Adopt a Standard Invoice Numbering Convention free essay sample

A major cause of duplicate payments is multiple copies of the same supplier invoice being entered in the computer system, but with slight variations on the invoice number that keep the computer from flagging them as duplicate invoices. This is an especially common problem when suppliers issue invoices with leading zeros, since one data entry clerk may enter the zeros, while another may ignore them. It is also common for employee expense reports and a variety of utility billings, since these documents have no invoice number. It also happens when an original invoice is not paid on time, so the supplier floods the company with extra copies of the invoice, hoping that one of the copies will eventually be paid. There is no perfect solution to this problem, but the basic approach is to adopt a standard invoice numbering convention for the data entry staff to follow, thereby introducing some consistency into this aspect of invoice data entry. We will write a custom essay sample on Adopt a Standard Invoice Numbering Convention or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It can include some of the following rules: †¢Drop leading zeros. It is also possible to reverse this rule and always use leading zeros, but the extra characters may overflow the computer field for invoice numbers. †¢Use the packing slip number. If the invoice contains no invoice number and it is related to a physical delivery, then there should be a packing slip that accompanied the delivery. If so, enter the packing slip number as the invoice number. If a duplicate invoice arrives, it must still be matched to the packing slip before payment is approved, so the packing slip number will be fl aged by the computer as a duplicate invoice number. Use an alternate document identifier. If an invoice contains no invoice number but does have other tracking numbers, such as an internal indexing number or a job number, then use this number instead. †¢Use invoice date. A less foolproof alternative is to use the invoice date. This approach can still result in duplicate payments, because suppliers may legitimately issue more than one invoice on the s ame day, resulting in such coding variations as MMDDYY-2 to signify that an invoice is the second one received that has the same invoice date. If this alternative must be used, then at least require that dates always be entered using the same format every time, such as MMDDYY or MMDDYYYY. †¢Avoid all punctuation and spaces. Some invoice numbers include slashes, spaces, or dashes, which should be avoided. It is especially common for some systems to add â€Å"-IN† to the end of an invoice number, in order to signify that this number is related to an invoice. If so, drop both the dash and the â€Å"IN† from the invoice number. Reference link : http://classof1. com/homework-help/accounting-homework-help