The Invoice CPC Details form is accessed via Maintenance Control / Miscellaneous Options / Invoice CPC Maintenance.
This is a customer specific option. American Express do not want to receive printed invoices and require that all invoices, recharges, etc, are sent electronically.
IFS have an arrangement with certain customers and suppliers whereby IFS act as an agent of American Express and authorise work to be carried out on customer's vehicles. American Express, not IFS, pay for this work and so the repairing garage does not invoice IFS.
Also, for CPC customers, any invoice produced by IFS for that customer is collected via CPC, with IFS acting as a CPC supplier. This includes maintenance recharges where the supplier is not a CPC supplier. All such invoices are raised in the fleet system. This new process does NOT pick up invoices that have been raised directly in the sales ledger. Nor does it pick up any Vehicle Rental invoices. Any non-vehicle specific charges must be raised, in fleet, on a dummy vehicle to the CPC customer.
When a CPC garage rings for authorisation on a vehicle for a CPC customer then the maintenance control system automatically displays a message to remind the controller to tell the garage that this is a CPC deal. The repairing garage then knows that they are to be paid by Amex not IFS.
The garage has 48 hours to confirm the work and the prices. After this time the authorisation is considered closed.
Within Timed Operations the Invoice CPC Maintenance process is run. This process runs down the approval file and identifies all CPC type approvals. Any non-held CPC approvals that are over 48 hours old are closed. A maintenance history record is created, but no postings are made to the supplier or customer accounts (except in respect of transactions where IFS is the CPC supplier). These transactions are posted to the invoice pending file and flagged as CPC transactions.
A new extraction process (Export CPC Details in Miscellaneous Options is run within Timed Operations which extracts the closed CPC authorisations into a file ready to be transmitted to Amex. This process also extracts any invoices created for CPC customers by IFS. The file is called paylink.txt and is located in a CPC directory within unix. A copy of this extraction file is saved in a backup unix directory . The file is date and time stamped so that it can be retrieved and resent if necessary.
The extraction file is ultimately removed from the system by an external process and transmitted to Amex.
Customers, like American Express, who wish to use the CPC electronic procurement card invoicing procedure must have the appropriate details set up within the Contract Admin 1 Tab within Address Groups. The following fields must be populated:
- Uses Card
A checkbox which, if ticked, denotes that this company participate in the CPC electronic procurement card scheme.
- Customer No
The unique customer number that identifies this customer as a participator in the CPC electronic procurement card scheme.
- Card No
The unique ID number of the procurement card (to be presented to the repairing garage).
- Expiry Date
The expiry date of the procurement card.
Repairer garages that wish to participate in the electronic procurement card scheme must also be identified within Address Groups. The following fields must be populated within the Repairer 2 Tab:
- Uses Card
A checkbox which, if ticked, denotes that this repairing garage participates in the CPC electronic procurement card scheme.
- Merchants ID
The unique repairer garage number that identifies this garage as a participator in the CPC electronic procurement card scheme.
The form is split into three areas. These are the Titlebar, the Invoice CPC Details Dialogue Box and a series of Command Buttons at the bottom of the form.
In addition to displaying the form name the Title Bar provides a number of useful buttons.
This area of the form simply contains a description of what is achieved by initiating the CPC Invoice routine. The description is as follows:
This process will post and create FC.ipend transactions for any authorisations that are tagged as CPC authorisations.
The following command buttons are displayed:
Confirms and proceeds with the Invoice CPC Maintenance option.
Cancels any menu options and returns to the Miscellaneous Options Menu.
Provides online access to a context sensitive Help form.