Purchasing Processes Impact

This page provides an overview of the current state (AggieBuy and KFS) and future state for Aggie Enterprise purchasing.  

Learn more about what KFS (AggieBuy) Purchase Orders and Purchase Agreements will be transitioning to Aggie Enterprise, and how they will be used in Aggie Enterprise.
Purchasing policies and supporting documentation requirements are not changing as a result of the upcoming transition to Aggie Enterprise. Processes will change, but the requirement to ensure each purchase is compliant with university policy will not be changing.

 

Current State Future State
There are two separate systems for purchasing, one for catalog purchasing (AggieBuy) and one for non-catalog purchasing (Kuali Financial System - KFS). Aggie Enterprise will be used for purchasing items from catalog suppliers, purchasing against existing university agreements and creating non-catalog and non-agreement orders. Catalogs will continue to be the recommended and preferred way of purchasing, and catalog purchasing will be available in Aggie Enterprise.  
There is a Purchasing User role in KFS and a Requisitioner role in AggieBuy for creating Requisitions. There will be a role that will allow users to create and submit catalog and non-catalog Requisitions and perform receiving functions. This role will be similar to the Purchasing User role in the Kuali Financial System (KFS) AND the Requisitioner role in AggieBuy. 
There are approximately 10,000 commodity codes in KFS. There will be approximately 200 purchasing category names from which to select for non-catalog purchasing.
Purchases in AggieBuy and in KFS start with a Requisition. Each purchase in Aggie Enterprise will also start with a Requisition.  The Requisition will require the approval of a department fiscal approver (PPM Project Manager or Charge Account Approver), and the fully approved Requisition will generate a Purchase Order. 
Purchase agreements are available for use in AggieBuy and in KFS. Customers will still be able to order from many of the same suppliers they have used in AggieBuy, as well as purchase from the same university purchasing agreements they have used in KFS.  The ordering process for some of these suppliers may change.
Historically, Departmental Blanket Agreements were set up on the Agreement Request document in KFS.  The department purchased against the blanket agreement by citing the Agreement Number of the fully approved Agreement Request document on their Requisition document.

Departmental Blanket Requests will be established on a Requisition document. Once the Requisition is fully approved, the department can cite the approved Purchase Order when contacting the supplier to make purchases, and the supplier will invoice accordingly.

Please note that this new Blanket Order process started in the Kuali Financial System (KFS) on 1/30/23.  
Accounts can be split by quantity or percentage of total order amount. No change. Users will still be able to split accounts by item quantity or by percentage of total amount of order.
Users can use an existing Requisition as a template for a new one. There will be a duplicate functionality available for copying a previous Requisition and adding multiple item lines to a Requisition at one time.
Purchases of restricted goods (e.g., controlled substances) and purchases over the delegated Automatic Purchase Order (APO) limit not citing a purchase agreement route to and require the approval of a buyer in Procurement & Contracting Services.

The following will route to and require the approval of a buyer in Procurement & Contracting Services:

  • Purchases of restricted goods (e.g., controlled substances), whether an agreement is cited or not
  • Purchases over the delegated Automatic Purchase Order (APO) limit where an agreement is not cited
In AggieBuy and in KFS, users can identify default delivery locations and and accounting codes. There will be a Requisition Preferences screen, which will allow users to set up default accounts ahead of time, as well as give each of those accounts its own "nickname," making it easier to process purchases without having to search for an account each time!  The Requisition Preferences screen will also allow users to easily save their most frequently-used delivery location.
The Requisition validates whether the referenced agreement has sufficient funds and does not allow it to be submitted if there aren't sufficient funds.  In Aggie Enterprise, a user can cite an agreement on a Requisition even if it has no balance, and the Requisition will submit successfully. An insufficient agreement balance will prevent a Purchase Order from being created. The buyer in Procurement & Contracting Services will work with the department to add funding to the agreement as appropriate.
Change orders are initiated via the Purchase Order document in KFS. The ability to initiate and process change orders will be initiated via the Requisition document, and not the Purchase Order.

Purchase Order numbers start with:

  • UCD for Purchase Orders created by Procurement & Contracting Services
  • UCDAB for AggieBuy Purchase Orders
  • 4-Digit Departmental Code (e.g., ACCT) for Automatic Purchase Orders (APOs)

Purchase Agreement numbers start with A (e.g., A71726)
  • All Purchase Order numbers will start with UCDPO, followed by eight numeric digits issued sequentially (e.g. UCDPO12345678).
  • Agreement numbers will start with UCDPA, followed by eight numeric digits issued sequentially (e.g. UCDPA12345678).
The Online Pre-Purchasing (OPP) System interfaces with KFS and AggieBuy. The Online Pre-Purchasing (OPP) System will interface with the new system. If a department is currently using OPP, they will be able to continue to do so when Aggie Enterprise goes live.

Non-Purchasing Agreements (NPA) Information

Users in central departments with very specific purchasing needs can create Requisitions in the Kuali Financial System (KFS) known as Non-Purchasing Agreements, or NPAs, that bypass approval from Procurement & Contracting Services. 

KFS users with the KFS_NPAUSER role will be given access to create the following documents that will behave much the same way as the NPA does in KFS.  

  • Restricted – Delegated Purchasing Use Only – Rate Based
  • Restricted – Delegated Purchasing Use Only – Quantity Based

These new documents will:

  • be restricted to only those commodity types that can be acquired currently via the NPA process, with a drop-down menu of Category Names that will limit the user to a pre-defined list of commodity types, 
  • require approval from the PPM Project Manager or chart string approver, as well as Capital Asset Accounting for some of the specified commodity types,
  • not require Procurement & Contracting Services approval, as is the case with the current NPA process, and
  • generate a Purchase Order once all required approvals have been secured.

Also, please note that the KFS_NPAUSER role will be inactivated in the Kuali Financial System (KFS) as of end of business, 5:00pm, on Thursday, December 14th, 2023.