Saving up to 8 per cent of a document’s flow time
Settlement day for suppliers. In the accounts department an analysis of details in hundreds of invoices is taking place, along with matching the delivery documents, checking conformity and verification of accuracy. It’s an arduous and time-consuming task, requiring a maximum focus during the manual entering and comparison of data. Perhaps that’s the case in most companies but here the verification of invoices’ accuracy is completed by the SAP system, reporting on all inconsistencies.
Hicron’s in-house solution
Hicron consultants have prepared a solution that collects the invoices from suppliers’ external systems in the form of XML files and processes them, automatically entering the resulting document in the SAP system or booking the document into the accounts. Before this happens, in the background, the system analyses all data positions from the invoice. After finding the respective order and delivery documents, the tax value and net prices are compared. If the values conform, the invoice is accepted and automatically entered in the accounts. In the case of substantial discrepancies, predefined by the client’s employees or failure to find the respective documents, the systems notifies a person to investigate the reasons of the inconsistency. Thus the SAP system allows you to save substantial time to focus on other activities on your to-do list.
When working on the concept of the solution, Hicron’s consultants designed error reports and flagging-up scenarios to inform the accounts employees about any inconsistencies. The error reports are directly linked to the XML files with the invoices so they send alerts with information when an error is identified, e.g. the VAT amount exceeds the tolerance or the purchase order is not found for invoice X. On the other hand, the reports show exactly which value is mentioned in the error report, e.g. the difference in the VAT amount. This is indispensable help, especially when it comes to invoices with many details whose analysis takes a substantial amount of time. All this is in order to reduce the involvement of the employee in the process of comparing the documents to a bare minimum.
Automatic entering of the invoices
One of the additional elements of the solution offered by Hicron is the processing of invoices containing not only correct information but also returns. A standard version of the SAP system gives the ability to combine the warehouse and the making amendments, but only when entering the invoicing documents manually. While designing the solution for automatic entering of the invoices, Hicron’s consultants bypassed this issue by reflecting the returns in the SAP system automatically and booking them in the right way.
