Managing Sales Process

Focus Points

Sales invoices should be immediately sent to the customer’s Accounts Payable email address as pdf documents, copying in any other contacts. Please upload a copy of the sent email with invoice attached to Oracle notes.

If you regularly raise invoices on behalf of others, please add the email of that person or department into the comments section of the invoice advising they are the person to contact in case of any queries. This does not show on the invoice and it is important that you include this so Credit Control know who to contact quickly, it will also cut down on the emails you receive trying to find this information.

If you are invoicing one of our University Colleges it is crucial that you immediately send the invoice(s) to your counterpart at the college AND the colleges accounts team. If you do not have that email please contact Rachael Toner on Teams. Please do not send invoices without including the Accounts email.

Internal invoicing - please be aware when billing Rueben College you need to raise an internal PO and bill that way; they are an internal college.
 

Introduction

Sales to external customers are carried out via a variety of channels at the University, and likewise the payment for the goods or services is received via a number of different routes. The process has been written for anyone who is involved at any stage of the activity.

The process and associated financial controls have been written in support of Section 2.1 & 2.2 of the Financial Regulations.

Note: this process details steps to be taken by departments, Credit Control and Cashiers as indicated.

Receive Purchase Order

(Departments)

All requests for goods/services should be supported by an official Purchase Order issued by the buyer.

Remember: if the order is from another University department, it must be processed following the Internal Trade process.

Record purchase order

On receipt of an external order for goods or services, the details must be recorded on a spreadsheet, order book, or similar. Where appropriate, the order should be checked against any contractual agreement. The details recorded should include a customer purchase order reference and/or contact name/number.

Process order

1. Is advance payment required?
   Where an order is received without payment, but the customer has a poor payment history, or is deemed 'high credit risk', the customer should be contacted to request payment before processing the order any further. Where possible, all customers should be encouraged to pay in advance of receiving goods or services.
    
2. Look up customer on Oracle Financials.
   It is important to check Oracle Financials to establish if the customer and invoice address already exists. Refer to Find a Customer for guidance. 

   Where the customer is found, if a new contact is required, please contact the Credit Control team.

   If the order is from a customer not on Oracle Financials, or if the customer is there with a different invoice address, new details must be set up on the system before the order can be processed any further. Go to New Customer Set-up.

3. Send order acknowledgment to customer.
   An acknowledgment should be sent to the customer as appropriate to indicate that the order has been received. A standard Acknowledgement of Order is available online.
    
4. Supply goods/services.
   The relevant goods/services should be supplied to the customer as required. 

   Note: Exports of goods/movement of goods overseas:

   When sending goods overseas, the University is legally obliged to obtain:
   a)  Documentary evidence of the removal of the goods from the EU within 3 months of exporting them to non-EU countries, or 

   b)  Documentary evidence of the removal of the goods from the UK within 3 months of sending them to a VAT registered customer in another EU country.

   The evidence can be either official customs declarations or other evidence such as airway bills and seaway bills showing the goods leaving the country. Your freight forwarding agent or courier should be able to provide this evidence to you. (Please note that official customs evidence will only be available if the goods are sent to a country outside the EU). 
    

5. Raise and send out Sales Invoice.
   Invoices relating to research activity must only ever be raised by Research Accounts.

   Invoices should only be raised in £ Sterling.

   A sales invoice should be raised in Oracle Financials, unless payment is received with the order where the equivalent of an invoice is generated through another route, e.g., EPOS, courses and conferences or online (detailing University name, address, VAT number, date, description of goods, VAT amount and total amount).

   For sales of items over £250 generated via such routes, a sales invoice may be raised if required. For guidance on invoice types refer to the Income Decision Tree.

   All invoices must be immediately sent by email to the customer's Accounts Payable department and all relevant contacts copied in. A copy of the email, with the attached PDF copy of the invoice, must be attached to Oracle notes.

   Once an invoice has been printed, users can not amend or void the invoice. It should be credited and re-invoiced.

   Invoices found to be incorrect after generating the printable document image, or no longer required anytime after the day they were raised, will need to be credited and re-invoiced as necessary. See the Manage Debt section for further guidance.

   Invoices relating to orders that were received with payment must be clearly stamped 'paid with thanks'. Once these have been sent to the customer it is important that departments notify Cashiers of the need for cash to be applied to the correct invoice.

   If you’ve raised an invoice but payment hasn’t been received, please refer to manage debt.

Conditions of sale and supply 

It is the departments' responsibility to send this document to the 'orderer' before the order is accepted/processed further. All new customers MUST be notified of the University's Standard Conditions of Sale and Supply (Terms and Conditions) (PDF).

Complete and submit set-up form

The Customer Set-up form should be completed for either a new customer, a new contact, a new invoice address, or a change of customer name, and submitted to the Credit Control team.

When asking for contact information please obtain a generic email address for the new customer’s Finance Department or Accounts Payable team; the Departments must use this email for sending invoices as some companies process invoices only when sent to a specific email. We will use it for chasing if the invoice is overdue. A generic email address is key information required when setting up a new trade customer account. If we just have a single personal email address it may be that the invoice does not go to the approver and will take longer to get paid.

Review set-up form and credit checks

Credit Control will check all requests to ensure that the customer does not exist before creating a new record. Where the customer/address is found to exist, they will contact you with the account details.

Credit Control will carry out credit checks on every organisation. If a customer set up request for an organisation has been sent to Credit Control we will always credit check and also come back to you with any concerns we have. Please can all credit checks for new or existing organisations be referred to Credit Control. If you have any concerns about a customer’s identity or ability to pay please send the details for checking to Credit Control by email. 

If any issues with the set-up request are identified during this activity they will be referred back to your department. It is at the discretion of your department to decide on the appropriate action to take, i.e. to take the risk and continue with the transaction, to renegotiate the transaction, or to request payment in advance.

If the customer set up request is for a student please ensure a home address and personal email is provided. Without these details we will not be able to set up the account.

Customer set-up

Credit Control will set up the new customer or amend existing customers in Oracle Financials within 48 hours of receipt of the request, allocating a customer number. 

Various activities are carried out during the life of a sales invoice, depending on the nature of the debt, value, customer etc. Research invoices are managed by Research Accounts.

1. Statements and debtors reporting (Departments and Credit Control).
   At the start of each month Credit Control generate and post customer statements detailing all unpaid invoices. It is recommended that each department requests an updated debtors report from the Credit Control team, if required.
    
2. Liaise with the customer (Credit Control).
   Credit Control will initially follow up debts with customers (via Dunning letters, statements, phone, email etc) to discuss a resolution to the debt. This may be done as the Invoice becomes due and/or at various stages of the debt management process.

   Where it is identified that there is an issue with the original invoice e.g. information was missing, the query will be referred to the department to investigate. The department is responsible for resolving the outstanding issue and communicating its findings promptly to both the customer and Credit Control. If the debt continues to be outstanding, the customer details may be passed to a debt agency to follow up.
    

3. Send copy invoice to customer (Departments).
   In circumstances where the customer did not receive the original invoice, a copy should be printed out and sent to the customer. The invoice will be clearly marked as copy. See Print an Invoice for a Customer.
    
4. Credit notes (Departments).
   Where it is found that the invoice is incorrect, a credit may be required. Best practice requires the invoice to be fully credited and re-invoiced correctly. Refer to guidance available here. If the invoice is paid, please refer to Credit Control who will ask Cashiers to unmatch the existing payment.
    
5. Debt write off (Credit Control).
   Where Dunning letters and debt collection have not been successful, Credit Control will discuss with the department whether to write off all or part of the debt. Any write-off activity is only to be carried out by the Credit Control Manager or the Accounting Manager; VAT cannot be recovered for 6 months.

Payment queries

Where over or erroneous payments are received, there are two possible solutions.

Leave on Account (Income Team)

The preference is for credit balances to be left on the customer's account, to be matched against subsequent Invoices.

Where a credit note is raised for an incorrect Invoice, a new Invoice may need to be raised (refer to Raise Sales Invoice section of Process Order) and/or a refund made to the customer (see below).

Refunds (Credit Control)

In some circumstances, a refund may be appropriate. Such decisions are made by the Credit Control Team, who should be contacted with any questions regarding refunds.

When considering a refund, the below steps need to be actioned before referring to Credit Control:

• If the payment was received more than 3 months ago please check with the payer that the bank account details used when the original payment was made, are still valid. If the bank account details have changed, then you need to verify that the new bank details belong to the same person/entity as made the payment originally.
• Please check Oracle to ascertain whether there is already a Supplier set up in the system. If necessary, arrange for a new Supplier to be set up* (unless the refund is less than £1000.00).
• A departmental signatory for authorising the return is required.
• A completed PRF (if a supplier has been set up)

Please send the following to Credit Control in an email if they need to process the refund:

• Details of the payment to be returned, and reason for return;
• Confirmation that the bank details have been verified (if more than 3 months old):
• A completed PRF;
• Authorisation for the return from a departmental signatory

  NOTE: some refunds may be done back to a customer’s card or by Payguard refund on the Fusion Payguard website - refer to Credit Control for more information if you believe this may be applicable (particularly for payments < £1000.00)

  *Supplier set up for individuals is done by the Payments Team, and for all other types of customer by Purchasing (companies, schools and other education, hospitals and University of Oxford employees).

Invoice Queries (Departments)

Note: if the invoice has already been paid by the customer, you should follow point 1 below before raising the credit note.

1. Refer to Credit Control to unapply receipts 
   The invoice should be referred to the Credit Control team who will liaise with the Income Team to unapply the receipts. You can then raise the credit note as per the details below. 
   In the case of internal invoice receipts, please contact the Credit Control team.
    
2. Raise Credit Note 
   The credit note should be raised for the appropriate part or full invoice value as per Enter a Credit Note against an Invoice in Accounts Receivable.

The controls that are embedded in the Managing Sales process are listed below. When following the Managing Sales process, staff should ensure that all of these controls take place.

1. The Departmental Administrator, or other senior Officer, approves the sales price of all goods and services where a standard list price does not exist, and a price has therefore been calculated.
    
2. Where appropriate, customer purchase orders are received for internal and external sales of goods and services before goods are dispatched or services provided.
    
3. A sales invoices should be raised in Oracle Financials as soon as goods have been despatched or services supplied, unless payment is received with the order where the equivalent of an invoice is generated through another route, e,g, EPOS or the Online Store.
    
4. All invoices are checked for accuracy prior to sending to the customer via the invoice preview functionality in Oracle Financials. Checks should include ensuring a PO is added, and a contact email address is also added for the customer in the comments section of the invoice.

Segregation of Duties

One of the key financial control principles to be adopted in all University finance processes is the need to ensure no single member of staff completes all stages of any particular process. This principle requires an adequate 'segregation of duties' when designing work flows. As an example in the Managing Sales of Goods and Services process:

• Staff who authorise the sales price must not also raise the applicable invoice in Oracle Financials.

For further advice on this subject, please contact the Financial Assurance Team.