Posting an Invoice Processing Session

To change the maximum number of sessions, contact Innovative. The highest number allowed is 50.

To post invoices, you must be assigned permission 178 (Post Invoices). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

You can post an invoicing session at any time after entering the invoices, as long as all of the invoices are in the session are finished. Each session can contain up to 2000 entries, and the Payment History file can contain up to 10,000 entries. Sessions should be posted before these limits are reached.

When you post invoices, Sierra does the following:

encumbers or disencumbers funds as appropriate
updates fund expenditures
updates the payment history file
clears the posting session

In addition, the system makes the following changes to the order records included in the invoices you post:

updates the STATUS field
adds a PAID field
updates the RDATE (if you set up your invoice to use the paid date as date received)
adds an INT NOTE field for claims or cancellations

Posting Encumbrances Only

Normally, all encumbrances post when you post any session. However, you can post encumbrances at any time after creating the order record and encumbering the funds. Note that the encumbrances are stored in a system file (lien file) not visible to sites. If there are no invoices in the sessions, it might appear that there is nothing to post; if you choose the Post All button, however, the encumbrances in the lien file are posted.

To post invoices:

Choose Invoice from the Function list.
Choose any session that is "Ready to be posted." Or choose the Post All button to post all sessions listed as "Ready to be posted." If you post all, the sessions are posted in numerical order.
If you select a "Ready to be posted" session, you will see a "Choose an invoice" display. (You can select any of the listed invoices and choose View to look them over, if desired.) When you are ready to post the invoices, choose the Post button.
If you have not already selected a standard printer, the system prompts you to select one (see Choosing a Printer).
Enter a page heading for the posting register and choose OK. You can enter up to 29 characters for the page header. You can also leave this field blank for no page header.

After you choose OK to enter the page heading, Sierra prints the Encumbrance Register, Invoice Register, and the Invoice Summary. If any file is in use, Sierra displays an error message indicating which file is in use, and terminates the posting process. The system returns you to the Choose a session panel.

Partially Posted Session Found

If the posting process was interrupted the last time you posted a session, the system cannot post the current session. In this case, the system displays the following error message: Partially posted session found. Please finish posting session <x> first. To resolve this problem, follow steps 2 and 3 above to finish posting the session listed in the error message.

After Sierra prints the reports, the system prompts you Is printout OK? If there is a problem with the reports, choose No; the data is saved so you can post the file again. To continue, choose Yes; the data is cleared and the system prints the Posting Register.
After the Posting Register prints, the system prompts you again to continue posting. Choose Yes to continue or No to cancel posting and return to Choose a session panel. The data is saved so you can post the file again.

If you choose Yes, Sierra updates the order, invoice, and vendor records, as well as the funds and Payment History file, with the payment information. When posting is completed, the system displays a posting summary report. Note that the posting summary report displays on the screen (on the Post Payment History tab), but does not print.

Choose Quit to return to the list of sessions. If you chose Post All, choose Continue to post the next session.