wrapping up the blog

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted in a while. Things have gotten busy with all the invoicing in CARS. For September, there were almost 1,700 prime invoices submitted in CARS. It's kept all of us busy.

I think for the most part we have almost all the contracts cleared up and most firms using CARS now.

Here is the list of firms in CARS.

Here is the CARS page where you can find the manual and video tutorials.

fixing bad invoices

Sometime after the July 19 release of CARS, there are some invoices that had some irregular things happen to them. By irregular, I mean, you invoiced for a certain dollar amount, it was recorded in the generated pdf, but now in CARS it shows the invoice is for $0.

If you have one of those troubling invoices, please email us at wisdotcars@dot.wi.gov.

Let us know the DOT Invoice ID and we can help get the invoices back on track. If you have already let me know about the invoices, you do not need to email us.

searching for your sub invoices

When you are creating invoices for your subs, they are not always showing up in your dashboard invoice area.

You can use the search functionality and type in different criteria to find your invoice.

See the example below.

From there, you can get to your invoice.

Here is a list of firms in CARS.

Here is the CARS page where you can find the manual and video tutorials.

a busy couple weeks

Just want to thank you as we work through our first mandatory month of CARS invoicing. There are a lot of issues and questions coming in from a lot of consultants. I generally try to get through all the day's emails, but some days I do not. If you have a question that has been sitting in my email inbox for a few days, and want to make sure we got it, you can either email or call again. We've been having MS Outlook email issues lately, which has only added to the issues. For the most part though, those issues seems to have cleared up.

Here are the firms in CARS.

Here is the CARS Page where you can find video tutorials and the manual.

Previously Invoiced and Paid Amounts

Many of you have had questions about the previously invoiced and paid amounts that are showing up on your CARS invoices. I do want to acknowledge that some of these previous invoiced and paid amounts are not correct. It is something we are working to get fixed this week. There also remain a few other bugs in the CARS app that we are working to resolve with a quick fix to the CARS application sometime this week.

A list of firms in CARS is here.

A link to the CARS page where the video tutorials reside is here.

mandatory CARS usage for invoices

Just a reminder that as we move into August, we now have mandatory CARS invoicing for all July costs. The only invoices that are not mandatory in CARS are those projects that will be completed prior to October 1, 2015 and phased contracts. Other city, village, county and university invoices are exempt. If you need a list of those projects, please contact us. 

While we need all invoices in CARS, if there is a small firm that you are working that needs help, or will not be using CARS for invoicing, we're expecting that you help the firm where you can, and/or possibly invoice on behalf of them.

Looking forward to a busy month of August.

Here are the firms in CARS.

Here is a link to the CARS page where you can find the training videos.

don't invoice when something seems wrong

We have over 5,000 active prime and subcontracts in the CARS application. When a contract is "Active," that means you have the ability to create an invoice on it. If you ever see anything wrong, like an incorrect DBE flag, contract function, overhead type and basis of payment, please let us know prior to the start of your invoice. If incorrect dollar amounts are showing up, please let us know that as well.

The DBE status, function, overhead rate type, basis of payment and contract dollar amounts are found at the bottom of your contract.

(click on the image to see the image more clearly)

We know that with the start of mandatory invoicing with the costs incurred in July, that we need to make sure that all is correct, otherwise you may not be paid the correct amount, or invoicing may just be plain more of a headache than it needs to be.

Here is an updated list of firms in CARS.

Here is the location of the CARS page where you can find the video tutorials.