getting the correct costs in CARS

I know many of you are busily entering in your first invoices into CARS. If for whatever reason you have put in the incorrect amount that you have invoiced prior to CARS, just let us know and we can fix it for you. If your first invoice has been paid, and has that incorrect amount, we will need to fix it behind the scenes. Regardless, you will want the correct numbers in there.

Also, as you are reviewing your contracts, let us know if any of the dollar amounts are incorrect. There's a lot of good data in there, but we know that on occasion the data is not what it needs to be.

CARS Q&A session was last week. The questions and answer from that June 23 session will be posted to the CARS website soon. CARS 101 training is on June 30. The sign up for that training is here.

A link to firms in CARS is here.

A link to the CARS training videos are here.

what's new this week

This will be a short post.

By the time you read this, there should be a new Wisconsin DOT website. Go on and check it out.

We have a CARS Q & A session we are holding on Tuesday at 9AM Central Daylight Time.

Top Three Questions of the Week

Seems like these three questions came up the most this week, so I may well have a quick explainer.

1. The browser to be using for CARS is Internet Explorer 10 (11 also seems to work just fine). I am using Google Chrome for writing this blog, but Chrome isn't the browser to use for CARS. Chrome works pretty good for CARS, but that upload documents button just doesn't work in Chrome.
2. The search area in the upper right, that is for Prime projects, prime contracts, and prime master contracts only. In the release later this summer we will be giving you greater functionality in that area to search for subcontracts
3. The percentages for the invoices in lump sum and actual cost invoices reflect the cumulative percentage you are done, not the percent you completed on this particular invoice.

I am hoping to have updated CARS training videos sometime this summer. The WisDOT website will be undergoing an overhaul. I would like to make the videos when that is complete.

A link to the CARS Training videos is here.

A link to the firms in the CARS application is here.

searching for your invoices and creating a $0 prime invoice

One question that is popping up again and again is you want to know the status of your invoices. If you have invoiced before on a project and you want to know if it has been included by the prime or if the invoice has been paid, you need to search for it.

One of the menu items in CARS is the Search menu item. Hover over Search, and then click on "Invoices".

When you do that, you will be able to search for your invoices by project ID, WisDOT invoice number, or your consultant invoice number.

From there, you can check the status of your previous invoices.

If you have the invoice notification role for the project, you will receive an email when the invoice is paid.

Also, last week I had a little blog post about how to create a $0 invoice for your subs. This week, I have created a video how to create a $0 invoice for yourself as the prime. The link to that video is here.

The list of firms in CAR is here. We are up over 150 now.

The link to the CARS training videos is here.