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Invoice handling for Government

hello and welcome everyone my name is Tristan Thomas with mend sourcing and in today's video what we're going to do is go into the pi system and create an invoice and a receiving report this will be a step-by-step walkthrough to show you exactly how to do that successfully so instead of you reading a 20 or 30 page pamplet that the government uh provides to you we thought it would be good to create a video and simplify the entire process uh and before we do get started though um if you haven't already please do subscribe to this channel as the goal of this channel is to help you win your first contract or if you already do Government Contracting how to simplify the entire process um get rid of that confusion that we're all so accustomed to okay so if you haven't already please do subscribe to this channel below now let's dive into doing just that let's let's go over how to create an invoice and the receiving report uh as we do that the first thing that we need to know is exactly well first what is a receiving report the document that you see right there it's a PDF that's generated after you've completed um the pi or going into Waf and creating a receiving report now the thing about it what it does is it's verifying that the goods or the services have been received per the contract specification so it's the right part has been sent the right quantity has been sent and uh the right destination it's been sent to and so forth so it's just in essence everything that goes over the key elements per the contract for the end user to verify also what it's doing is it's letting the enderson know have these parts been inspected and accepted already that would be an inspection and acceptance said origin or is it something that they need to do at their location and lastly what it's doing is it's providing the date and the time of when you actually ship this out to their location so it's giving them all the information that they know uh that they need okay so that is what a receiving report is now as we go over what a receiving report is it's also very helpful to know what a receiving report is not and I hear this a lot that the invoice and the receiving report are the same where in fact they are entirely separate things you can combine the together but just because you generate a receiving report does not mean that you've invoiced the government right the receiving report and the invoice can be combined but they are not the same and we'll go over exactly what that uh the difference is between the two uh but our key uh identifier to know if this is a receiving report and an invoice or just a receiving report is that in the top right hand corner of any receiving report in the in uh invoice number section if it is blank you have not invoiced the government if there is an invoice number there that means you have successfully invoiced the government so make sure that you have that number up there if you intend to invoice the government what's the difference between the two or or when would you use just a receiving report and when would you combine the two together right this was a lot of confusion that we had when we first started so let's simplify it for you if you are going to just generate a receiving report you should be doing that if you have a shipment of a first article test or a production lot test so anytime you ship something out to the government create that receiving report but with an F or a PLT you cannot invoice them for that F or PLT until they have approved that item all right so in this case all you're going to be doing is creating a receiving report once the fat or the PLT is accepted that is when you can go into the receiving report and then from that create the invoice now for a majority of the shipments that you send out you're go you are going to combine a receiving report and the invoice that's just the shipment of the contract as a whole so if I let's just say I have one contract with a th pieces I need to send to the government and I send all thousand out well at that point I'm going to create a receiving report and invoice combo so it's doing both at the same time so if shipping a line item typically a receiving report and an invoice are combined and done at the same time and when we go through the walk uh the walk through um through the pi system I'll show you when to use it and when not to let's look at uh the different types of a receiving report out there all right now here is a sample of a receiving report only just one pager PDF looks just like that now here is the combination of a receiving report and an invoice it's almost identical right there's really no difference between the two only real difference here is up at the top where it says invoice number so as you can see right here so invoice number on the receiving report only there is none invoice number here on the combination it's both of them together so that's how you can identify the difference between the two now now let's go into the pi system what is the pi system well one first and foremost you you must register with um to get a login to use Pi so please do that prior to trying to log in uh or winning any awards but really what the pi system uh is used for it it's a communication Tool uh between you the vendor and the government but it's used to help manage contracts payments to know when am I going to get paid um creation of the receiving report and so forth um another great piece of the pi system is it allows you to check electronic data uh through a uh portal that's inside of the pi system called electronic data access and I'll show you exactly where that is but we use that a lot because sometimes we can't see or we were never uh given a modification on a contract even though we requested it and then we go into electronic data access and lo and behold there is the modification even though we were never notified about it so it's just a uh a focal point for all data that's the electronic data access like I mentioned it what the pi system is in essence trying to do is it's streamlining communication between you the vendor and government agencies but for this video the main things that we're going to talk about and to generate that receiving report and that invoice comes down to the wide area workflow or better known as WF and the section on my invoice now W wide aor workflow is used for submitting the receiving report and the invoice once that's all taken care of you then can go back into Pi into the section called my invoice and you can track invoice payments you can see are there any discrepancies about how many you shipped out or when are you going to get paid or did you get paid and and specifically what date it's a wealth of information inside of my invoice so for this video we're going to dive a little bit into uh well a lot into W but also into my invoice now before you dive into this I just quickly want to go over what documentation you should have ready uh it's better to have everything prepared and and and ready to go prior to just you know uh trying to find things as you're already through off because it does quickly time out so my recommendation is to possibly take a snapshot or or write down the information I'm going to put here but before we go into wa I make sure I have all of this information ready to go so items that you should have prepared first and foremost you should have the contract and all modifications you have the contract number you have the Clint details of what you're going to ship or invoice to the government the NSN the quantity that you ship shipment details like where's the location that it's going to uh what is the unit price per per unit that you're shipping out to the government also what is your shipment number is it the first shipment second shipment the third is it the final you need to know that information prior to going into the pi system so we have all of that U also excuse me uh the invoice number that's as well too that's your own internal number to make sure that you can follow easily exactly okay I've invoiced the government for this one this one but not this one right so it's just your indicator to to make sure you get paid and lastly what we always do is we have all of the RFID numbers ready to go as well too for each box that we ship out because inside of La you need to show that you've packed and how many you've packed per box that you ship out to the government so so have your I RFID numbers ready if you're confused or not really sure what an RFID is I did create a video on ASM packing which briefly goes over that RFID now with that let's dive into the pi system now here is the pi website right here so let's log in so you want to make sure that you have a login so I'm going to log in right here and I'm logged now into Pi now there's different areas that you can go to all these are different links that are here uh I mentioned the electronic data access section this is a great one here's another great one that will create a future video for which is called the supplier risk system this just shows the confidence level the government has in that you're going to supply the right item to them um if you don't have this section it's because you haven't completed enough Awards but you do need to have a Spur score eventually to get JCP certified to get prints technical documents and so forth but you can check what your score is with the government so how confident they are that you're going to be able to supply the item but for this video we're just going to focus on wide area workflow and then from there I'm going to show you the invoices so let's click on wide area workflow and dive into this now in wide area workflow what you want to do is you want to go up to the top section up here and you want to go to vendor and then go down to create a document if you've created receiving reports previously you can go to your history folder maybe you've saved items you can go to save documents and so forth but just for this video to make it relatively quick we're going to click on create document and now we're inside of wa one thing that you should always remember is that any time you see an aster that means that area needs to be filled out if there is no Aster in that area you don't have to to fill it out so not everything needs to be be filled out only the asteris so in this case we're going to put down the contract number remember I have everything there already okay so there's my contract number go to next put the contract number in and it brings me to the next screen on the next screen um remember all you have to fill out is the asteris but I like to also put in what my reference procurement identifier is this is my own personal identifier uh for this item once that's done I now need to select the Clint that I'm going to be doing the receiving report for I'm going to click on this there's only one Clint for this contract and then I go to next now that I'm in this is all based upon the criteria for this specific contract now I need to select the document that I'm wanting to create now you have a lot of items that are here but for this video we're going to create a combination right here the invoice and receiving combo now if I wanted just to create a receiving report I would click on the the button above it or if I just wanted the invoice I click on the one up at the top that's really the only three that I that I do and we've done hundreds of contracts with the government because I have all my information ready to go it's pretty much a breeze through off so the first thing that I need to do is select the inspection and acceptance that's on the contract my contract that I'm working on here is an origin inspection and origin in uh acceptance but for some reason we don't see origin here so Source means origin origin means source so if it's not a destination item you want to and it's an origin one you click on Source I don't know why they try to confuse you but that's just the way it is once that's done you want to click on next remember only asterisk is what I need to do now for here what it's asking is uh here's my my contract number my identifier my cage code all that information when the contract was originally awarded who issued it who the administrator of this contract is this is the dcma out here in California they also inspected the item since this was origin but now it's asking for the ship to code there are times where this defaults and then there's times that it does not default so in this case it did not default to what the contract is so I look at my contract and I put to where the item was shipped to this is the doc for that so SW 3218 I don't need to tell them where it was shipped from cuz there's no Aster and so forth and now I can click next now I'm on the main screen inside of w and up here what you'll notice is that there's a bunch of tabs up here at the top all right and I need to go through each one of these tabs and we'll do that for this video only asterisks remember right so no asteris over here but the shipment number is now with the shipment number it needs to be created in a certain way what you would do is you would put the first three letters of your company like RS is mend sourcing solution so I'm putting MSS and then I need to do 0000 one if it's the first shipment if it's the second shipment it's two third shipment three whatever it is in this case this is the second shipment I'm doing and also and this is very important this is the last shipment so I have to put the letter Z at the end I've seen companies that have received corrective action reports from the da because they didn't put the Z to let them know that this was a final shipment with the shipment number by all means if if this is your last shipment to the government for this contract make sure to put a z so let's just say theoretically that I had a th000 pieces that I wanted to ship right and I haven't shipped out anything and I'm only shipping out 500 for the first time well then I would put MSS 00001 then for my second order if it's another 500 which would complete the entire contract I would put 2 Z next thing here I need to put the ship date ship date was here which was October 3rd is this the final shipment yes it is the final shipment and then I'm going to put my invoice number because it's a combination and then also is this my final invoice it is my final invoice so I click on yes and then everything else below here there are no asterisks so I don't need to do anything else now I'm going to go over to address and I like to make sure that all the addresses are correct but all of these typically default default to whatever the contract is but I like to make sure okay all of those are correct all these sections that are here are in the boxes uh usually on the first page of the contract or at the contract line item so you can fill or you can or check these to make sure it's correct uh if you want to give the government a discount to pay you early you can put that here now for the mark four and the comment section I put exactly the same text for both the reason why is because this is just a little comment box that allows each person that touches the final shipment to know exactly what's inside of this box so in this case um what we did is we we shipped out uh one box one box a total full shipment of 3,414 pieces this completes contract and tracking number is XY whatever the tracking number is that I have have the reason why I have all of this information here is because I want that person to know hey look don't miscount how many I gave you I gave you 3,414 do not mess this up where it shows 3,400 pieces and the government doesn't pay me for the full amount then you got to go through a whole counting process and it just extends the the length of this right so what I have found out is that if I put all the information here typically we get an accurate counting on their end so I put that information here and I just copy it for the secondary and I go back to comments and do exactly the same thing that's the way that I I've done it and it works for us now line item go to line item here I'm on the next one and now for the line item what I want to do is you'll see this item as being red which means I need to to fix this it right as of right now it's invalid I click on edit and now it brings me to a new screen now this is going over contract line item number one so what I want to do is I want to make sure yes this is the right contract line item number yes this is the right NSN I want to choose National Stock number here sometimes it doesn't default to that it actually goes to here and I need to drop down to here and then I want to tell them how many I actually ship so in this case I ship 3,414 pieces the total amount unit of measures EA this is the price so I'm invoicing the government for $2,643 all the other stuff no Aster so I don't need to complete it and then this description here most of the time it's going to default but sometimes it won't I would just put the description of the item so this one is a bolt machine so we're good so all the information is is complete here and now I want to go to the bottom left to go to where where it says save Clint click on Save Clint and now that error is gone so what I'm going to do now is I'm invoicing the government for 3,414 pieces I shipped out 314 pieces all right now what they're wanting to know is okay well how did you do it so I'm going to go to this area called pack and then I want to show them how I packed these items how many boxes did I use so I need to go to click action and go to add and now I want to put in what the RFID number is of this item the RFID item for this item let's see is this I have all that information ready I put in that RFID there and I press save so what I'm telling the government now is that there's one box that I shipped out to you if there was additional boxes I would put the next one down and so on so for each exterior box that I'm shipping out I need to have an RFID number here but in this case I only shipped out one box now that I have that RFID for one box it's like okay well how did you pack that one box so I need to go to this section where it says pack Clint and now in this area what it's saying is it's saying okay we have contract line item number one this is how many you said we shipped but how many did you pack inside of that one box and the difference right now is 3,414 the goal here is to make this total packed equal total shipped and the difference be zero now since I only shipped one box I'm going to now put 3414 if I only ship let's just say 414 pieces well that means I'm only doing a partial shipment of 4 uh 14 and where's the other box of 3,000 pieces so in this case 3414 everything's the same 314 3414 34140 I'm good to go here so I go to save pack Clint bottom left we're good to go on on all this I packed it correctly RFID here for this one box shows Clint quantity amount and whatnot if I want to attach any items for the end user to to review maybe it's a packing slip that you have or first article acceptance I would attach it here so I can do this and I would attach that item and I'd go to upload you click upload and now you select exactly what the attachment type is now there's a laundry list of things that you can put here things are going to be different for different people who are watching this video but for me personally the only things that that really mean anything to us is the first article acceptance so maybe I want to attach that maybe it's a production lot acceptance or if there's anything else outside of that I click on other I have this item that's other this is actually a packing slip I'm sending out now miscellaneous amounts maybe there's other fees you want to charge the government I've never use this uh but if you want to you can add this to charge them additional amounts they have this section here then you have a preview CI section and you have a preview RR section so what I would do then is miscellaneous amounts like I mentioned I don't do anything there maybe you have to preview CI section I I just review the information to make sure it's accurate but I always go to preview RR when I go to preview RR thing that I always do prior to pressing the submit button and only when I press the submit button will it actually be sent to to the DA I want to make sure I retain documentation so I click on this where it says print document and print pack so now what it's done is it's giving me all these items give you an example this is the receiving report that I have just created now just because I've uh pressed print document does not mean that it's completed uh what I would do then is I would look and review all the information to make sure it's correct but then after that's all taken care of I would click on submit now I'm not going to click on submit now just because this is just uh for illustrative purposes to kind of give you a walkthrough of how it is but I would click on this and only when I click on this has it been completed now for my receiving report let's go over this I document everything I keep everything all track numbers I'll receiving reports and I keep it in a folder just because if there is any misplacement elsewhere I have everything at my disposal to prove I did what I said I did now going over a few different things the uh the receiving report it's going to show the contract number here it's going to show the shipment number and it's going to show the invoice number I scroll down going to show you all the information of where everything was sent and then it's going to show you the contract line item number and how much I've invoiced the government for so I save this um in the folder for this particular contract and once once I press that submit button going back to this oh excuse me once I uh press on submit button after this that is complete and we're good to go all right so that's W in a nutshell receiving report and an invoice both of those are taken care of now once that's all done and and everything is approved I can then see that invoice that I've sent out to the government under the my invoice section now once that's all done and the the wa is the receiving report has been completed that invoice has been completed I can then find all of that and I can track the invoice under the my invoice section so I click on my invoice section and now it's going to bring up this new portal inside of Pi all right this is different than W this is my invoice I'd go up to where it says reports click on reports and I like to look in again you can go in here you're not going to break anything so you can check this stuff but just to do this quickly i' go to status and date report and then you can look and see what is active or what is archived anything more than 30 days becomes archived but if we're looking at active you can see the list here right so let's just look at archived and things that have been paid before in the past I can click on search and now I have all the pages 15 pages here just everything that we've been paid over time looking at this your status and date uh date report have all the information how much the government paid you and so forth but you can look at the details over here under the action click on details and it'll give you all the information about that invoice that you sent if there's any discrepancies the discrepancies will be here it'll show you how much you invoiced them it'll show exactly how much they paid it'll show you exactly when you got paid as well too so you can check your bank account to make sure the number is exactly the same but again this is my invoice uh I I like to go in here um every Friday just to kind of make sure everything is you know on Pace to actually get paid in time if there's any discrepancies I reach out to um the da to to go over it and and they're they're very helpful as well too all right so with all of that um that is WF and uh my invoice as as quickly as we can do it um you could read a 2030 pager like I mentioned before that the da gives you but I thought this walkthrough would be helpful so hopefully this video does help help uh and and um if you do have any questions or any comments please leave them below because I do take the time to go over all of that and for those that haven't subscribe to this Channel and are in Government Contracting or are looking to get into Government Contracting please like I mentioned do subscribe to this channel if you reach out to me you can always go to .m sourcing.com and go to our contact us page I I make sure to reach out to everyone that reaches out to us and with that be on the lookout for our next video next week thank you and you have a good day