FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

The following questions and answers relate to the Financial Management portion of the project.

Please consult your Departmental Trainer, or you may submit questions via the button at the bottom of this page.

For help with the basics on using the system, consult our How to Get Help page. Here are some other questions that have come up in training:

Can I access Advantage from my home computer?

I want to cut and paste from one document’s description into another but I don’t know how to do that. Can I cut and paste in Advantage?

If I am in a situation where I begin to enter a request and determine the vendor is not listed, can I save my work up to that point or must I exit and start again when there is a vendor number?

How do you add/maintain contacts for an existing vendor?

I want to add attachments. The training documents indicate there should be a paper clip icon next to “Header” on the secondary navigation panel. When I practice, the paper clip appears next to “Accounting”. What am I doing wrong?

How can I look at payments made to a vendor?

Should you continue to put index code on timesheets and how will Labor Distribution work until the HR system is up?

I am going to do business with a person or company that is not currently in the system. How do I get them added to Advantage so that I can issue a PO, Contract, or payment?

I am trying to use a blanket purchase order in Advantage, but it looks like a "regular" PO, which means that I have to use a receiving document and can't indicate how many I'm receiving. How do I do this?

Can I access Advantage from my home computer?
Yes, you can access Advantage from your home computer, but you must do so securely. First, this means that you must have VPN or RAS software configured on your computer so that you can log into the network. This is something that IS can help you with, and their policies are in this document. You must get your supervisor’s permission to do this, and you have to think through your work process carefully. For example, you should not save documents that are in Advantage to your home computer. This includes forms, attachments, and other potentially sensitive information. You must sign the acceptable use policy that is required by IS and you should safeguard the application, data, and connection while working at home as carefully as you would safeguard the data you’re working with.

You should also be aware that in many cases, your experience with the application will be somewhat slower via a VPN connection than it would be at work. This is not a reportable issue unless you have reason to believe that the responsiveness is much worse than normal, in which case you should follow the normal help processes covered in training.

Please review the County's Teleworking and Flexworking Policies and Procedures.

I want to cut and paste from one document’s description into another but I don’t know how to do that. Can I cut and paste in Advantage?
You cannot use the cut, copy and paste functions from the mouse in Advantage. You can use some keyboard shortcuts, though. The shortcut for Copy is Ctrl+c. The shortcut for Paste is Ctrl+v, and for Cut is Ctrl+x. If you’re not familiar with how this works, you can practice using text in a Word document and it will work the same way.

1. Select the text you would like to copy.
2. Hold down the Control key on the keyboard (labeled Ctrl)
3. While the Ctrl key is still down, tap the c key on your keyboard. You have just copied the selected text on to the clipboard.
4. Move to a location or document where you want to paste.
5. Make sure your cursor is where you want to paste (i.e. click there, don’t just move your mouse pointer)
6. Hold down your Ctrl key and tap v on the keyboard. The selected text should be copied to the new place.
7. You can repeat this to try the cut function by repeating the steps but substituting the x key for the c key in step 3.

**It is common notation to use KeyName+KeyName to imply that you hold down the first one or two and keep them down while tapping the last one. That is the convention we will use in this FAQ.

If I am in a situation where I begin to enter a request and determine the vendor is not listed, can I save my work up to that point or must I exit and start again when there is a vendor number?
You can save any document you are working on by selecting the "save" button at the bottom of the screen and come back to it later. It will be in "draft" status and when you open it back up you will need to select "edit" at the bottom to continue working on it.

How do you add/maintain contacts for an existing vendor?
The contact may no longer be valid for the vendor or for this particular contract the contact name would be different. Vendors should maintain their contacts through Vendor Self Service. If they cannot use Vendor Self Service then they will need to fill out the Vendor Enrollment Application Form and select "change" on the form and list the new contact and then submit it to Finance so their vendor record can get updated.

I want to add attachments. The training documents indicate there should be a paper clip icon next to “Header” on the secondary navigation panel. When I practice, the paper clip appears next to “Accounting”. What am I doing wrong?
You are not on the "header" of the document. Make sure you select header on the secondary navigation panel before attaching a document. When doing attachments they will attach to whatever "tab" you currently have open.

Look for more of your questions and answers coming soon. In the meantime, review this important information on password management.

How can I look at payments made to a vendor?
The Advantage page code is VTH--Vendor Transaction History. You can go on the eWake website to "Training Info". The eWake 204 Other Payments training material, on page 21, will direct you how to get the vendor payment information.

Should you continue to put index code on timesheets and how will Labor Distribution work until the HR system is up?
Please watch for FAQs on the HR system as it nears completion. For now, though, please continue to use your index code on your timesheets. You will be receiving training on the new eWake HR process and that will provide further instructions on completing your timesheet in the future.

I am going to do business with a person or company that is not currently in the system. How do I get them added to Advantage so that I can issue a PO, Contract, or payment?
You will do most of the work the same as you do now. For a complete list of forms and procedures, please visit our Policies & Procedures page.

I am trying to use a blanket purchase order in Advantage, but it looks like a "regular" PO, which means that I have to use a receiving document and can't indicate how many I'm receiving. How do I do this?
When we converted existing Adpics Blanket orders to Advantage, they were converted as "regular" POs in Advantage, based to the remaining balance at the time of conversion. If a blanket had a balance of $4208.55, it converted as :
"1ea Stuff @ $4208.55".

Because it was converted as a standard PO, that means that a receiving report will have to be completed for each payment made on the blanket until the blanket is closed out. Also, the receiving will have to be done as a "percent" of the qty ordered, ie, "1 each"

Let's say we want to make a payment of $830.00 on the blanket order in the example above. First, you need to find out what percent $830 is of the balance of $4208.55. It is 19.72 percent, so when doing the receiving report in Advantage, you'll need to do a partial receipt for "0.1972". And on the PRC, you would enter the same percent amount. You can receive down to 5 places to the right of the decimal, so getting the payment amount to match up as close as possible to the received amount should not be difficult. The total of all of your receivers should not exceed 100%. At year end, you'll need to process a final receiver and PRC to close the document.

Beginning with July 2008 blanket orders, which will be created directly into Advantage, a different process will apply. When creating an RQ for a "blanket PO", there is a slightly different process in creating the original RQS. With blanket POs, there are no receiving reports, you copy the BPO forward directly to the PRC document. Please refer to the appropriate training course manuals, 219 & 220, which will lead you through the process.