Accounts Payable

Accounts Payable is a functional area of business that typically holds great potential for process optimization and bottom-line improvements. The complexities and challenges inherent in Accounts Payable lend themselves to automation and improvement. Payments are often subject to early payment discounts and late payment penalties. Invoices that require management approval are routed manually and any opportunity for discounts is quickly lost, not to mention the ability to properly serve vendor inquiries. Optimization in Accounts Payable is accomplished by streamlining and automating administrative procedures with well configured, effective application and well implemented process design.

 

Examples of Common Opportunities:

Invoice Scanning Following Payment

All that is required to create an electronic replacement of vendor invoices is document preparation, scanning and the input of one index. From that single index, additional data is automatically assembled to create an enriched index structure with invoice information and details such as part numbers and descriptions.

The ScerIS application is able to automatically recognize the check number upon scanning (no keying necessary) and cross reference invoices and payments. With the check, invoices, and supporting detail captured, ScerIS can automatically update indices using information from your host accounting/ERM application. These indices are specified to your needs and typically include information such as:

  • Vendor Number
  • Vendor Name
  • Check Amount
  • Check Date
  • Invoice Numbers
  • Invoice Dates
  • Invoice Amounts
  • Part Numbers
  • Quantities
  • Unit Prices
  • and Accounting Codes

In seconds following scanning, the documents are online and accessible through your regular line of business application. You can retrieve a list of payments and view related documents instantaneously from your desktop. Documents become searchable through a secure web browser:

  • for payment discrepancy
  • to support monthly cost center reports showing expenses that are questioned
  • to find the history of purchases of particular items across vendors, or the history of purchases with a particular vendor, including information to the line level
  • for internal, external and state tax audits
  • to eliminate filing and storage (labor, space, and file or carton retrieval costs)

 

Invoice Scanning Upon Receipt and Workflow

Vendor invoices are scanned and the information is automatically integrated with your host system.

These electronic documents are then routed online to buyers, supervisors and managers for review and approval. Approvers might suspend the invoice, perhaps waiting for the completion of a contract, and will note this with the online document. Once approved, these electronic invoices are automatically routed to the next approver. Once all approvals are in place or the invoice is denied, Accounts Payable users update the invoice database.

Throughout the process, unlike routing of physical vendor invoices, Accounts Payable can view all in-process invoices, including those suspended for any reason. This allows for retrieval of the information necessary to support vendor inquiries, knowledge of the status of in-process invoices, and knowledge as to what accruals might be necessary at month end. Workflow benefits include:

  • eliminates paper in the approval process
  • accelerates the approval process
  • provides invoice level tracking of invoices in the approval cycle with the ability to handle vendor inquiries about payment status

 

Automated Posting of Vendor Invoices

In this system, the vendor invoices are scanned upon receipt and processed through a system that automatically reads and interprets each invoice by using keywords, filters, and rules-based logic. These are applied to validate the data extracted during this process. Some human intervention is necessary, but you can anticipate that the overall reduction in work is between 60% and 90%. This solution:

  • automates data capture and posting (without the need for timely templates for each vendor – this is a non-templated, completely variable, rules based solution);
  • reduces errors typical in an all manual environments;
  • automatically validates data to host purchasing systems and instantaneously makes corrections to the data per your specifications (i.e. part number discrepancies between your purchasing system and the invoices submitted by vendors);
  • creates an error free electronic data interchange (EDI) record. All validations and changes necessary are made at the front of the process, without additional editing by the Accounts Payable staff. The same utilities are used to correct incoming EDI records from vendors, ensuring that they will also post error free.

Combining automated invoice posting and workflow effectively removes paper as it enters the organization. The combination also automates data collection, data validation, and invoice entry. Prompt payments are ensured with newly enabled vendor invoice approvals from images rather than paper invoices.

The final step is to put the images of invoices into the document repository. As invoices were scanned for the other steps and indexes were created, there is no additional work to commit these files to an online storage environment. Paper based processes are responsible for a lot of unnecessary legwork and subsequently excess costs. One impact of these improvements is an enterprise-wide reduction of paper processes and their associated costs.

It is possible to turn all your invoices around within 6 hours of receipt. In addition, you can expect 100% accuracy with an edit-free posting of vendor invoice data when using our automated posting capabilities. ScerIS will help you turn Accounts Payable into a competitive advantage.

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