This procedure is used to recover from situations where ASN information is imported into your system and should be posted to the General Ledger, but it is not. This error happens due to receiving activity taking place against the PO lines for the shipment prior to the shipment being processed by the Process Submitted Invoices program. This situation applies only when you are processing ASN transactions and when the transactions are for shipments that are owned by you when the items are shipped from the vendor.
Background
When the ASN system is used to automatically import AP invoices, and when the ownership of the goods shipped by the vendor passes to you on shipment of the goods, the ASN system will post the inbound shipment and AP invoice to the In Transit Inventory account in the GL. This is done using the ASN Process Submitted Invoices program. The Process Submitted Invoices program expects a submitted invoice and open asn records to be present in the system for each new vendor invoice.
The Process Submitted Invoice program then does the following.
It compares the open (status O) ASN detail for the invoice to the Invoice amount to make sure that the asn records are open and that the ASN detail matches the amount of the invoice. The process also confirms that the po lines for the shipment are open for at least the quantity specified in the shipment records.
If the open ASN detail matches the invoice, the system posts the invoice (debit to In Transit, credit to AP), and it changes the status of the AP invoice to I (In Transit status) and it places a hold on the Invoice (to prevent payment processing prior to receiving all of the items for the invoice). The ASN records are also changed to I status to indicate that the items are in Transit.
If the open ASN detail does not match the amount of the invoice being processed, the Process Submitted Invoice routine displays an error message to identify the shipment which cannot be processed, and it does not update the AP Invoice or ASN records.
The most common cause for this error (other than bad import data), is that the items from the vendor are received into Inventory after the AP and ASN records have been imported but before the Process Submitted Invoices program is executed. In this case, the ASN records may be updated by the receiving process (they are status R instead of O).
Correcting the error
The following procedure can be used to recover from situations where ASN and AP invoice data is imported, but the Process Submitted Invoices program is not run prior to the receipt of the items.
The basic problem is that the Process Submitted Invoices program (which posts the ap invoice and the inbound shipment to in transit inventory), expects status S AP invoices, and status O ASN records. If receiving activity is posted against a po line with ASN detail prior to running the Process Submitted Invoices program, the following procedure will allow you to post the invoices and update or clear the ASN records.
1. Verify the AP invoices have a status of S and do not show a Journal Entry number in the AP Register file (the blank journal entry number and the status indicates the invoice was not processed by the Process Submitted Invoices program).
2. Identify the asn transactions for invoice(s).
3. Note the status on the asn records. If the status of any records is set to R (due to the asn being received against) the ASN records need to be reset to status O temporarily so that the process submit will be able to compare the ASN amount to the AP invoice amount successfully. If the ASN records have an O in the status field, they do not need to be modified.
4. Run the Process Submitted Invoices program. This program will then post the invoice to the General Ledger (debit In Transit, credit to AP),it will change the status of the AP invoice to I and it will update the status in the ASN records to I.
5. Recheck the ASN detail for the invoice. If the ASN record has a received quantity, set the asn status to R (to indicate it has been received against) or leave as I (if no quantity has been received).
6. If any of the ASN records for the invoice show a received quantity, set the status of the AP invoice to R (this indicates that the invoice has been partially or fully received and it allows the match receipts program to process the invoice).
7. Run the Match Invoices to Receipts program. If any of the corrected invoices are fully received, verify that the invoice status is changed to A (active and available for payment), that the hold is removed from the invoice, and the status in the ASN records for the invoice are changed to status C.