​​Introduction

The Invoice workflow is to enter, save, and authorize the invoice (most agencies automate the authorization step.) In addition to entering the vendor name and dollar amount details of an invoice, you can use optional fields such as a Group name or an Account number to help identify and find invoices.

The Invoice # (number) and the Invoice Description will be printed/displayed on the remittance advice for the vendor.

You can pay U.S. Bank P-Card statements in Payment Servcies. To do so, you must enter an invocie with the agency’s unique 16-digit account number in the Invoice Description field. The remaining 14 characters of the Description can be used as needed. And although you must enter an Invoice Number in Payment Services, the Invoice Number will not be included when the transaction is uploaded to STARS.

Batch Numbers

If your agency records or tracks batch numbers, the “Today’s Batch Number” is displayed at the top of the Payment Services page. Invoices will be automatically assigned this batch number when they are approved and released from Payment Services (this applies to all invoice payments released that day).

Figure 1 - Batch number in banner

Enter an Invoice

1. Open Payment Services and select Invoice.

2. Click the Invoice tab.

3. All of the fields applicable to an invoice are presented. Only two fields are required to be able to save an invoice – the Invoice # and the Total Amount.

However, the Vendor # is required to complete the fiscal coding on the Distribute screen, and it can only be entered on the Invoice screen. Why?

If a vendor has yet to be entered in Vendor Maintenance or STARS, or you are waiting to verify the precise vendor number with suffix, you could start the invoice, save it, and then complete the vendor information later.　
In most cases, you would enter or look up the Vendor Number when entering the invoice.

Figure 2 – Invoice screen and the required fields

4. Enter the Invoice # (14 alphanumeric characters) - do not use special characters or symbols.

• The invoice number will be printed on a warrant.
• If you enter an invoice number that you have used before, a Possible Duplicate Invoice warning will be displayed. Click the warning message to display details about the other invoice. This is only a warning and you can use the same invoice number if necessary. (See the Duplicate Invoice Number Warning section below.)

5. Enter the Invoice Date and the Payment Date, or select a date using the calendar.

• You do not have to select a specific Invoice Date or Payment Date unless it is necessary. The current day's date will be entered automatically when you save the invoice.
• The Payment Date is the date that Payment Services will send the transaction to STARS (if the final approval is done before 6:30PM MST.) 
  
• If an Approver changes the STARS Effective Date on the Approval screen, the Payment Date on the Invoice screen will not be changed.

6. Enter an account number (17 alphanumeric characters) in the Acct # field, if needed.

• This does not get sent to STARS and does not appear on warrants.
• This is not the U.S. Bank P-Card account number.

7. Enter an Invoice Description (30 alphanumeric characters). Do not use special characters or symbols, including &,',“,<,and \.

• This description will be printed on the remittance advice to the vendor, and will be seen on reports.
• If paying U.S. Bank P-Card, the Invoice Description must begin with the agency’s unique 16-digit account number. The remaining 14 characters in the field can be descriptive information.

8. Enter Comments as needed. Use this for notes or instructions to approvers, or for general information. Do not use special characters or symbols, including &,',“,<,and \. This information does not get sent to STARS and does not appear on warrants.

9. Enter the Total Amount.

• You can enter a negative amount using a minus sign (e.g., -250.00). If you do, then the amount will be displayed in parentheses ($250.00) and the reversal (R) indicator will be automatically entered for fiscal coders.

10. Enter a Vendor number. A good practice to enter a vendor number is to search for the number (This is referred to as a ‘look up’). Click the asterisk next to the Vendor # field, enter search criteria, and then click Find.

• Use the wildcard symbol (the ‘%" sign) in the search criteria to help your search. For example, use "%Equip%" in the name.
• In the search criteria, the Agency Vendors check box is checked by default. This means that the search results will display vendors that your agency has recently used in Payment Services. Uncheck this and search again if you don't find the vendor, or if a vendor name and address that you find is incorrect (the updated name or address should be found).
• You do not need use the search. If you know the vendor number (Vendor #) and the vendor number suffix (Sfx), enter them. Click in the next field or press TAB, and the Vendor Name and Address will be entered automatically.
• A vendor that has been recently added in STARS or Vendor Maintenance will not be available in Payment Services until the day after it is entered in those applications.

Figure 3 - Agency Vendors

• If the number is found, but the vendor name and address is incorrect, or you cannot find a vendor, uncheck Agency Vendors and click Find again. If you still cannot find a vendor, use the wildcard in your search.

11. Click Select next to a vendor number and the vendor related fields will be automatically filled in. Do not change the address or any other information that gets automatically filled in.

• If the vendor address that is automatically filled in is different than what was displayed in the search has changed in the STARS Vendor table. You should contact the vendor and verify the address and TIN.

12. If needed, enter a document number (Document #).

13. If applicable, enter a purchase order number (PO#).

14. If needed, select a group name from the Group drop-down menu. (Groups are created and managed by your Payment Services administrator.)

15. Click Save & Continue or Save & Clear. 

• You can update the invoice even after you have saved the invoice.
• Click Delete Invoice to delete it.

If needed, click the Attachments tab to attach scanned invoices or other documents for the invoice.

The invoice is ready to be authorized or for fiscal coding and/or cost distribution, depending on how your administrator has set up your agency. If you can authorize invoices, you can update any part of the invoice and save the changes even after the invoice has been authorized.

Save & Continue vs. Save & Clear

There are two options to save the invoice: Save & Continue and Save & Clear.

Save & Continue will save the invoice as a record in a database. It will leave the Invoice with the data that you have entered on screen. This option would be useful to enter several invoices from the same vendor and need only to change an invoice number, amount and description.

Save & Clear will save the invoice as a record in a database and clear the fields on the Invoice screen. This option would be useful to enter a new invoice from a different vendor.
When saved, the user’s name and the date are automatically saved in the Created by and the Date field. To start over with the invoice, click New Invoice to clear the screen without saving. In addition, you can update any part of the invoice and save the changes even after you have authorized the invoice.

Send E-mail notifications

 If e-mail functionality is enabled by your administrator, when the invoice is authorized on the Invoice or Approval screen, an e-mail dialog box will appear.

1. Highlight the recipient’s name. Hold down CTRL and click the left mouse button to highlight multiple names.

2. Type a comment if desired. Do not use special characters or symbols, including &,',“,<,and \.

3. Click Send or Queue.

• Send will send the e-mail immediately.
• Queue will save e-mail messages in a queue to be sent later in the day. If you do not open the queue to send an e-mail, the application will send it automatically by the end of the day.
• Queue will store multiple e-mail messages for the same recipients, but only send one e-mail for each recipient. The one e-mail will contain messages regarding each invoice.

Figure 6 - Send E-mail from the Queue

4. After sending or queuing, a verification message will appear. Click OK and then click X in the corner of the e-mail dialog box to close.

If you do not open the queue to send an e-mail the application will send it automatically by the end of the day. To send e-mails that are in the queue right away, do the following:

1. Click E-mail in the top menu.

Figure 7- E-mail queue menu

2. By default, all recipients are selected. Uncheck the check box in the Send column if you do not want to send an email to a particular person. However, any unsent e-mails in the queue will be sent automatically at the end of business day.

3. Click Edit next to an invoice and recipient to change the recipient for that invoice message. Note: This may clear all of the check marks for all recipients.

4. Select a recipient’s name from the Email To menu.

5. Type Comments if desired. Do not use special characters or symbols, including &,',“,<,and \.

6. Click Update to save the change. (Click Cancel to cancel the change.)

7. To prevent a recipient from receiving an e-mail, click Delete next to the invoice(s) invoice and recipient.

8. Select Check All if necessary. (You could select Check All and uncheck individual boxes in the Send column to not send e-mails for certain invoices and recipients.)

9. Click Send to send all selected e-mails from the queue.