Here is a real world scenario that I have experienced many times. In this actual case there are obvious low process maturity issues here - company leadership, change management and job roles and responsibilities not being followed. Not looking to discuss or debate those issues as that is internal to the company to resolve, rather experiences and outcomes, ease of use and lowering friction to increase user adoption on Acumatica processes that are stated to have too many clicks and are too rigid from a customers point of view.
Customer
The customer is a mid-market utility/civil contractor running Acumatica Construction Edition with a major disconnect between what the PO-to-payment process requires and what Project Managers are actually willing to do.
The Designed Process
1. PM creates POs for materials, rentals, fuel, equipment, etc., (all non-stock items)
2. Materials are delivered to the job site
3. PM enters a Purchase Receipt against the PO confirming what was delivered
4. Accounting receives the vendor invoice and enters the AP Bill against the receipt
5. Costs post to the project budget, bill gets paid
What's Actually Happening
Step 3 is not being done. PMs are not entering receipts and in some cases not even entering the POs until after the fact. The cited reason is it is too hard and too many steps. The downstream impact:
- Accounting receives invoices but has no confirmation from PMs that the materials were actually delivered or that the quantities are correct
- AP Bills are delayed because the process requires a receipt first
- Actual costs are not posting to the project cost budget — management is making decisions on incomplete data with available cash flow
- Vendors are not getting paid on time
- This compounds across every active project
What's Being Considered
Removing the receipt process entirely. Accounting enters AP Bills directly against POs when vendor invoices come in and releases the AP Bill so actuals hit job cost (management wants this process so they can understand cash position against the project). PMs are to then review the AP Bills after the fact to confirm whether the materials were received and the amounts are correct. If the bill is wrong, Accounting works with the supplier to correct it and has to reverse the AP Bill. ***Not a great best practice from an accounting standpoint***
The concern is that if the PM will not confirm a receipt then how is that different than confirming a supplier invoice that has been received.
What We're Trying to Understand
1. Are your PMs actually entering receipts? If they are, how did you address the feedback that the process is too many clicks and not user friendly? The consistent pushback is that tools like Procore are easier to use, but what gets lost in that comparison is that Acumatica has to enforce the project accounting rigor that only a project accounting system can and must enforce.
2. Has anyone moved receipts out of the ERP and into a field tool? Some contractors handle material tracking in Procore or other field management platforms because the PMs are already in those tools daily.
3. Has anyone eliminated receipts entirely for materials and services? What happened to invoice accuracy? How do you validate that the vendor is billing for what was actually delivered? What reports or techniques were used?
4. For those doing AP Bill PM review instead of receipts — what does that process look like operationally? What reports or tools are PMs using to review AP Bills against what they know was delivered? Are they actually doing it?
5. How are you handling the vendor invoice validation problem? When a supplier sends an invoice and nobody in the field has confirmed delivery, who knows if the bill is correct before paying it? Is the PM doing their job to validate this.
6. Accounting does not want unapproved AP Bills released but there is no out of the box reporting that would give a pro-forma view of job cost. This would most likely go a long way to solving the information need, if such a report existed.
Interested in hearing from others on what is working / not working and why.
