Our insights and experiences on invoice automation
Discover how implementing a No PO No Pay policy can streamline procurement processes and enhance efficiency.
The Importance of Procurement in Business Operations
Procurement plays a crucial role in the overall operations of a business. It involves the process of acquiring goods and services that are essential for the company's functioning. Effective procurement ensures that the right resources are obtained at the right time and cost, enabling smooth operations and sustainable growth.
There are many solutions that will allow a whole range of file formats that can be imported. Document restrictions for invoice automation are not new, however, solutions are becoming more flexible in allowing additional formats. but this may not be the correct approach though for several reasons.
Firstly, there is an impact on the ability to extract the data or OCR the document to read the characters. Secondly, you must consider legal admissibility in terms of whether you should be receiving documents that can be edited, as there are technical implications for these, but the primary concern should be admissibility.
What determines OCR success rates?
There are so many questions that potential customers and business users have about OCR.
The initial misconceptions with OCR start with the recognition rates, “does your software provide 98%+ recognition of invoice data?”.
Without realising, they have asked an incredibly loaded question that is on a par with, “can you get 90%+ straight throughput?”
We’re in a dynamic and fast-changing world of technology and believe it or not, businesses are still manually undertaking tasks such as invoice processing. They are keying the invoice from the paper or a document viewer and entering each value one by one.
Why has it taken so long for companies to consider reducing the number of people and implementing an automated system? The reality is, that there are many reasons why, but most importantly, automated invoice processing solutions used to be expensive and complex to implement.
Do you have a process in place to approve non-PO invoices before they enter your ERP system? If so, how do you keep track of the audit history? It's crucial to establish a clear approval process for non-PO invoices in your company. While we recommend using a formal procurement system to generate purchase orders, we understand that this isn't always feasible.
In today's complex business environment, it's important to maintain an audit history of all non-PO invoices that enter your ERP system. Pre-approving these invoices before they enter the system helps ensure that their transactions are transparent and accurate. This approach can also prevent errors and discrepancies in the ERP system. Additionally, pre-approval ensures that all invoices comply with your company's internal policies and procedures.
It's always beneficial to keep your E-Business Suite deployment up-to-date with the latest version to ensure Oracle support and the latest security patches. However, when upgrading from 12.1.3 to 12.2.x, it's important to consider if the solution enhancements will provide a return on investment compared to simply being supported. Many organisations are taking advantage of the upgrade to improve their overall solutions, and this includes implementing invoice automation. If you're still manually keying invoices or dissatisfied with your current solution or business process, implementing invoice automation could be a significant benefit.
It's important to periodically evaluate whether your current invoice processing solution is meeting your needs and if it's time to upgrade or replace it.
Is it ever too early to look for another solution?
Looking into alternative options & upgrading early on can ensure your processes stay efficient
The master data is used to drive the procure-to-pay process and is key to the success of invoice automation. Without it, it is difficult for any level of supply chain automation to be implemented.
The use of master data helps to ensure that the procure-to-pay process is accurate and up to date. This includes verifying the accuracy of the data extracted from the invoice and ensuring that the process is compliant and without delays.
Master data helps to streamline the invoicing process by eliminating manual data entry and ensuring that the correct payment process is followed.
Are you considering invoice automation but don’t want to limit your options for going from E-Business Suite to Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP down the road? Conversely, if the decision has already been made to make that shift to the cloud, what are the next steps when it comes to invoicing automation? Does your current solution integrate with Fusion Cloud? If so, is that integration certified?
Do you want to take this opportunity to upgrade or replace your existing invoice automation solution? What have you considered in terms of process change?
When it comes to Tax engines, organisations commonly use alternative solutions or when it comes to reporting there are again 3rd party solutions that might have functionality that meet your requirements better.
Why is invoice processing any different, the simple answer it isn’t.
We have implemented many invoice automation solutions for customers, but one question that always comes up is “how do we handle tax and what is the best approach?”. Whilst it used to be a requirement that invoice automation should handle tax, the current approach should be to answer “No, what tax engine are you or have you implemented?”. Taxation is a key part of invoice processing, however, the ability to identify and process the correct amount of tax needs to be considered as part of your Source to Settle process, not just invoice automation.
Many businesses are looking at procurement to gain efficiencies. If a Business has inefficient Procurement and Accounts Payable processes, software systems like ‘ Procure to Pay ’ (P2P) and ‘Source to Settle’ (S2S) can bring about notable gains. They can boost efficiency, provide cost savings and tighten compliance across the whole business.
“No PO No Pay” is a simple concept: If an invoice is received from a supplier with No PO associated with it, the invoice will not get paid. The overriding objective is to improve efficiencies in your business’ procurement processes – making it easier to track expenditure through the purchase order history and it promotes best practices in channelling company expenditure through a formalised procurement process.
Change is hard. When implementing new technology, whether it’s Oracle ERP Cloud, EBusiness Suite or something else, you have to remember that, even if it is going to enhance the way people do their job, careful consideration needs to be given to how that change is going to be implemented.
People don’t like change. Changing long-established ways of working is hard, learning new software is hard. After seeing first-hand what it takes to successfully implement new accounts payable software, here are our top tips to getting your users on board with the new processes.