Defense Dept. Requires Electronic Invoices, Payments Effective March 1, the Defense Department began using electronic payment for all contracts except those that are specifically exempted. Under an interim ruled published in the Feb. 21 Federal Register, contractors must submit requests for payment and the DD Form 250, inspection and receiving report, in one of three approved electronic formats: Wide Area WorkFlow-Receipt and Acceptance (WAWF-RA), Web Invoicing System (WInS) or American National Standards Institute (ANSI) X.12. The rule allows contracting officers and payment offices to accept other formats or to exempt an individual contract if the contractor is not able to use electronic payment. “Facsimile, e-mail, and scanned documents are not acceptable electronic forms,” the Defense Acquisition Regulation Council said. DOD says electronic payment eliminates late payments and interest penalties, reduces mailing time and expense, and eliminates errors in manual data entry. The interim rule implements section 1008 of the 2001 Defense Authorization Act. It was supposed to have taken effect in June 2001, but was delayed because the department’s primary electronic payment system, Wide Area Workflow, was not ready. That system has undergone extensive testing and was already being used by some of the largest contractors. “By March 1, 2003, the systems will be capable of processing nearly 100% of payment requests,” the council said. “For those systems that are not ready, the interim rule provides the contracting officer the flexibility to work solutions to unique payment situations to ensure that contractors are paid on time for work they have performed.” “Any start-up costs that contractors will incur to comply with the rule are expected to be minimal,” the council added. One commenter on the proposed rule said, “Learning to use WAWF-RA is very time consuming, but (it is) easy to use after you learn how to use it.” The department cited these websites for information about the system: www.wawftraining.com for training; rmb.ogden.disa.mil for general information on WAWF or to register; www.dcma.mil (click on Electronic Invoicing) for the Defense Contract Management Agency; www.dfas.mil/ecedi for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service; www.disa.mil and wawf-ra@ncr.disa.mil for the Defense Information Systems Agency; and www.peoards.navy.mil (click on Initiatives, WAWF) for the Navy. Computer-based training is also available on compact disk. The interim rule, DFARS Case 2002-D001, is open for public comment until April 22. Comments may be submitted at http://emissary.acq.osd.mil/dar/dfars.nsf/pubcomm.