The receiving functionality in ARIBA provides campus users with a mechanism to ensure that items on Blanket Purchase Orders (BPOs) are received and in good condition and allow invoices to be paid.

When you receive, you are approving an amount of money to be released for payment of invoices. Receipts and Invoices are two different distinct entities. This supports the accounting best practice of three-way matching for invoice reconciliation. 

In a three-way match, the Invoice is matched to the PO and to the Receipt of Goods/Services. ---->

Currently for ARIBA Catalog Orders and Non-Catalog Orders, receiving is handled by the system automatically behind the scenes and there is no action required by campus users to receive.

Topics Covered

Benefits

  • Users can ensure that items on ARIBA orders are received and in good condition before allowing the invoices to be paid.

  • Receipts are tracked in the same system and linked to the ARIBA order.

  • Reports are available to determine:

    • What has and has not been received.

    • If there are invoices being held because items have not yet been received.

  • By scanning and attaching packing slips to the electronic receipt in ARIBA, users can help the UW reach the state paper reduction goal of 30%.

  • For departments that prefer to receive items centrally, a Central Receiving role can optionally be defined in ASTRA that specifies a group of individuals who are authorized to perform the receiving for an organization code. Some examples of when you might want to use central receiving include:

    • Your department requires computer equipment first be sent to a location for asset tagging and then delivered to you.

    • Your department has a receiving dock where goods are first received, signed for and then delivered to you.

Your Responsibility

1.  Run the Receiving Exceptions Report in Ariba to view a list of all invoices that need to have receiving completed.

Best practice is to run this report weekly to ensure you have not missed anything as a result from email or network outages. Click here to find the PDF tutorial on how to run the Receiving Exceptions Report in Ariba. 

2. Review Details of Invoice(s)

Before receiving, review the details of each specific invoice for the BPO:

  • If there are any incorrect invoices, then you need to submit the BPO Invoice Reject Request form for each incorrect invoice. (Note: DO NOT reject the correct invoices).
  • If you have submitted a BPO Invoice Reject Request, you must wait to hear back from Procurement Services that the rejection has completed for the BPO before you do any receiving for the BPO.
  • After all invoice rejections for the BPO are complete, you can proceed to receive the appropriate dollar amounts for each of the correct invoices, oldest to newest.
  • If all invoices are correct and should be reconciled and paid, proceed to receive the appropriate dollar amounts for each of the correct invoices, oldest to newest.
3.  Inspect, verify and sign for satisfactory delivery of goods or services
4.  Receive only the amount for the line items invoiced 

Do not include header charges such as tax, handling, etc.

5.  Retain packing slips 

We encourage departments to scan and attach these documents to the receipt in ARIBA at the time you receive in the system. For more information on scanning and attaching documents in ARIBA, review the UW Scanning Requirements. Also, before destroying any original copies, please contact Records Management for a review of your department’s internal procedure regarding scanning and records retention.

Who Receives?

Phase 1 of the Receiving rollout implemented "Auto Receiving" so that the system operated as usual: no intervention is required by users and receiving is handled automatically by the system.

In the other phases, users may be required to receive for certain types of orders. When receiving is required, an ARIBA Blanket Purchaser Order (BPO), catalog order or non-catalog (EI) order can be received by one of the following:

  • The Preparer - the user who creates and submits:
    • A Contract Request (CR) for a BPO
    • A requisition for an ARIBA catalog or non-catalog order (EI)
  • The Contact for the BPO. This defaults to the Preparer but can be changed.
  • The On Behalf Of for an ARIBA catalog or non-catalog order. This defaults to the Preparer but can be changed.
  • The Central Receiver optionally defined for the organization. (See ASTRA roles below).

Other important notes:

  • Requester is a generic term used by ARIBA to represent either the BPO Contact or the EI On Behalf Of
  • When an invoice is received, a daily receiving email notification is sent to the Preparer, Requester and the Central Receiver. The notification lists which BPOs and EI orders need to be received to allow the invoices to be paid.
ASTRA Roles for Receiving

There are two ASTRA roles that support the receiving feature:

  • The Receipt Approver is a required ASTRA role to help establish the separation of duties when the Preparer of a requisition also does the receiving. 
    • Approval by the Receipt Approver is NOT required if either the Requester or Central Receiver receives. However, when the Preparer receives, the system will route the receipt for approval to the Receipt Approver. 
    • Departments need to determine who will be in the Receipt Approver role for the organization and then use ASTRA to set up the role.
    • The recommended best practice is to have at least 2 individuals in the Receipt Approver role who back each other up when one or the other is not available.
  • The Central Receiver role is an optional ASTRA role. It is a group of individuals who can receive for an organization code.
    • The default set-up does not have Central Receiver roles established. It is up to the department to determine if Central Receiving is required and then use ASTRA to specify which individuals are in the Central Receiver role for the organization.
    • When an invoice is received and a Central Receiver role is active for an organization, the Preparer, Requester and Central Receivers receive a daily email notification to alert them which orders need to be received. Any one of the three can receive.  
    • If the Preparer receives, the receipt will be routed to the Receipt Approver for additional approval before allowing the invoice to be paid.

How Receiving Works

When you receive for a BPO, it is important to understand that you are not paying a specific invoice. Rather, you are approving an amount of money to be released for payment of invoices for that BPO.

Once you receive for the BPO:

  • The system looks for the oldest invoice with a status of Reconciling and tries to reconcile it first.
  • If enough money has been received and there are no other issues with the invoice (such as not enough tax), then the oldest invoice will be paid first.
  • If the amount received is not enough to cover the oldest invoice, it will try to reconcile the next oldest invoice and so on.
  • Received amounts are applied only to line item amounts (not header charges such as tax, shipping, etc.). DO NOT include tax or other header charges in the receiving amount.

Best Practices

  • Have a written receiving procedure in place for your department.
  • It is recommended that more than one person be designated who can perform receiving functions.
  • When you get an email notification that “Orders/Contracts Must Be Received”,  receive as soon as possible. Find the BPO in ARIBA, click on the Invoices tab:

Before receiving, you should:

  1.  Review the details of each specific invoice for the BPO.
  2. If there are any incorrect invoices, then you need to submit the BPO Invoice Reject Request form for each incorrect invoice. (Note: DO NOT reject the correct invoices)
    1. If you have submitted a BPO Invoice Reject Request, you must wait to hear back from Procurement Services that the rejection has completed for the BPO before you do any receiving for the BPO. 
    2. After all invoice rejections for the BPO are complete, you can proceed to receive the appropriate dollar amounts for each of the correct invoices, oldest to newest.
  3. If all invoices are correct and should be reconciled and paid, proceed to receive the appropriate dollar amounts for each of the correct invoices, oldest to newest.
  • Receive only the amount for the line items invoiced – do not include header charges such as tax, handling, etc.
  • Packing slips must be retained. We encourage departments to scan and attach these documents to the receipt in ARIBA at the time you receive in the system.
  • Run the Receiving Exceptions Report in Ariba regularly to view the invoices that need to be received against. 

Training Materials

Visit our Tutorials page for guidance on how to receive in Ariba and how to run the Receiving Exceptions Report. Look under the Receiving and Reports section. 

How to Handle Incorrect Invoices

To reject a BPO invoice, use the BPO Invoice Reject Request form.

  • Once you have submitted your request, it will be processed within 2 business days.
  • DO NOT receive any additional invoices until you receive confirmation that the invoice has been rejected.
  • DO NOT use ARIBA to attempt to reject the invoice.  
  • Contact the supplier and request a corrected invoice.

How To Correct a Receipt Made in Error

What do I do if I created a duplicate receipt?

If you submitted a duplicate receipt in ARIBA that you do not want to keep, you can submit a new receipt to reverse it.

First, have the Approver approve the receipt submitted in error.

Second, you will create another receipt-

  • If you created the first receipt by amount, create the second receipt as a negative amount
  • If you created the first receipt by quantity, create the second receipt as a negative quantity

Have this receipt approved as well. Doing so will zero out the amount of the first receipt submitted in error.

What do I do if I received the entire amount of the BPO?

It is important to fix this as soon as possible, because the BPO is now fully received and subsequent invoices will not release to be paid.

To correct this, you must:

  1. Change the BPO and add  1 cent ($0.01) to the existing amount on BOTH:
    1. The Maximum Limit in the Limits section, and
    2. The Maximum Limit on the Line Item in the Pricing Terms section.
    3. See example below.
  2. Submit the changes.
  3. The CR will need to be fully approved again by all of the original approvers.
  4. When the new version of the BPO is available in the Open status:
    1. Create another receipt for negative amount that is equal to the Maximum BPO amount MINUS the amount you over-received.
    2. See example below.

Example: My BPO is for a Maximum Limit of $1,000.00. An invoice with a line item dollar amount of $100.00 came in for my BPO. When I did the receiving, I received all $1,000.00 instead of the $100.  The invoice that had the $100.00 line item amount was paid, which is OK. However, the Receive button is no longer visible on the BPO. I need to get the Receive button back and fix my BPO so it still has $900.00 left on it.

  1. If you received full amount for a BPO with a Maximum Limit of $1,000.00, you would change the Maximum Limit on the BPO and Line Item to $1,000.01.
  2. Submit the changes and allow all approvers to re-approve.
  3. When the new version of the BPO is available in the Open status, create your negative receipt for the amount you over-received. In this example, you would receive -$900.00.

What to do if I have over-received on my BPO?

If you received more on your Blanket Purchase Order (BPO) than is needed and you do want to correct it, you can submit a new receipt to reverse it.

Create a negative receipt to reverse the amount or quantity that has been over received.

  • If you created the first receipt by amount, create the second receipt as a negative amount
  • If you created the first receipt by quantity, create the second receipt as a negative quantity

Have this receipt approved as well. Doing so will reduce the amount or quantity that was over received for on the previous receipts.

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