Background

Oracle's iSupplier module, titled the Delphi eInvoicing system, has been selected as the U.S. Department of Transportation's new grants payment processing system. The Delphi eInvoicing system will assist the Department in standardizing and streamlining the grants payment process. This system will allow for electronic invoicing, real-time funds checking to the Delphi financial system at the time of invoice submission, automated review and approval processes, and expedited payment processing.

The transition to the Delphi eInvoicing system is an opportunity to reevaluate the grants payment processes across the Department and establish several new policies to strengthen the management and oversight of this process. These include:

1. Use of the Delphi eInvoicing system for the submission, review and approval of payment requests will be mandatory unless a waiver is granted by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO).
2. All grant recipients must be set up as suppliers in Delphi;
3. All system users (internal and external) must be registered in the Delphi eInvoicing system;
4. All recipient banking information must be updated by the grantee in the System for Award Management (SAM) system prior to being registered in iSupplier;
5. The identity of all external system users will be verified prior to being granted access to the Delphi eInvoicing system;
6. Payments to grant recipients will no longer be made outside of the Delphi financial system;
7. Advances and pre-payments to grant recipients will no longer be made unless authorized by law. Advances and pre-payments will not be made through the Delphi eInvoicing system. If a grant recipient is authorized to receive advance payment, they should submit payment requests directly to the OA for review and approval prior to being sent to the Enterprise Service Center (ESC) for payment;
8. All credit memos/refunds will be submitted through the Delphi eInvoicing system and will be reviewed and approved by the OA prior to processing;
9. Interest will not be paid to grantees unless required by law. Note: The requirements of the Prompt Payment Act do not apply to grantee payments.

The DOT eInvoicing web site is: einvoice.esc.gov

Grants Payment Procedures

Use of the Delphi eInvoicing system for the submission, review and approval of grants payment requests will be mandatory unless a waiver is granted by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO).

Grantee User Registration

Grantee organizations requiring access to the Delphi eInvoicing system must be set up as Suppliers in Delphi. At least one staff member of the grantee organization must be defined as a primary contact at either the supplier in Delphi. Before grantee users can access any of the collaboration network applications, a user account needs to be provided to them.

The process steps for registering a user within the Delphi eInvoicing system are:

1. The initiation of a request for external user access will be made by the individual OA Grants office (the FAA COE Program Office). The OA Grants office will complete the Grantee User Account Request (UAR) form. Once the form has been completed, it should be forwarded to the Delphi Security Officer (DSO). OA Grants office can still require a UAR but then those requests are submitted by the grants office via Request Supplier User responsibility in Delphi and not the Delphi Security Office/ESC Helpdesk.  Once the requests are submitted through Delphi, it gets routed to the helpdesk, assigned a ticket number, and both requestor and new user will be notified once access has been granted with sign-in instructions.
   Note: The Grantee User Account Request form should be completed at the time of award to ensure that the grantee users have access to the system at the time they need to submit their first reimbursement request. Additional grantee users can be added by the OA as needed through the submission of a Grantee User Account Request form.
2. The OA-DSO will send a new user request via the Request Management System to the Enterprise Service Center (ESC) Production Helpdesk. The request from the OA-DSO to the ESC will be via a standardized form which will be entered into the Request Management System incident management system. The request will contain the applicant's email address and the supplier number (in this case, a grantee organization is considered a supplier) to which the applicant should be linked. It will also contain authorization attributes (such as individual site limitations for the grantee user) to be used later in the process. Upon submittal, the Request Management System request will be routed to the operational organization within ESC that manages supplier relationships.
3. Once received by ESC, the form will be validated by the ESC Production Helpdesk against a standard checklist, and they will validate the information on the form.
4. The ESC Production Helpdesk will complete the Grants Payment System workflow to approve the grantee user account, and add any security limitations as appropriate.
5. Grantees will receive one email that their access has been granted with direction to log in within 3 days for initial setup.

User Revalidation

Each grantee organization will have a primary point of contact. Every six months, a member of the ESC Production Helpdesk will send a complete listing of grantee users and access levels to the OA primary point of contact for review (the FAA COE Program Office). The primary point of contact will be asked to verify that the users still have valid authority to present payment requests on behalf of the grantee organization. Once completed, the point of contact will send the listing, noting any necessary changes, to the ESC Production Helpdesk who will record any corrections.

User Suspension/Deactivation

De activation procedures will follow current ESC practices. At the request of an OA, a grantee user can be "suspended" or "deactivated" for that OA. The OA Program Office or ESC Staff will file a ticket through the Request Management System requesting that access to a particular OA be removed for a given Grantee user. Once the deactivation request is received by the ESC Production Helpdesk, the responsibility for that OA will be withdrawn for that grantee user, which will immediately restrict their access. The grantee user will still have access to all other OAs who have not requested deactivation.

If the "suspension" or "deactivation" is temporary, the OA will file a ticket through the Request Management System requesting that access to a particular OA be restored for a given grantee user. Once the reactivation request is received by the ESC Production Helpdesk the responsibility for that OA will be restored for that grantee user, which will immediately restore their access.

Waiver Process

DOT Financial Management officials may grant exceptions to the requirement to register and use the electronic grant payment system on a case by case basis via waiver request. Recipients may apply for an exemption or waiver by submitting a written waiver request to DOT Office Financial Management. This request must contain the following information:

1. Name, address, grantee institution or entity name, phone number and email address.
2. Recipients must provide specific reasons as to why they are unable to use or access the internet to register and enter payment requests using the online payment system.

All requests should be sent to the Director of the Office of Financial Management, U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Financial Management, B-30, room W93-431, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington DC 20590-0001, dotelectronicinvoicing@dot.gov. A DOT Financial Management representative (DOT Representative) will ensure request is complete and valid, to include contact name, contact address, grantee institution or entity name, phone number and email address, as well as the reason for requiring a waiver. Once the request is validated by the DOT Representative, the Director of the Office of Financial Management will review the request and provide a response confirming or denying the request via mail or e-mail to the recipient point of contact. The review process should take approximately thirty (30) days from the time the request is sent to the Office of Financial Management.
Note: A copy of each grantee waiver request and DOT response will be provided to the OA grants payment contacts once the Office of Financial Management (B-30) has completed their review.

Approval Management

The Grants Payment System requires the ability to route payment requests for suppliers and grantees through an approval process utilizing preconfigured approval criteria and hierarchies. Notifications are needed for approvers, suppliers, and grantees at various stages of the approval process to inform them of the current status of the payment request.

Because of the varying types of grants and OA specific regulations, the Grants Payment System will provide a highly flexible approval maintenance capability. A default approval hierarchy must be set up for each OA, which will be used in the absence of any other rules. However, the system will have the capability to assign an approval hierarchy down to the accounting string level on a grant obligation, and various levels in between (Grantee, Grantee Site, Grant Type, Purchase Order, Purchase Order Line, and Purchase Order Accounting Line). OAs can create and request changes to approval hierarchies using the Approval Hierarchy Change Request Form and assign the hierarchy to a PO, group of POs, or supplier using the Hierarchy Assignment Form. Both forms can be accessed and completed online. Once the forms have been completed, they will be automatically routed to the ESC Production Help Desk. The ESC Production Help Desk will log a ticket and act on the request. When the requested changes are completed, the ticket will be closed and the OA submitter will be notified via email. Both forms should be completed at the time of award to ensure that an approval hierarchy is created prior to the submission of the grantees first reimbursement request. Any updates to approval hierarchies should be submitted by the OA as needed.

OAs will be responsible for submitting any changes required, prior to a payment request needing to use the hierarchy. For example, if a particular grant will require a special approval hierarchy, the hierarchy should be submitted at the time of the obligation to ensure no payment requests are submitted prior to the hierarchy being established.

But most importantly, any OA individuals that need to participate in the approval process will require Delphi login accounts. The current Delphi user account request process will be used, in which the OA Delphi Security Officer will request a new login with appropriate security attributes.

Please note that it will be critical to have these configurations properly identified and recorded in the Grants Payment System proactively, in order to avoid any delays in payment request processing. A proper setup can ensure a very swift and efficient process for Grantee users.

Redistribution of Purchase Orders (POs)

When a grantee submits a payment request, one or more purchase orders are selected for invoicing. The invoice amount is applied at the PO summary level (Grantees are not shown lines, shipments, or distributions for the purchase order). However, purchase orders in Delphi consist of PO headers and PO lines (this is the level at which the accounts payable accounting is processed in Delphi). Therefore, the invoice amount is applied to the oldest line of accounting first using First-in-First-out (FIFO) logic. The invoice amount must be reviewed to determine the accuracy of the default distribution. The redistribution process allows an OA reviewer or approver to change the default payment distribution to a different distribution using other purchase order (PO) lines, PO distributions, or PO shipments within the same purchase order. If a payment request requires redistribution across POs, the OA reviewer or approver should reject the payment request back to the grantee and include instructions for correction and resubmission.

The grants payment redistribution functionality allows any reviewer in the approval hierarchy to modify the default payment distribution as necessary. If a reviewer modifies the defaulted PO distribution at any point during the approval process, the approval process will restart with the first reviewer in the assigned approval hierarchy. Each OA will need to determine the appropriate method of communicating changes to the default PO distribution to their grantees as the grantee will not have the ability to see the changes to the payment distribution made by the OA.
Note: If an invoice has been defined as auto approved, redistribution functionality (as well as approval functionality) will not be made available to the approvers. In the case of auto approval, the default distribution process will remain in place.

ESC Production Helpdesk

An ESC Production Helpdesk will be setup to support both external and internal system users. The ESC Production Helpdesk is staffed 6am-6pm Eastern Standard Time and will tailor a set of support for system users similar to the services it provides for Delphi and other enterprise applications. The Financial System Modernization (FSM) Team will establish the procedures and documentation required by the ESC Production Helpdesk to provide the services required to support the Delphi eInvoicing System. Helpdesk services will include external user password resets, approval hierarchy maintenance, resolution of workflow errors, etc. The ESC Production Helpdesk can be reached at (866) 641-3500, Option 4 then Option 3.
Note: All password resets for internal Delphi system users will continue to be requested through the OA Delphi Security Officers.

Month/Quarter/Year-end Processing

ESC Accounting Technicians will be responsible for preparing adjusting entries at each period-end for any payment requests or credit memos submitted by grantees that have not been posted to the Delphi financial system. In accordance with the currently established standard business process, OAs must review and approve all adjusting entries prepared by the Accounting Technicians prior to being posted to the Delphi general ledger (G/L)