Understanding Voucher Management
Entering vouchers online or in batch mode is only the first part of the payables life cycle. The full flexibility of PeopleSoft Payables comes into play as you manage approval processing, error correction, and OpenItem accounting for vouchers on their way to payment.
This section discusses:
Voucher approval.
Voucher deletion, closure, and unposting.
Voucher correction and mass maintenance.
OpenItem accounting.
You can approve vouchers manually, or you can approve them through workflow. If your organization has a single approver, you may want to approve vouchers by accessing the Voucher Approval component (VCHR_APPROVE) directly. If your organization has multiple levels of approval, you probably want to use workflow.
If a voucher has attachments, they can be viewed from the approval component. The approver can also put a voucher on hold.
You can delete, close, and unpost individual vouchers using the Delete Voucher, Close Voucher, and Unpost Voucher pages. Deleting a voucher removes the voucher from your system irreversibly (although the voucher remains in the voucher tables marked as deleted, and thus available only for audit trail purposes). Closing a voucher "writes off" the remaining liability on a voucher that you are not going to pay. And unposting a voucher reverses the accounting entries that have been posted to the voucher accounting entry tables so that you can modify the voucher (usually just distribution line information) and repost.
To unpost, close, and delete a selected set of multiple vouchers at once, use the Voucher Mass Maintenance component (VCHR_MASS_MAINT).
Note: When you close vouchers that are associated with purchase orders, and/or you have installed Commitment Control, the system performs specific closure logic that can also restore encumbrances for fully paid vouchers. This functionality exists only for the voucher close component; you cannot restore encumbrances for vouchers closed with the mass maintenance component.
PeopleSoft Payables provides two methods for correcting unpaid vouchers:
The Voucher Maintenance Search component (VCHR_CORRECT_SRCH) and Voucher Maintenance component (VCHR_CORRECTION).
These components enable you to search for vouchers by a number of voucher fields and error criteria, and then search for the exact voucher lines, distribution lines, or scheduled payments that you want to correct.
The Voucher Maintenance component enables you to handle modifications and add voucher and distribution lines to unposted vouchers of any size, without the burden of calling up the entire voucher. It is particularly useful for modifying large vouchers with many voucher or distribution lines.
The Voucher Mass Maintenance component.
This component enables you to search for vouchers by a number of voucher fields and then update specific fields across all of the vouchers that meet your criteria.
You can also use the Voucher Mass Maintenance component to close, delete, and unpost multiple vouchers that share particular field values.
The Voucher Mass Maintenance component is ideal for situations such as a reorganization that results in a department ID change: you search for all unpaid vouchers with distribution lines that include the old department ID and update them all at once with the new department ID.
OpenItem accounting enables you to efficiently define, control, and maintain open accounts until all transactions for an OpenItem cause it to reach a zero balance. You can set up many types of OpenItem accounts when you define accounts on the Account page. Common examples of OpenItem accounts are employee advances, suspense accounts, and interunit accounts. Once an OpenItem account is established, you can keep track of the PeopleSoft Payables transactions that are posted to this account using the OpenItem Update page.