AP Automation

Procure to pay software can make a substantial impact on the digital transformation of your organization. It leverages the investment in your ERP and has a proven ROI for both cycle times and cost savings.

1. Makes 100% digitalisation possible
Organizations want to reduce their carbon footprint, and stop using paper. A paperless environment reduces the workload paper files and paper processes demand.

2. Expands the control of purchasing
A purchasing system with the ability to pre-approve orders reduces maverick spending. Collaboration between purchasing and finance makes for a successful ROI throughout the entire procure to pay process.

3. Dynamic discounting
By having an automated purchase requisition process, approval cycle times are reduced and dynamic discounting opportunities are optimized.

4. Cloud-based software
Because the capital outlay is minimal in comparison to on-premise, a cloud-based solution means fewer servers and staff requirements. You are not paying for the number of users, but actual invoice volume.

5. Connection to supplier web shops
Get punch-out capabilities to web shops or PRICAT (Price/Sales Catalog) support for the online catalogs of your suppliers.

6. Bird’s-eye view of the organization’s expenses
Leverage the data to get a 360º view of the organization’s expenses. Get supplier statistics such as volume and transactions. 
Identify bottlenecks in the organization from within a central dashboard.

7. User-friendly interface and workflow
Best of breed software is intuitive and user-friendly. Workflows are visually easy to manage and employees can do approvals or coding on desktop, tablets, and smartphones.

8. Tools for reports and KPI performance measurements
Because the digital environment is measurable, tools and reports can provide input into key KPIs that are determined at the outset and altered as the organization evolves.

9. Scalability
If you are experiencing tremendous growth, it is very easy to scale. You can increase your license size accordingly, and conversely downsize in cases of reduced volumes or seasonal fluctuations.

10. Security and protection 
Reputable cloud vendors have made the investment in the right people, tools, and appliances that keep data safe and compliance standards upheld.

See our video on How AP Automation Works here.

For more about how Intelligent Procure to Pay software with 95%+ recommend ratings can help your organization, click here.

What percentage of your company’s spend is under management?

For many companies surveyed, that percentage is under what should optimally be 100%.

Indirect spend is a big issue,  and it is something many organizations have not grappled with.

71% of organizations say they lack visibility with the non-contracted/non-sourced spend category, and 50% said that maverick spending is another big concern.

The cost of uncontrolled purchases

Controlling maverick spending is the challenge facing many organizations. Surveys show they are saying that maverick spending by individual managers or business units is front and center*.  

ERPs and the Technology Challenge

Purchasing modules in ERPs are designed for direct purchasing, but not for managing indirect spending – and here are some of the reasons why:

• Workflows are not flexible to match growing companies.
• Purchasing that is operational is driven by growth – with few control mechanisms in place.
• ERP modules for purchasing are complex and are directed by the “order-to-cash” cycle.
• ERP user licenses are costly, impacting broad-based deployment.
• Multiple versions of an ERP are common in large companies or organizations in different countries.
• Managing spend across many ERPs is not practical.

Ensuring a Successful Implementation of Purchase Requisition Automation

Consult each department to find out specifically what they need to consider a transaction successful. As an example:

• Purchasing has policies that dictate authorization levels required for approved purchases that have to be addressed.
• A safety department is required to be on an approval list for anything that involves their department.
• Accounts payable requires that there is a receipt and PO for the invoice being processed.

Build in controls that relieve you from monitoring
An example would be if a person needs to identify approver’s signatures and authorization amounts. This happens when people leave the company, are promoted, or are new to the organization.

Determine what back-end reporting you need. For example:

• Controllers who monitor spending in their area of responsibility may need to have the ability to drill down to the transaction in question.
• Maintenance may need a report on what a specific vendor brings into their facility.
• AP managers could access metrics on team performance, or have a more efficient and accurate accrual process.

Ensure you have the highest percentage of straight-through processing
If an invoice arrives that is lacking supporting documentation, there is a good chance it will have to go into an approval workflow to have someone look at it. By avoiding this manual process upfront, invoices can be processed in larger volumes automatically, avoiding human intervention altogether.

For more information on how you can empower your organization with automated purchase requisition automation, click here.

*Spend Matters

Intelligent 3 Way Match Handles Exceptions with an Approval Workflow and a Shared Central Dashboard

In this video you’ll see an example of how Palette Software automates the matching process for invoices, purchase orders, and good receipts. As well, there is an explanation of how the approval workflow for exception handling works. Both of these functions save huge amounts of time, and reduce the manual handling of documents to a bare minimum. 2.5 minutes

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Excerpt – Defining The Challenge: 2 and 3 Matching

“Most companies do some form of matching of vendor invoices to purchase orders and/or goods receipts. This is called a two or three way match. The process can require a great deal of manual effort, particularly if the invoiced items have to be matched at the line level.

Once an invoice is entered into an ERP it is assigned a “match/no match” status. If for any reason there are price differences or problems with the goods receipt, the invoice cannot be processed by the ERP. Users or knowledge workers typically have to cancel the transaction, and then perform time-consuming manual work to clear the exception. This usually involves the purchaser, the receiver and sometimes the vendor.

ERPs do not have an automated way of handling these exceptions and in many cases staff members may spend days trying to clear up the differences between purchase orders, invoices, and goods receipts.”

Intelligent 3 Way Match is part of our AP Automation solution that includes invoice capture, approval workflow, invoice processing, po matching and archiving. It’s a secure cloud or on-premise platform that lets you select what you need, and add functionality as the organization grows. Seamless integration, unlimited users, and mobile capabilities are included.

Click for more information about EchoVera AP Automation

For more about Intelligent 3 Way Match specifically, click here.

This case study shows how procure to pay software boosts the performance of  an auto manufacturer’s finance department using robotic process automation.

It shows how the company achieved a 70% drop in cycle times, a 43% reduction in invoice processing costs and a 20% increase in invoice volumes, without adding to the 18 people already in finance.

Some of the challenges the AP department had included:

• Invoices could get lost during the manual approval process between 11 plants
• Internal invoice communication was in Outlook (very inefficient and hard to track)
• No visibility to vendor contracts – which increased exposure to making payment on recurring contracts after the expiration date
• Organization made AP the corporate policy enforcers for approvals on invoices, PO’s and expense reports

And issues around indirect purchasing:

• No visibility to indirect spend
• Non-preferred vendors were being used without authorization
• Authorized signatures were not being verified
• PO’s were randomly getting lost on their way to corporate

See how Palette’s AP automation for manufacturing empowered the company’s employees with an approval workflow and a reduction in the manual handling of invoices, purchase orders, and expense receipts.

It covers important topics around purchase to pay, procurement, ap automation, and spend management.

Palette is a major component of EchoVera’s complete solution called ASAP.
Find out more here.

EchoVera technology partner, CloudTrade, has been awarded a patent for invoice data  extraction with AI by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent is for CloudTrade’s Gramatica software, which uses unique artificial intelligence (AI) to search, interpret, validate, and extrapolate semantic meaning from supplier invoices.  The patent covers Europe, the U.S., and Australia.

CloudTrade’s technology allows businesses to send electronic invoices, purchase orders, and other business documents straight into the receiving ERP or accounting system.

“We have solved an old problem of how to get a computer to interpret a human-readable document by matching patterns using AI. That means we can automate document processing saving time, money and paper.” – David Cocks, CEO of CloudTrade

The software is part of EchoVera’s Intelligent Data Capture solution.

Intelligent Data Capture intuitively detects various supplier invoices and other documents based on their layouts, and intuitively performs field mapping and data collection.

EchoVera’s solution helps AP departments transform all of their paper and emailed invoices into data that becomes part of an intelligent approval workflow.

CloudTrade technology captures data from PDF, CSV, XLS, EDI, HTML and more with 100% data accuracy. CloudTrade Logistics does freight invoice processing for clients and uses the same technology for both parcel freight and air cargo freight invoices.

In a previous post we talked about the 3 forces affecting Dynamics AX and the AP process today:

• Finance executives want more visibility into the overall accounts payable process.
• Companies want to reduce the cost of processing supplier invoices.
• Technology has made 3-way matching, intelligent data capture, auditing and real-time reporting of invoice status a reality.

We also talked about what functions to look for when exploring AP automation solutions, such as Intelligent OCR, Intelligent Capture, and Authentic 3 Way Matching. In this post, we talk about the functions – AP workflow, reporting, communications, and audit trail  – that are incorporated into an AP automation platform for Dynamics AX. 

AP Workflow Provides Visibility


Visibility into the AP process means being able to monitor the status of your invoice processing at any time. It’s about managing the workflow so that invoices don’t get stuck in the system, resulting in late payments or other complications.

An AP automation workflow automatically routes invoices for approval, coding, or payment.

Incoming invoices from Intelligent OCR (paper invoice capture) and Intelligent Data Capture (email invoice capture) show up in a dashboard where the status of each invoice is displayed. For invoices that match your configuration settings, approvals are fully automated, from header or line order matching, and account posting, through to automatic routing for authorization and automatic sign-off.

• Invoices that fall outside predefined thresholds are classified as “exceptions” and automatically routed for reconciliation. Based upon the rules as defined by your business users, the correct account postings would be added to the invoice, and it would then automatically be transferred to the correct approval workflow.
• Managers approve expenditures on laptops or mobile devices, and once authorized, the invoices are coded by the appropriate person and sent to Dynamics AX.
• Workflow steps are easily added, based upon your specified authorization levels, if additional approvals are needed. In total, manual intervention is kept to a minimum – with “one-click” invoice approval.

Reporting


Reports allow you to drill down to the detail level, and export data to Excel. The reporting system tracks data and the trends that affect all of your AP processes, e.g. bottleneck reports, invoice flow status, supplier balance, GRNI, etc.

Communications


You can execute internal and external communications using email, FYI routing and chat in the workflow dashboard, which greatly reduces processing time when handling exceptions.

• Users are automatically notified via email when there are invoices that need their attention. Reminders and escalations are set based upon your business rules.
• Accuracy of account coding is ensured through the use of permissions which would ensure that users are only working on those documents for which they are authorized.
• Each step the invoice takes in the process is logged and monitored in a comprehensive audit trail.

Audit Trail


The audit trail is an electronic trail that gives a step-by-step documented history of invoice transactions.

• The presence of a reliable and easy to follow audit trail is an indicator of good internal controls instituted by an organization, and forms the basis of objectivity for enquiries or investigations.
• The audit trail not only records and displays communications between internal staff and suppliers, but also includes time stamps and the approval process for each invoice.

Putting It All Together: ASAP

Our solution, EchoVera ASAP for Dynamics AX delivers a comprehensive solution that includes Intelligent OCR, Intelligent Data Capture, 3-Way Matching, Contracts,  an AP workflow for online coding, validation, and approval; extensive reporting with drill down functionality; online tracking, an audit trail and a searchable archive.

For more information on EchoVera ASAP for Dynamics AX, click here.

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Originally developed by IBM in collaboration with Damgaard Data in the late 90’s, Microsoft Dynamics AX was acquired by Microsoft in 2002. Today Dynamics AX is the ERP of choice for thousands of organizations.

There are three major forces impacting Dynamics AX and the AP process today:

• Finance executives using Dynamics AX want more visibility into the accounts payable process
• Companies are looking for ways to cut their AP processing costs
• Advances in technology have made it possible to automate the matching of invoices, purchase orders, and goods receipts, regardless if they have hundreds of lines or many pages

Intelligent 3 Way Matching

Three Way Match Defined
Three-way matching refers to matching the amounts on three different documents – the vendor’s invoice, your purchase order and the goods receipt.

According to resellers working in the field, while some software providers claim to do three-way matching, often the process is stil manual in that a staff person has to visually do the match. Ultimately you want automated 2 & 3-way matching. Your 2 & 3 way match system shoule be able to read hundreds of lines on an invoice or purchase order and match the documents according to set parameters.

Where the rubber hits the road – in a 3-Way Match automation system for Dynamics AX, you want to be able to:

• Set your own parameters and variance tolerance levels
• Automatically identify variances outside of your tolerance levels and, using your own simple rules, route these invoices for review and/or correction if applicable
• Read and match both line and header information
• Allow for matching on the total level when invoices are not itemized
• Provide match and variance reports and statistics
• Handle internal and external POs

Intelligent 3 Way Match does that and more. It matches the quantities ordered and received, the price per unit, the terms, and other relevant information contained in each document. Once properly matched, supplier invoices are forwarded to Dynamics AX for payment. Exceptions are automatically put into an approval workflow for reconciliation by the approvers you have designated.

Intelligent 3 Way Match is a module inside of our AP Automation solution for Dynamics.

EchoVera’s Accounts Payable Automation Solution integrates with Dynamics AX, NAV, GP, and Dynamics 365. It’s a robust solution that gives finance professionals the control and visibility they want throughout the entire AP process.

EchoVera’s AP Automation reduces AP processing costs with a volume-based pricing model and automates the time-consuming manual tasks associated with AP.  Where many other software companies cobble together their AP automation/invoice processing solution by combining legacy technologies, EchoVera’s solution technologies were developed from the ground up.

Before you begin researching AP automation solutions it’s important that you understand the functions that provide the best return on your investment. Here are 2 key functions to look for:

Intelligent OCR & Intelligent Capture
– the smart way to capture invoice data

Manually capturing essential data fields from emailed or paper invoices is time consuming and resource intensive. Some AP departments handle mailed invoices in various ways, with most of them keying in the invoice data manually, a time consuming and error-prone process. Emailed invoices are often handled the same way, printed them out and then keyed into Dymamics – not the most efficient way to input data.

Using Intelligent OCR to capture a paper invoice

Some AP departments use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to scan their paper invoices. Conventional OCR can often require manual input in order to be useful. Intelligent OCR, on the other hand, teaches itself to identify supplier invoices based on their layouts and then automatically stores that information for future reference. Intelligent OCR also intuitively maps the data fields in each invoice using intelligent tags as identifiers, and stores them in the database as well.

Using Intelligent Data Capture for an emailed invoice

Virtually all billing applications generate data PDFs. You want a capture system that reads the data layer found in PDF invoices and then extracts the required data fields. Intelligent Data Capture does this, meaning that your emailed invoices are automatically processed in less time than it takes to pour that first morning coffee. It also processes XML, EDI, HTML, Word, Excel, and other electronic formats. The data taken from the invoices shows up in a central dashboard, ready for input into Dynamics or an approval workflow.

Get more information on EchoVera AP Automation for Dynamics AX, or Dynamics 365.  EchoVera AP Automation is a secure cloud or on-premise platform that lets you select what you need, and add functionality as the organization grows. Seamless integration, unlimited users, and mobile capabilities are included.