The AP process starts when the QHD Corporate Accountant opens the month in SAP to record AP related transactions and journals. There are 6 regions in the QHD system, and each region has a hub where their AP process is managed by the Administration Officer. The Administration Officer is responsible for coding each invoice with the Cost Centre number, the General Ledger Account and a brief description. Unfortunately, these Administration Officer regional roles have extremely high turnover and staff typically do not stay more than 6-9 months. If the Vendor is not registered in the Vendor Information Module (VIM), the Administration Officer cannot code the invoice and contacts the vendor requesting the VIM form. If the VIM form is not received in a week, a reminder is sent. If after 3 days, the VIM form still has not been sent, an email is sent to the vendor, advising that the invoice cannot be processed until the VIM form is received, confirming that the invoice will need to be reissued with that. The invoice is then rejected, ending the process. Once the compliant invoices are coded, they are sent to the Cost Centre Managers (CCM) via SAP for payment authorisation. The system gives the CCM a week to authorise or reject the invoice, then SAP sends an email to the CCM informing him/her of the invoice. If after 3 more business days, no response has been received, the invoice is sent to the regions Senior Financial Accountant to investigate with Vendors and CCMs. If the invoice is above the CCMs authorisation limit, the CCM must still receive and approve it, but SAP automatically also sends it to the Cost Centres Senior CCM for further authorisation. Unfortunately, CCMs often reject invoices because they are incorrectly routed to them or because they do not recognise the expense. When this happens, the Administrative Officer sends a QHD invoice enquiry to the vendor requesting confirmation regarding which hospital or region received the product or service and who requested it, so that it is appropriately routed. If the vendor does not respond within a week, the Administration Officer sends a reminder. Then, after 3 more business days the Administration Officer sends a letter advising that the specific invoice cannot be paid without the requested information and it is placed in contested invoice file, where it remains until the vendor responds. On a daily basis, QHD Corporate Accounting, a shared service, receives 10,000 or more invoices from any of the 33,000 plus vendors. Both digital and physical vendor invoices are received, and if physical, Corporate accounting scans the physical invoices. Once copies of the invoices are in SAP, and the invoice data entry is done, SAP then attempts to automatically determine which region to send the invoice for control and which Cost Centre to route the invoice. Unfortunately, SAP is not always able to determine the Cost Centre, and these invoices will require manual intervention by the Administration Officer who entered it, who references a spreadsheet and a coding group to confirm the invoice routing. At any time during the month, vendor products are receipted by the Administration Officer in each region. Before payment is made for product invoices, the items have to be received and Three Way Matching (3WM) must be done. Currently, if there is partial or excess delivery, i.e. not able to complete 3WM, the Administration Officer at each hub is tasked with controlling partial deliveries in Goods Received Not Invoiced (GRNI) until the deliveries are complete or, if there is excess delivery, determine if items will be kept or returned and appropriately advise the vendor. By the last business day of the month, all vendors with vendor statements received by the 15th day of the month should be reconciled by the Administration Officer. Page 3 of 4 At any time during the month, vendors can contact QHD enquiring about unpaid invoices. The Administration Officer logs the enquiry and has a week to respond to the vendor. If a vendor response has not been prepared, SAP will send a reminder to the Administration Officer. If after a second week there is no response, SAP will send the Senior Financial Accountant for the region the vendor enquiry to investigate. At the end of the last day of the month is AP is closed in SAP and no further invoices or receipts can be recorded during the period and SAP sends the Administration Officer and the Senior Financial Accountant a report with all of the pending AP items (GRNI, QHD Vendor Inquiries without a response, Vendor Enquiries not responded, etc.) The following month, after AP is closed, on the fifth business day, all extended reporting is completed for entities like the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Auditors and the Inspector General. Any enquiries received from them during the month regarding Extended Reporting are registered by the Financial Accountant and are subject to a 2 week response time. If after the 2 weeks there is no response in SAP, a reminder is sent to the Senior Financial Accountant. This is also included in the pending AP items report.

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