DPS Invoicing Shows Improvement

The following article was taken from our Daycos 2nd Quarter 2009 Newsletter:
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As the volume of DPS invoices has increased over the first part of 2009, we had feared that the invoicing problems would become overwhelming with issues that would prevent TSPs from collecting payment. We are pleased to say that for the most part, that has not happened. Invoices are being paid, and money is flowing to the TSPs in a reasonable time frame. It is taking more work and manual intervention to get the invoices paid in DPS than it does in CWA, but that is to be expected in a new system.

The Numbers
Through the first of June, we have submitted 4,360 invoices to DPS, comprised of 3,325 Domestic and 1,035 International. We received payment on 2,660 invoices, of which approximately 10% ended up in Audit Exception status in PowerTrack, which is about the same percentage as the current program. As you can see in the chart below, the Audit Exception percentage has varied widely from month to month, with a high of 25% in February to a low of 7% in May. The average payment time for DPS invoices has continued to decline steadily despite the increase in volume, and it has been between 8 and 9 days for the past two months.

Existing Problems
In addition to working through the normal problems that come with any new system, there are a handful of systematic issues which have been plaguing the DPS invoicing process since its launch.

Alaska Linehaul: To date, we have billed approximately 25 Alaska linehaul invoices, and not one of them has rated correctly. We continue to work on testing potential fixes in the DPS Test System, but we have not successfully tested an Alaskan linehaul invoice.

Destination Linehaul Factor: On January 8th, 2009, we communicated to SDDC and JPMO-HHGS that there was a discrepancy between the destination point utilized by DPS to calculate the destination factor portion of linehaul, and the one indicated by the AMSA 400NG tariff. Basically, DPS was using the SIT location if a shipment went into SIT, and the AMSA instructions indicated it should be based on Block 18 of the GBL. Six months later, this issue is still not resolved, and is the root cause for a large percentage of our Audit Exceptions.

Transmission Errors: One of the real problems we had in the early days of CWA was transmission errors passing files back and forth between CWA and PowerTrack. While we have not seen the same volume of problems in DPS, there are still significant issues, and the problems seem to be increasing. We currently have 131 help desk tickets opened on invoice transmission problems with DPS.

Future Potential Problem
While we have enough to worry about with our current issues, we also continue to fear what problems might arise in the future with GSA Notices of Overcharge on DPS shipments. While we have been able to use “workarounds” to keep invoices moving and payments being made, we do not know how GSA will view these workarounds. We are trying to document as well as we can, but we suspect that we will be defending these invoices a couple of years down the road from a GSA audit.

Related Posts

1. DPS Invoicing Testing Shows Progress - April 11th, 2008
2. DPS SAT Update: Invoicing - February 1st, 2007
3. DPS Invoicing Volume Increasing - February 24th, 2009