Engineering Informatics, the SAP special expertise partner in enterprise content management (ECM), has achieved a breakthrough in devising an easy and cost-effective paperless invoice handling and processing solution for companies using SAP.
Rob Cells, Director of Engineering Informatics, says the solution centres around scanning invoices using Kofax Ascent Capture, and linking the image to the SAP business applications. Once the invoice image is linked, workflow is used to drive all approval and processing functions in SAP. The solution is substantially more cost-efficient than other alternatives, and provides a fully scaleable and robust solution. This eliminates paperwork and the tedious and costly manual processing of paper invoices, lost documents and keying in data to SAP.
The solution has been pioneered by Engineering Informatics, and successfully installed in a number of clients in SA and New Zealand. One of the South African customers experienced problems with lost documents, delayed payments for goods delivered and general lack of productivity based on paper documents.
Following the successful installation of the scanning solution, all delivery notes are scanned upon receipt and instantly linked to the financial transaction and goods in the SAP system. The benefits of the new system are that paper documents are removed from the process as soon as possible and all users have instant access to the electronic image. Customer queries can be handled online and evidence of proof of delivery is secured. This drastically reduces payment cycles, freeing up cash earlier for the business to utilise.
"The SAP invoice imaging solution by Engineering Informatics is an easy-to-use, scaleable and proven solution that automates the handling of invoices," says Cells. He goes on further to state that "it will allow an organisation`s accounts payable staff to automatically scan, interpret, verify and transfer invoice images and data to SAP, mostly in a fully-automated fashion".
From a management perspective, a major advantage of this solution is improved controls and traceability to help the organisation to identify the status of any invoice document within its workflow, enabling speedier resolution of invoice queries.
It has been shown that imaging solutions enable organisations to start realising immediate financial returns, and typically most of these installations give return on investments of less than a year.
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