Assume all of these are happening You are in the accounting (specifically Accoun

Question

Assume all of these are happening

You are in the accounting (specifically Accounts Payable) department of your firm. You handle approving payments made to vendors.

Your standard process assumes that internally your operations department has requested and approved permission to order some specific product or service at a certain price in a certain quantity.

Your procurement department found an approved vendor to provide that product or service as specified.

Your internal document trail has:

The original request with authorizations

The executive management approval

The procurement approval and selected vendor

The purchase order number for the contract / purchase agreement with the vendor

The vendor's acceptance of the order and their payment terms

The vendor's sales department has record of the sale

The vendor has documents proving the manufacture and shipment of your order

The shipping firm (if not their own) has documents for the receipt of the product from the vendor and transportation to your facility

Your receiving dock has documents noting the date, time, quantity, and acceptable quality of the product being received

All four criteria for revenue recognition are met

You have access to all of your internal documentation

Both you and this vendor have sophisticated information systems with state-of-the-art security and disaster recovery systems. These are mature systems and processes and proven via external audits performed every year.

Determine whether you would or would not support working with such vendors (ones that meet the assumptions above just as your company meets the assumptions above) to develop an ongoing process so that (1) they would not have to generate invoices and (2) you would not need to process their invoices - but you would authorize payment to them upon receipt of the material or service. ("No invoices" means no paper or electronic invoices.)

If implemented, both parties save significant time in their accounting departments. Do not document this new process in detail - discuss why you would not support it or why you would. You do not need to have references, but you can if they help the reader.

Write 500 to 600 words beginning with "I do support ...." or "I do not support ..." - you do not need to copy all of that stuff above! Your response will need 3-5 paragraphs, don't try to put all of this in a single paragraph - remember this is replacing a term paper so write professionally. There are valid arguments for either choice - we're interested in how you support your choice, not which choice you make.

Include legal (US-based), auditing, control, finance, warehouse, procurement, and any other dimensions to your discussion. Include any issues that might need to be worked out if you do decide to implement such a process. Know what information is and is not on a typical invoice (don't embarrass yourself).

Do your research on this (especially audit and legal) - don't jump to a particular conclusion and build your argument around your preconceived idea. You should complete your study of Chapter 15 and consider a quick review of Chapter 14 (even though we don't study lean methodology for about another month).

Explanation / Answer

I do not support. Here I will make my views on 3 points :

A. Internal/External Audit /Process requirement

B. Government Authority (Tax, Way bill etc) requirement

C. Proof for rendering quality of service /materials

A. Internal/External Audit /Process requirement : Invoice is not only just a piece of paper but it is also a proof of rendering services/delivering material. And this helps the auditor whether it is internal or external to trace how the services or material has been rendered. What was the reason of purchasing it and how it has been consumed.

B. Government Authority (Tax, Way bill etc) requirement: Invoice is a legal document for issuing services/material. It can be shown to the government authorities in case of any dispute between the buyer & the seller. It has the components break-up such as tax, discounts, Qty , place of purchase, Bill-to, Ship-to , Ex or FOR, date of availement etc in a single sheet. Hence it is very useful to understand about the type of purchase. Hence to my views , this should not be omitted.

C. Proof for rendering quality of service /materials: Since the user avails the services or use the material purchased. So, if the quality of services or the material is not as per the agreed terms & conditions then the user will not capture the availement of the services / receipt of material. Invoice will give them some sort of flexibility in doing that. Although this can be done by developing a mutual system between them as described in the question but the user then will not have much freedom in assessing that. Based on the user remarks, payment should happen. It should not be automatic just after receipt of material or services. Invoice will play a bigger role in producing as a proof.

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