Introducing the COMMBUYS Business Bulletin for Vendors
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To ensure Statewide Contract vendors have the information they need to productively conduct business in COMMBUYS, the Operational Services Division's COMMBUYS Operations Team has launched the
COMMBUYS Business Bulletin for vendors. The COMMBUYS Operations Team will use this new publication to distribute important updates, system enhancements, critical dates, and reminders to support our eCommerce partners. We invite you to share our publication with other business units within your organization.
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PO Alternate ID Enhancement
COMMBUYS-hosted Line Item Catalogs
In June, buyers received guidance to enter referential encumbrance information from the buyer's accounting system in the Alternate ID (Alt ID) field in COMMBUYS. This information is extremely useful to buyers and vendors: passing this data back to the buyer's accounts payable staff via vendor invoice processing will facilitate payments. Information included in the Alternate ID and Special Instructions fields also will populate on Purchase Orders vendors print from COMMBUYS.
G2B (PunchOut) Vendors
As a follow up reminder to our June 2, 2016, email regarding COMMBUYS XML Modifications, we have implemented the following changes with most G2B vendors:
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PO Alt ID field
: We are
requiring vendors to include PO Alt ID information from the buyer on the invoice, when possible;
- Special Instructions field: We are requesting vendors include Special Instructions from the buyer on the PO acknowledgement and other electronic communications from vendors.
Sample Alternate ID Data:
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Sample MMARS data:
PCOSD1000ALTERNATEID2016TEST1 or with dashes/spaces PC-OSD-1000-ALTERNATEID2016TEST1
- Sample Municipality PO data (usually a numeric string): 1605279
Sample XML:
- <Extrinsic name="Special Instructions">Special Instructions data</Extrinsic> 50 Characters max
- <Extrinsic name="PoAlternateId">PCOSD1000ALTERNATEID2016TEST1</Extrinsic> 4000 characters max
Both fields only will be available in the XML if data is entered in COMMBUYS.
Please contact Kimberly.McPhail@state.ma.us with any specific questions or to coordinate testing.
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Administration Fee Update
Several weeks ago, OSD assembled a team to examine current administration fee procedures from contract award through payment collection and reconciliation. This initiative to explore the current process - both internally and from our vendors' perspective - is part of an effort to simplify and streamline this process. With this in mind, OSD reached out to Statewide Contractors via survey to understand
their procedures to prepare and submit contract administration fee payments each quarter. We received 264 responses that have helped to inform our review of this process. Thank you! Contractors can expect to learn more about our plans to update the current process in the coming weeks.
In the short term, we wish to emphasize that contractors should be submitting their quarterly administration fees electronically through the secure online payment center. A link to this payment portal is emailed to contractors at the end of each payment quarter, along with instructions for payment.* Payment options include Automated Clearing House (ACH) debits or credit card payments only. Although ACH transactions have no associated fee, credit card payments incur a convenience charge of 2.3% of the payment amount, applied by the payment solutions provider. This fee was lowered from 2.49% in April 2016.
We look forward to providing additional updates as we move forward with this initiative. As before, please direct questions about administration fees to OSD's Fee Administrator at
osdfeeadministrator@massmail.state.ma.us
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*
Update business contact information by emailing your Contract Manager.
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COMMBUYS Upgrade to Offer New Look and Robust Search Capabilities
The COMMBUYS Operations Team has been working to implement additional enhancements to the COMMBUYS Market Center - expected rollout in late summer to early fall 2016.
This newest upgrade will offer a richer look and feel to the COMMBUYS site. OSD expects to unveil the new COMMBUYS look, redesigned with top and side navigation bars and areas for announcements and important links, over the next several weeks.
Although day-to-day functionality of the system will remain largely unchanged for vendors, the upgrade will enhance search capability for buyers, with catalog item filtering by vendor, brand, manufacturer, and SKU, among other descriptors, and implement other changes that will enrich the overall COMMBUYS shopping experience. To ensure Statewide Contract vendor catalogs are best positioned to offer the new searchable classifications, OSD will be launching vendor outreach initiatives over the coming weeks to provide catalog tools and instructions.
Stay tuned for more details.
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COMMBUYS Purchasing Now Available through Google Chrome
As a result of our latest COMMBUYS upgrade, COMMBUYS purchasing, including the full purchase process for PunchOuts, now is supported by the Google Chrome browser. COMMBUYS continues to be available through most standard browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.
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Monthly Maintenance
Regularly scheduled maintenance, generally planned for the second weekend of each month, enables the COMMBUYS Operations Team to make changes and enhancements to the portal. Maintenance announcements are posted in advance on COMMBUYS.com.
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Contact Us!
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Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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