On Tuesday the 19th of July Escone Solutions conducted the third webinar of the Financial Management System Focus series. This webinar covered some of the capabilities that the eBIS application can perform around new supplier requests, external supplier requests and supplier modifications. This ensures segregation of duty; audit compliance and supplier checks are being carried out.
The webinar began with a presentation from Escone Solutions eBIS and Operations Team Lead, Alice Emmison. Alice discussed the capabilities of the eBIS application and how the forms which can be created can benefit organisations. This was followed by James Coulthard, the Finance Business Partner at Great Places Housing Group who shared how eBIS helped his team. He then went on to say how Escone had helped Great Places Housing Group with working with the application.
Can you set automated emails to request updated insurance certificates on expiry, as an example?
“You can create a table query which could produce this information which could then be used to manually contact the supplier. We may also be able to set up a task for this to be sent out automatically however we would need to look in to this further.”
Is it possible to set up Analysis Codes against suppliers during set-up to allow suppliers to be categorised in a Hierarchy format?
“Yes, analysis types can be set up against the supplier. The analysis codes can then be selected during the New Supplier Request process. These can be made mandatory at specific stages within the approval process. The Supplier Modification form can be used to modify these analysis codes if required as well.”
If a Supplier is changing Bank Account Details, can the workflow for this be different than other modifications, and can mandatory documentation be added for checking the requirements?
“Yes, it can. Different supplier modification reasons can be provided such as address changes, bank details change etc. Whichever one the requester selects can determine the approval workflow of the form. For example, the bank details change may require additional approval steps. Mandatory attachments can be set up and could be required if for example a specific supplier modification reason has been given or it can be set up to be mandatory for all requests/modifications or for different parts of the approval process.”
What permissions/licenses do employees need to be able to set up new supplier requests/modifications?
“An employee will need an eBIS Accounts payable license to request/approve new supplier requests and modifications. Escone can help to create reports showing what licenses existing users have as well to assist with license re-allocation or user housekeeping.”
If the supplier does not complete the external supplier form, will they get a reminder?
“Reminders can be set up at any stage of the form and can be set to run on a pre-determined number of days or working days. This can be set to email the supplier or could also be set at any of the approval stages.”
When a user requests a new supplier or supplier amendment, are they notified when the request is fully approved and complete?
“This can be built into the form so that particular users or email addresses are emailed when a new supplier request or supplier modification has been fully approved and has now been created or updated.”
Can the eBIS menu be manipulated to show only the stages the user has access to?
“Yes, we would recommend controlling this through eBIS profiles. For example, a New Supplier Requester profile would have access to the entry, rejected and completed stages of the form. Anyone with this profile would only be able to access those stages. Whereas an approver may only have permission to access and see the approval stage of the form.”
Is it possible to select which user an eBIS form moves on to for approval rather than being dictated by a workflow?
“Yes, a next user field could be added to the form which could provide a list of users or approvers which can be selected. Once this user field has been selected the user could then select a button which moves the form to that particular user for approval.”
Would it be possible to give a user access to a form like a supplier request form at multiple stages? E.g., access to raise requests at the entry stage but also approve requests at approval/finances stages etc.
“We could but we would not recommend doing this due to segregation of duty. However, we could build in segregation of duty roles to ensure that the user would receive an error message if they tried to approve a request that they raised. This would allow the user to still approve requests for other requesters.”
If a new supplier or supplier mod form is created but then it is identified that it is no longer needed, can it be deleted before it is approved?
“If a request has not been fully approved, it could be rejected by an approver which would then allow the requester to delete the request. Alternatively, some of our clients would make us aware that a request would need to be deleted and, in this case, we would move the request back to the requester at the Rejected stage which would then allow them to delete the request.”
If you would like any information or to make an enquiry regarding anything spoken about in the above questions, please get in touch by clicking here > https://bit.ly/2TM0FVK
