Electronic procurement — generally known as eProcurement — is the automation and management of the procurement-to-payment process. It involves creating and approving purchase requisitions,placing purchase orders, receiving goods and services, and processing invoices electronically.

Billiken Buy will help by making your product research, processing orders, tracking those orders and all associated actions such as receiving and payments easier, faster and more compliant. In particular, you'll be able to locate the best pricing with our preferred suppliers, find items on contracts, compare products across suppliers, and much, much more. Billiken Buy will allow you to create template orders for items that you order regularly so that the purchasing process can be expedited.

The link to Billiken Buy will be available on MySLU to designated users in the system. These users will be enabled in Billiken Buy upon completion of training. Once a user is enabled, single-sign on access will automatically log a user into Billiken Buy when logged in with the SLU username and password. If a disabled user clicks on the Billiken Buy icon prior to training, they will receive an error stating: "Single Sign-on Failed - Account is Disabled." Access is denied due to the status of the user's account.

Department heads or business managers can request that a new user be added to Billiken Buy using the "Request Help" link on their dashboard. This will direct department heads to a Google Form to complete their request. New users will be added to the system by the system administrator.

Many key suppliers have been identified for our marketplace. They include, but are not limited to Staples, Grainger, CDW, McKesson-Medical Surgical, Fisher Scientific, VWR and Ronnoco Coffee. Catalogs will continue to be added as we identify suppliers that have valid contracts and can integrate with the system.

The buyer role in Billiken Buy is assigned to those users who have the authority to make purchases using University funds based on the Banner finance fund or org authority. The browser role is assigned to those users who have the need to create purchases for goods and services but do not have the authority to make purchases using University funds based on the Banner finance fund or org authority.

Approvers have the ability to designate a Proxy when out of the office. This Proxy will have the ability to approve requisitions in their absence. If an approver is out of the office and a proxy has not been set in the system, a user can reach out to the system administrator at billikenbuyadmin@slu.edu for assistance. Approvers should only designate a Proxy within their DOA level.

Declined requisitions can be found in the View Requisitions page, copied and edited for resubmittal by the buyer who originally created the requisition.

Justifications are required for purchases exceeding $10,000, when competitive bids cannot be obtained. These notes are only visible internally to Saint Louis University users and approvers on the requisition.

Browsers can shop and reassign their cart to a buyer, and perform the receiving function for orders in their org sharing units. This would replace the current paper process of department supervisors searching on line for items and then writing a paper request for the requisitioner to enter into Banner.

Purchase orders in Billiken Buy begin with an EP, whereas purchase orders in Banner begin with a P0. This allows users to differentiate between purchase orders issued in Billiken Buy and Banner. Invoice numbers are also sequenced differently. Invoices from Billiken Buy in Banner will begin with an IU, whereas invoices begin in Banner with an I0.

Select Cognos BUSFM003 Report of Transactions - Excel. Under "Additional Parameters," choose "Report Type: Blanket PO." Enter other parameters as usual, and click "Run Report."

The blanket and release PO number for each invoice transaction will display in column L. The release PO number will also display in column K.

Due to the line item detail provided by Billiken Buy, Banner INB/BSS and the Cognos report of transactions will reflect the individual commodity lines for purchases. To make reconciling your budgets easier, the following options have been added to the parameters page for the Cognos BUSFM003 Report of Transactions - Excel report:

• Blanket PO Report Type: This report will reflect the blanket PO number, as well as the release PO numbers under that blanket. To run this report, select Cognos BUSFM003 Report of Transactions - Excel. Under "Additional Parameters" choose "Report Type: Blanket PO." Enter other parameters as usual and click "Run Report." The blanket and release PO number for each invoice transaction will display in column L. The release PO number will also display in column K.
• Blanket PO Summary Report Type: This report will sum your transactions by document code. For vendors that provide a discount, the discount amount will be a separate line item. To run this report, select "Blanket PO Summary" under the Report Type Parameter

When creating requisitions for payments to be made in the current fiscal year for services or goods to be received in a future fiscal year, notes should be included in the Requisition's "Justification" field indicating that payment is for a future fiscal year. The charge will then be deferred by CPC.