Unit4 Business World

Over the last few months, a review of the use of the University's finance system (ABW) in relation to Procurement has been taking  place and as a result some changes will be made that will increase efficiency, improve transparency and reduce risk. These changes are detailed below and come under three main headings.

1. Purchase orders will be sent directly to suppliers
2. Users can select alternative delivery addresses
3. Requests for new suppliers and supplier amendments will be made within the system

The ABW system is being updated for how addresses are handled in relation to requisitions and purchase orders. The current process for sending a purchase order to a supplier is that the order once approved is returned to the requisitioner for them to send directly to the supplier. The new process means that orders will be sent directly to the supplier, making the process more efficient and reduces the risk of fraud. To alleviate some of the potential or perceived issues, users will be able to:

• For large suppliers,  have the ability to select which address they need the purchase order to be sent to when creating a requisition. This generally applies to Government Bodies and other Universities rather than commercial suppliers.
• Add documents to the requisition, flagging them as either an internal only document for university reference, or as an attachment to be sent with the purchase order.

Once a requisition has been approved, the requisitioner will receive a confirmation of the PO number and the supplier email address to which the order has been sent. An exercise has recently been undertaken to update supplier records within the system with up to date order email addresses. Any changes required to supplier email addresses should be made through the normal channels (also due to change soon - see below).

In addition to these changes, the system currently selects a default delivery address based on the cost centre for which the goods are being ordered. If a user has wanted to change this, the only option is to add details into the body of the purchase order or to add details in a covering email. This can be confusing for the supplier and doesn’t look very professional. Users will now have a default delivery address that is the cost centre to which their salary is charged with the option to select an alternative delivery address when creating a requisition from a drop-down list. If the required delivery address is not available on the drop-down list, users can request a new delivery address to be created for future use by emailing abwstaff@aber.ac.uk If a user's default delivery address is incorrect and they always or mostly send goods to a different address they can also request this to be updated. Deliveries should normally only be made be to university buildings and there will be controls in place to check requests for new delivery addressees that do not meet these criteria.

Following on from this will be the handling of new supplier requests and supplier amendments. These are currently processed by users completing an on line form and will move to being integrated within ABW.  The impact on the end user is minimal and in many cases will be a shorter process. The approval process will ensure compliance with Procurement Policies and include the verification of bank details for payment.

User guides for the above changes are available at https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/finance/information-for-staff/agresso/

May I take this opportunity to remind staff who have responsibility for procuring goods and services on behalf of the university that under the University's Financial Procedures,  the need for our various purchasers to raise ABW purchase orders for all transactions before goods, services or works are supplied/performed by our suppliers. In part, the University has concerns that where a supplier has provided a service, but a purchase order is raised retrospectively such actions have the potential to contribute to costs being higher than budgeted for. In this regard, our end users will be advised that failure to generate purchase orders at the relevant time could result in our suppliers not being paid. The University's Procurement Policy and Financial Regulations can be found here: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/finance/information-for-staff/procurement/#policies-and-procedures

If you have any queries regarding the above please contact Procurement in the first instance.

The web form for creating, amending and re-activating suppliers has been removed. All request for creating, amending and re-activating suppliers will now need to be done in ABW directly, a guide on the process can be found further down in this page under the section Suppliers.

To login to ABW please go to https://abw.aber.ac.uk/

If you find you do not have the necessary access in ABW to create, amend or re-activate a supplier you will need to request access at https://bisaccess.aber.ac.uk/en/

If you need to create or amend a customer you can do this in ABW, to login please go to ABW login. For help, please see under Customer and Sales in the Guides and Information section below.

If the Customer has already been setup on Business World please complete the form below in order to request an invoice to be sent out:

• Sales Invoice Request (AU link)

Below is a list of links of useful information for using Agresso:

• Basics (pdf)
• Glossary of Terms (pdf)
• Explanation of Coding Structure (pdf)
• Product & Account Listing for Expenditure (xls)

• New Customer Requests and Amending Customers

Setting up new suppliers - User Guide

Re-activating a supplier and supplier amendments - User Guide

IR35 Self Employed FAQs

Status Determination Statement

The form below contains all the necessary information the supplier will need to provide.

New Supplier Data Form

Before placing any orders with suppliers you must have raised an approved Purchase Order (PO), in order to raise a PO you must complete a Requisition on Business World which will require approval from designated approvers. Once approved the PO will be sent to the supplier directly to which you will copied in.

Raising Requisitions for Purchase Orders (pdf)

Includes:

1. How to raise a requisition
2. What happens after the requisition has been raised
3. How to check the status of a requisition

Approving Requisitions for Purchase Orders (pdf)

Includes:

1. How to process requisition approval tasks in Business World

All Purchase Invoices (PI) received should include a PO number, ideally all invoices should be sent directly to the Finance Department, should they be received in your department please forward onto Accounts Payable (paystaff@aber.ac.uk) in the Finance Department for processing.

In order to pay any supplier a goods receipt must be completed prior to payment, the purpose of this is to confirm that service/goods you have order have been received.

• Good Receipt (pdf)

If a PI has been entered onto Business World without a Goods Receipt a 'Missing Goods Receipt' task will be sent to the Requisitioner to confirm whether or not the service/goods have been received.

• Missing Goods Receipt (Coming Soon)

If there is a difference in value between the PO and PI (5% or £50) a task will be sent to the original approver of the requisition to confirm that they are happy for the invoice to be paid

• Purchase Invoice (Coming Soon)

Supplier Invoice Approval

Admins Invoice Processing Guide (pdf)

Budget Holder Reports