[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Acquisitions and Invoices

[Tim Spindler]

I'll have to say you are loosing me a bit because I don't know the details
of the EDI standard and I'm struggling as an intermediary between our users.
I'm not an acquisitions person and I am not entirely familiar with the daily
workflow.

In any case, the software we are currently using for acquisitions does
automatically retrieve status information and invoices when it is updated by
the vendor on their site.   Additional, the vendors generally ship a paper
invoice with the items.  I believe it does have a unique key to correspond
to the electronic INVOIC but I need to confirm this.  In any case, our
libraries are looking for a work flow that would allow them to update the
status of the order information through the standard EDI process (which it
sounds like this is what Evergreen acquisitions will do).  When they
physically receive the items, they want to be able to take the paper invoice
or packing slip after confirming that everything has arrived and match it to
an INVOIC which they could then with a single click mark all items received
based on the contents of the INVOIC.

Will Evergreen acquisitions have this functionality?  It sounds like it does
not as currently being developed.  The only way to mark items received is by
receiving the entire PO or selecting line items in the PO and marking theme
received.

Tim

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Joe Atzberger <jatzberger at esilibrary.com>wrote:

>
> I have been going back and forth with my member libraries and they have a
>> concern about this functionality and maybe current development is addressing
>> this.  Right now in their workflow, they might issue 3 orders to Baker &
>> Taylor on the 1st, 15th and 30th of the month and lets say each order had 10
>> line items.  Baker and Taylor ships 6 items the folowing month with an
>> appropriate  invoice.  Of the 6 items, 2 of the items are from the order on
>> the 1st, 2 of the items are from the order on the 15th and 2 are from the
>> order on the 30th.  In the Innovative system, they will import the
>> electronic invoice (or status update) from Baker & Taylor and that will
>> change the items to received.  They still physically verify that the items
>> were received and if there was a problem they would make the appropriate
>> changes to their records and notify Baker & Taylor.
>>
>
> That seems like a good workflow.  It relies on the editeur library supply
> guidelines that an INVOIC correspond to one shipment (not required by EDI).
>  It is an open question whether any vendor (or any we should care about)
> implements EDI INVOIC without regard for the editeur guideline.
>
> I imagine the invoice files are still retrieved automatically by the system
> when they are made available, but no processing is done based on them until
> one or more get selected during receiving.  Or perhaps they are uploaded
> from copies sent to staff via email?
>
> I assume a printed invoice accompanies the shipment.  Does it identify
> itself by a unique key (or by corresonding EDI filename) to make calling up
> the right electronic INVOIC easier?
>
> --Joe
>



-- 
__________________________
Tim Spindler
tjspindler at gmail.com
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