Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies

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1 Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies by Joe Links Senior Sales Executive and Territory Manager --- Image Integration Systems, Inc. Everywhere in North America this has happened. Management has challenged everyone in your organization to do more with less. Economic conditions are such that all aspects of your organization must contribute to improved profitability and, based on your research, you know that your accounts payable function can help lead this movement through Accounts Payable Automation. Accounts Payable Automation involves using a variety of proven technologies woven together and tailored to the specific needs of your organization to vastly improve your AP effectiveness and enable very significant contributions to the profitability of your operation. These technologies include processes that enable you to convert all incoming invoices, from whatever sources, to an electronic form as soon as they arrive in your company; to capture the appropriate information from each invoice with as little manual intervention as possible; to validate the data that was captured against your ERP system; and to carefully manage your work process that moves the invoice through your organization to the point where a payment can be made all as fast as possible. Once captured and stored, the invoice is accessible to anyone authorized to see it from anywhere in the world. Done properly with the right tools, this use of existing technology can help you move your AP process to best in class and enable your firm to realize very significant profit improvement. There is a great deal of evidence in the marketplace that this true. The Aberdeen Group recently (April, 2011) published the results of a survey they conducted with their membership that involved those companies performance regarding Accounts Payable processing. The survey revealed a startling set of important differences between the top 20% of performers (referred to by Aberdeen as Best in Class ) in processing Accounts Payable and the bottom 30% (Aberdeen s term: Laggards ). Here are the three essential comparisons from the Aberdeen survey: 1. In the very important category of average cost to process a single invoice, the Best in Class respondents averaged $3.09 per invoice and the Laggards averaged an astounding $38.77 per invoice a staggering difference of $35.68 per invoice. For companies processing a mere 3,000 invoices per month this amounts to a huge cost differential: $107,040 per month!

2 Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies 2 2. In the category year over year increase in capturing prompt payment discounts, the Best in Class companies achieved 8 times better results than the Laggards. In many cases this improvement increased actual profitability by several hundred thousand dollars annually. 3. A huge reason for this remarkable improvement in prompt payment discount performance is the following: Best in Class performers average only 3.8 days to process an invoice from receipt of the invoice to scheduling of the payment; while the Laggards required 20.8 days. Is there any wonder that professional organizations like the Aberdeen Group and the IAPP are pushing their subscribers and members to seriously look into the benefits of automating accounts payable as soon as possible? Organizations who have chosen to implement Accounts Payable Automation using DocuSphere from Image Integration Systems have achieved results like this and more. You can as well. The Appendices of this white paper include some representative customer case studies that will detail these results and more for you, including: A. First Group America Eliminates Paper Bottlenecks, Costs by Digitizing Supplier Invoices and Automating Processing with Integration B. Calor Gas Ltd. Doubles AP Processing Capabilities and Reduces Staff with DocuSphere Invoice Automation C. The Stellar Group Increases Earned Revenue by $1 Million per Month with DocuSphere Software We all know that suppliers do not offer incentives to their customers who cannot pay them for 20 days or longer; however, discounts can be made available to organizations that pay invoices in less than 7 days. Accounts Payable Automation delivered with DocuSphere can provide the difference. One very important and relatively new technological advance that can really help organizations achieve these results involves the use of smartphones and mobile technology. There is no question that there is a major trend toward more and more mobile employees of companies across the world deciding to embrace smartphone technology. From Online Marketing Trends: Nielsen report that 31% of US mobile phone owners have a smartphone as of December 2010, and expect smartphones to become the majority by the end of emarketer predicts that smartphone ownership will reach 43% of the US population that use mobile phones. According to figures for 2010 released by Gartner, smartphones accounted for 297 million (19%) of the 1.6 billion mobile phones sold that year. That's 72.1% more smartphone sales than in The same company expects US sales of smartphones to grow from 67 million in 2010 to 95 million in 2011, and become the highest-selling consumer electronic device category Image Integration Systems, Inc.

3 Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies 3 For Q4 2010, the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker puts smartphone sales at million, up some 87% over Q They report total smartphone sales for 2010 as million, up around 74% on The Coda Research Consultancy predicts global smartphone sales of some 2.5 billion over the period, and also suggest that mobile Internet use via smartphones will increase 50 fold by the end of that period. Morgan Stanley Research estimates sales of smartphones will exceed those of PCs in Gartner expect over 500 million smartphones to sell in Because of this tidal wave of acceptance of smartphone technology, organizations across the globe are evaluating potential uses of this technology to improve their organizations and implementing the best possible uses as rapidly as possible. The smartphone is clearly an important advance that can have a very positive impact on improving your accounts payable process and this function is readily available right now. This is especially true for those organizations that have problems with getting invoices approved for payment in a timely fashion. Many organizations identify this specific issue as the primary reason that they have never been able to take advantage of prompt payment discounts. The key approvers in many organizations are highly mobile personnel and it is difficult to get them the information that they need in order to approve invoices for payment in time to take advantage of such discounts. Examples of the types of companies who might have such challenges: Construction Property management Energy firms Other organizations with widespread locations and mobile supervisors who have invoice approval responsibilities Examples of improvements in invoice approval timing: A. A large transportation firm who processes over 120,000 invoices per month, 50% of which are nonpurchase order invoices that need approval, was taking 29 days on the average to process an invoice from receipt to payment scheduling. Now, since this organization implemented DocuSphere for accounts payable automation, it takes them 7 days with an increased volume of invoices and fewer people in AP. B. A US-based construction company, processing 12,000 invoices per month with over 60 remote locations, was having a great deal of difficulty moving their invoices to the right approvers in these 2011 Image Integration Systems, Inc.

4 Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies 4 remote sites. As a result of implementing DocuSphere for accounts payable automation, they reduced the average time it takes them to have an invoice approved by 14 days. With the advent of the smartphone and DocuSphere AP Mobile, these results will be achievable by many more companies. Smartphone access to the approval process built for your JD Edwards or Oracle E- Business Suite AP processes can reduce the time that it takes to get approvals for invoices by days or even weeks in some cases. Access to all of the information contained in your AP system will enable your people to resolve problems much faster than they could have ever achieved with existing systems. For more information about why DocuSphere has been the solution of choice for so many companies for Accounts Payable Automation, please visit our web site at to find out. The DocuSphere Difference: The preeminent connected, business-driven AP automation solution - delivered by experienced people for a fixed fee. About Image Integration Systems Image Integration Systems (IIS) was formed in 1993 to develop, implement and support business process improvement solutions in high-volume transaction environments. IIS professionals have extensive experience with ERP business processes in accounts payable, sales order processing, billing and shipping. IIS DocuSphere products are certified and validated for the leading ERP software providers, including Oracle (JD Edwards) and SAP. For more information, visit About Joe Links Joe has over 30 years in the Information Technology industry in a number of senior management and sales leadership positions with a focus on ERP software and solutions. As CEO of the largest IBM Midrange Business Partner firm, he was responsible for growing the company from a staff of five to one with over 400 employees located in 16 cities across the United States. Links also spent 15 years as an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator at the University of Toledo. He is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College with additional graduate work at the University of Toledo Image Integration Systems, Inc.

5 Leveraging Smartphone and Other Mobile Technology for Accounts Payable Efficiencies 5 Appendix A - First Group America Eliminates Paper Bottlenecks, Costs by Digitizing Supplier Invoices and Automating Processing with Integration Appendix B - Calor Gas Ltd. Doubles AP Processing Capabilities and Reduces Staff with DocuSphere Invoice Automation Appendix C - The Stellar Group Increases Earned Revenue by $1 Million per Month with DocuSphere Software 2011 Image Integration Systems, Inc.

6 WORKFLOW AND OCR DRIVE AP AUTOMATION FirstGroup America Eliminates Paper Bottlenecks And Costs By Digitizing Supplier Invoices And Automating Processing With Integrated Workflow The Situation: FirstGroup America is the leading transportation operator in North America, moving nearly 5 million passengers daily by motor coach and school bus, operating in 49 states and 11 Canadian provinces/territories. They process hundreds of thousands of supplier invoices per year, but the manual process FirstGroup used was time consuming and labor intensive. Invoices were received at each local office and multiple manual steps, inter office mailing and often duplicate data entry was required before the invoice was approved and ready to voucher in FirstGroup s JD Edwards accounting system. Further, each month all paper invoices were shipped to an outsource image provider, scanned and images uploaded to an image server for viewing. How work flows. We felt that bringing this process in-house and adding workflow to automate the authorization process would provide greater efficiency and allow us to gain synergies within our Accounts Payable process, Says Brenda Chapman, VP for Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable at FirstGroup. We were also very excited about the opportunity to create an automated process that would allow us to provide better service to both our internal and external customers by improving turnaround time, eliminating manual work and providing easy access to document images. Process automation was key if we were going to reduce the strain on our staff and cut costs. The Solution: The new solution was installed in June 2009 and is integrated seamlessly with the JD Edwards ERP system using IIS s DocuSphere products. Invoices are sent from the suppliers to the Corporate AP department for scanning. The paper invoices go no farther, as AnyDoc s OCR for AnyDoc captures the image and printed information on the invoice using OCR (optical character recognition), converting it to electronic data that can be compared with the PO data already stored in the JD Edwards system. If these data match the PO already stored in the system, then DocuSphere Workflow and AutoVoucher modules automatically structure and submit the transaction to the JD Edwards system for payment. The invoice image is stored in the DocuSphere Content Manager electronic repository, and can be directly accessed for viewing or retrieval by a button click from within the JD Edwards system.

7 If the extracted invoice data don t match the PO, then the invoice image is automatically routed by DocuSphere Workflow to an AP activity inbox to verify that the data captured off the invoice is correct and make any necessary edits. Then, DocuSphere automatically submits the invoice for JD Edwards processing and payment. Invoices for items purchased without a PO follow a slightly different process. They are also scanned and data is captured, and electronically and automatically routed by DocuSphere Workflow to the appropriate regional approver and then to the correct corporate contact for authorization to pay. As with the PO based invoices, the non-po invoices and data are automatically structured and submitted to the JD Edwards AP system for payment. DocuSphere also allows FirstGroup to set its own time limits and escalation rules on these activities to ensure an invoice doesn t sit in an employee s inbox too long and create payment delays. The Results: Our new automated document capture and workflow solution has eliminated much of the manual data entry that used to occur at the local office level, says Chapman. Furthermore, the system has eliminated the shipping charges we used to incur by mailing paper invoices twice. The initial deployment of this solution has been so successful that we also expanded the solution to help automate our capital expenditure requests and are in the process of implementing the solution to automate our check and supplier request processes as well. About Image Integration Systems. Established in 1993, Image Integration Systems (IIS) provides comprehensive solutions for business process improvement. We offer a complete line of DocuSphere software and hardware products, along with the consulting, installation and support expertise necessary to maximize return on investment. Our professionals are skilled in ERP applications such as accounts payable, sales order processing, billing and shipping. A member of the Oracle and SAP partner programs with validated and certified integrations, we ve assisted midsize to large multinational customers in a wide variety of industries, in locations across North America and around the world.

8 AUTOMATING ACCOUNTS PAYABLE PROCESSES Calor Gas Ltd. Doubles AP Processing Capabilities And Reduces Staff With DocuSphere Invoice Automation The Situation. Calor Gas Ltd. is the UK s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas. Close to 4 million homes and businesses across the UK rely on Calor Gas for a variety of applications. The company s headquarters and centralized corporate services center, responsible for all accounting and information system activities, are in Warwick, and support over 60 sales, service and office sites. The company had a very complex Purchase-to-Pay 3-way matching process and experienced serious operational bottlenecks as the number of vendor invoices increased. The Calor Gas process improvement objective was to eliminate these bottlenecks and improve customer service without adding personnel. How work flows. The accounts payable (AP) staff processes approximately 120,000 vendor invoices per year. These were sent to the headquarters AP department from 65 Calor Gas sites. However, AP was frequently unable to voucher invoices due to problems of incomplete or inaccurate order and receipts data. Often inputs from multiple departments and locations were required before an invoice could be properly vouchered. The process was manually intensive and could take weeks. The Solution. Calor selected Image Integration Systems to design, install and implement their DocuSphere automated workflow and imaging solution to improve Purchase-to-Pay processing. A critical solution component is DocuSphere JD Edwards Integration, certified by JD Edwards (Oracle) for interaction with Calor s JD Edwards ERP system. The business process engine is DocuSphere Workflow, a standards-based, thin client, web-enabled system that automates enterprise-wide business processes across all application systems with flexible, graphical management tools that easily create, maintain and secure workflow schema. Among other functions, DocuSphere Workflow provides remote authorization and the AutoVoucher module automates voucher creation for PO and non-po invoices.

9 Other components are DocuSphere Content Manager, a complete thin client, web-enabled document imaging and archiving system for viewing, managing and distributing electronic documents across internal networks and the web, and DocuSphere Electronic Report Management to automatically capture and index ERP-generated documents such as POs. AnyDoc s advanced OCR products for intelligent document capture and data extraction were integrated with the solution to further automate front-end scanning and reduce manual data entry. Results. The AP department has doubled its capacity to process invoices and reduced staff size. The DocuSphere solution has made invoice processing faster, cheaper and better for Calor Gas increased efficiency, reduced transactional costs, complete process visibility and data integrity, and improved customer service. Invoices arrive at the Calor Gas central AP department, are scanned, captured with AnyDoc, then enter the DocuSphere Workflow and are immediately routed to the responsible parties. Automatic, daily reminder s prompt attention to outstanding activities in the workflow. Vouchers are automatically created and submitted to JD Edwards. Through DocuSphere Content Manager, these and other documents are immediately accessible at all sites to the 1,500 Calor Gas employees in Sales, Operations, IT, HR and Finance. The DocuSphere solution has provided Calor Gas with impressive gains in productivity and customer service. About Image Integration Systems. Established in 1993, Image Integration Systems (IIS) provides comprehensive solutions for business process improvement. We offer a complete line of DocuSphere software and hardware products, along with the consulting, installation and support expertise necessary to maximize return on investment. Our professionals are skilled in ERP applications such as accounts payable, sales order processing, billing and shipping. A member of the Oracle and SAP partner programs with validated and certified integrations, we ve assisted midsize to large multinational customers in a wide variety of industries, in locations across North America and around the world. DOCUSPHERE

10 FACILITATING POSITIVE CHANGE Image Integration Systems Helps The Stellar Group Increase Earned Revenue By $1 Million Per Month With DocuSphere Software Solution The Situation. The Stellar Group is a full-service design/build facility development company based in Jacksonville, Florida, that provides architecture, engineering, construction and refrigeration services to industrial, commercial and institutional markets. The company designs and constructs facilities for food processing, food storage, auto dealers, education, healthcare, hospitality, industrial and Class-A office space. How work flows. With 15 remote offices and more than 100 construction sites each approving vendor invoices for payment, Stellar wanted an accounts payable (AP) solution that would integrate with its Oracle (JD Edwards) EnterpriseOne ERP software to simplify the lengthy and paper-intensive approval process once an invoice was received. After a lengthy search process, Stellar selected Image Integration Systems (IIS), a leader in developing, delivering and supporting comprehensive document management and imaging solutions in high-volume transaction processing environments, to implement an integrated document management solution that would enhance Stellar s AP process. The Solution. Some of the featured elements of the IIS solution include DocuSphere Content Manager, a complete Microsoft Windows-based, web-enabled document imaging and archiving system for viewing, managing and distributing all forms of electronic documents across internal networks and the web; and DocuSphere Workflow, a standardsbased, web-enabled system that automates enterprise-wide business processes across all application systems and platforms using flexible, graphical management tools that easily create, maintain and secure workflow patterns. The Stellar Group software solution also includes Oracle-validated DocuSphere Integration Module for JD Edwards and IIS DocuSphere Electronic Report Management (ERM). DocuSphere products are fully integrated, standards-based, web-enabled and platform independent, providing everything from workflow to document imaging, content management, full text OCR, intelligent capture, certified ERP integration and ERM.

11 Results. The results of the IIS DocuSphere solution at Stellar have been nothing short of amazing. By allowing us to capture construction costs sooner, IIS and its DocuSphere document management solution have allowed Stellar to increase monthly earned revenue by approximately $1 million per month, said Scott Witt, Chief Financial Officer of the Stellar Group. IIS made the transition to an electronic AP system extremely easy for Stellar. From the beginning, IIS and its employees have demonstrated the ability to rapidly develop, implement and manage a dynamic software project that revolutionized the way Stellar interacts with its vendors, while being sensitive to our budget. Through this project, IIS has become one of our most valued business partners, Witt said. About Image Integration Systems. Established in 1993, Image Integration Systems (IIS) provides comprehensive solutions for business process improvement. We offer a complete line of DocuSphere software and hardware products, along with the consulting, installation and support expertise necessary to maximize return on investment. Our professionals are skilled in ERP applications such as accounts payable, sales order processing, billing and shipping. A member of the Oracle and SAP partner programs with validated and certified integrations, we ve assisted midsize to large multinational customers in a wide variety of industries, in locations across North America and around the world. DOCUSPHERE