.  Another is needed to create the PO and a separate manager approves the payment run.

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