Invoice Automation. Invoice Automation Challenges

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1 Invoice Automation Invoice Automation Challenges Companies of all sizes face the challenge of operating streamlined business processes to reduce costs while maintaining or increasing process consistency. One of the areas where this most clearly demonstrated is in managing large volumes of invoices: Manual invoice keying, copying, and routing Approval delays, and lack of transparency in process Delayed payments resulting in missed discounts and late fees Tracking down PO s and contracts Answering vendor queries regarding payment Paper shipment, storage and retention Fortunately, with advanced capture processes, intelligent extraction and workflow, these business issues can be solved with relative ease. Beach Street s Invoice Automation Accelerator (IAx) offers all of the tools necessary to improve your company s invoice processing at a cost which yields rapid ROI! Beach Street s IAx automates every level of invoice processing from the time an invoice is received through voucher creation and approval for payment. Invoices can be scanned in batches from the mail room, or automatically captured if received in electronic format with Captiva InputAccel. Fields are extracted via intelligent OCR and validated against Purchase Orders and/or Contract data, then passed on to Documentum for rules-based routing and approval. On final approval, the voucher is programmatically created in the ERP. Processors and approvers receive task notifications and reminders at each step of the process, and can monitor the invoice as it progresses through the flow in the system. Comprehensive dashboards and reporting provide metrics for ongoing process improvement. The result is intelligent automation, trimming manual tasks and accelerating the end-to-end process while reducing overall cost.

2 Client Case Study Customer Profile: A large international wholesaler of construction supplies. Problem: A large commercial supplier had grown to process 10,000 invoices/day by an expensive, slow and error-prone manual process. Having reached its scaling limits, the process was resulting in missed vendor discounts and late payment fees. Solution: Beach Street implemented an intelligent batch capture, data extraction and invoice routing solution built on Captiva InputAccel and Documentum. The invoice processing workflow included automated, intelligent routing and specific exception work queues, promoting specialization of manual tasks. Benefits: 90% of invoices processed without human intervention Expansion to 700,000 invoices/year while reducing head count of AP Professionals Accelerated processing increased early payment discounts and reduced late payment fees Seamless integration with ERP system Monitoring process to allow management tracking and bottleneck identification Proactive notifications of task completion and if thresholds of tasks in a queue are reached Automated security and retention assured proper employee access and compliance standards were met, transparent to the end-user System extended to accommodate other financial areas, including Expense Processing and Accounts Receivable Return on Investment Professional Accounts Payable Associations estimate the average cost to process an invoice is $ 6.00-$8.00 with manual paper processes. Companies implementing invoice automation processes for invoice data capture and the approval workflow have realized cost savings, with cost per invoice in the $ 2.50 to $ 4.00 range. The savings can be significant for companies processing high volume of invoices and easily pay for the automation software with payback periods less than a year for some customers.

3 Solution Overview Beach Street s Invoice Automation Solution is built on EMC Documentum s xcp platform. Using TaskSpace as the main interface, the IAx solution manages the multiple workflow processes involved in invoice processing, beginning with the mail room and ending with a Supplier Payment in the ERP system, using rules based workflow. AP managers gain insight into the invoice status and AP operational metrics through invoice status summaries and Dashboards. Custom reports are a key benefit to the IAx solutions. In addition to tracking invoice progress through the review and approval process, reports such as Overdue Payments can identify overdue invoices and which department is consistently lagging, causing late payments. The Supplier Portal is provided with a simple login screen to allow the Suppliers to access the system, review their invoice status, and upload supporting documents. This graphic details information flow in the Invoice Automation process: invoices are captured via , fax, EDI or scanner; invoice data is extracted with intelligent OCR and validated against the ERP; the invoice then creates a voucher in the ERP, once approved.

4 Using EMC Captiva s InputAccel for Invoices (IAI), Beach Street s IAx Solution makes use of intelligent, targeted OCR to extract header information such as Invoice Number, Invoice Total and Invoice Date, among others. Supplier data is populated for each invoice via an ERP lookup based on the invoice s identified vendor. Invoice data can be extracted at the line item level for validation and matching against PO or Contract information in the ERP.

5 Using Taskspace, Beach Street s Status reporting brings up to the minute reports on the status of invoices from scan time to payment. With dynamically changing status indicators (Green, Yellow, and Red), it is easy for all users to determine the status of an invoice. No more calling everyone in the company trying to determine where the invoice is temporarily stopped, and who is responsible for sending it to the next step in the process. Vendors can check the real time status of an in-process invoice via updates to an externally facing Supplier Portal. The reports and detailed status overview provide more insight into durations by departments and employees, helping identify true bottlenecks rather than a one-off delay.

6 Solution Architecture Captiva/Dispatcher Documentum Finance Acme Products 30 January 2008 $ 6, $ 6, Net 30 Days Department Invoice Validation & Approval Scan Data Matching Inv_<Vendor>_<Date>... Watch Directory Data Extraction/ Lookup Structure, Security, & Retention Invoice Number Vendor Name Purchase Date Subtotal Grand Total Payment Terms Vendor, PO Info Lookup Voucher Creation Invoice Retrieval Status Update ERP Beach Street s solution incorporates not only EMC s software stack in xcp and InputAccel for Invoices (IAI), but integrates with your ERP and your office applications. Each suite is scalable, and capable of being entirely virtualized at all levels. Contact Call us! Contact your local EMC Sales representative or visit EMC Corporation Hopkinton Massachusetts In North America Beach Street Consulting 10 G St NE Ste 710 Washington DC