I recently attended and presented at the annual SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando. I expected to see strong interest in optimization of back office functions but after years of attending this event, I was amazed to see the high level of interest specifically around invoice process optimization. One personal example…I conducted a micro forum related to SAP Invoice Management where we expected 10 -15 people…the final attendance was 60 people.
In discussions with many of the attendees, I found a significant growth interest related to vendor networks such as provided by Crossgate and dynamic discounting (DD). The adoption of DD will drive corporations to invest in solutions such as SAP Invoice Management to ensure they achieve a high rate of straight through processing. DD will also require invoice exception processing to occur in very few days as opposed to weeks.
I also see the increased adoption of vendor networks driving standardization of invoice meta data content and format; not unlike what edi has driven in the past. This will be slow to evolve but I think will eventually happen.
One topic that caught my attention…Shared Service. While not a new topic, I feel a combination of searching for efficiency gains and control combined with merger and acquisitions has created renewed interest in shared services. The major difference this time around is focus is on utilizing technology and out of the box solutions such as SAP Shared Services Framework & SAP Invoice Management as opposed to prior efforts that focused on moving to less expensive labor pools.
Showing posts with label shared service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shared service. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Accounts Payable and Social Networks
I recently attended a presentation related to how Accounts Payable Departments might utilize social networks. This really got my attention since we at OpenText have long considered social networks as a means to enhance sharing of information ranging from individual contributions through departmental actions to corporate messaging. Open Text provides a tool “Pulse” as part of our ECM solution to assist with information sharing.
By using Pulse, organizations can take advantage of a Facebook-like social media environment within their existing Open Text ECM Suite deployments and move informal communications out of email, thus dramatically reducing dependence on inefficient and slow email chains. Additionally, it offers a way for people to collaborate rapidly in real time, while creating a secure knowledge base for new employees and team members. Pulse is a major step toward enabling customers to capture their organizational memory through the archival of formal and informal user conversations.
So…how can those in the business process around Invoice Processing utilize social networks? While I believe the use is unlimited, I will focus on a few examples.
Individual Information Sharing or what would an Accounts Payable Professional want others to know. By using tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pulse, etc an individual can inform others when they will be out of the office or they may want to share recently achieved Professional certifications. They may want to inform a group such as selected suppliers of upcoming requirement changes. Information might be shared with internal clients on payment activities.
Departmental Information Sharing – The department may want to share internal statistics such as on time payments and discounts earned. They can recognize those process participants that helped to achieve new success with invoice processing. The department may want to announce staffing changes such as retirement, promotions or transfers. They may want to create groups for selected participants such as procurement so they can immediately address resolutions being handled with SAP Invoice Management. For me, I am now able to know if one of my colleagues is traveling to the same event that I may be attending. I can also see when colleagues are on vacation…live vicariously through their adventures…makes my work day a little more pleasant.
Corporate Information Sharing – Your shared service center may want to utilize social networks to introduce policy changes to both internal and external clients. As with the Department, they may want to announce staffing changes. They may desire to communicate real time with internal Accounting Departments related to closing activities such as accruals. The use of the OpenText Pulse would be a great tool to increase the visibility of current policies and regulations. I for one monitor real time changes to travel budgets as well as new presentations that others may have saved to the content server. I don’t have to wait and hope I receive an email telling me about new presentations.
Let me know…how are you using social networks to improve your corporate contribution?
For more information on SAP Invoice Management http://ecohub.sdn.sap.com/irj/ecohub/solutions/SAPVIM
For more information on OpenText Pulsehttp://www.opentext.com/2/global/products/products-collaboration/products-opentext-extended-collaboration.htm
By using Pulse, organizations can take advantage of a Facebook-like social media environment within their existing Open Text ECM Suite deployments and move informal communications out of email, thus dramatically reducing dependence on inefficient and slow email chains. Additionally, it offers a way for people to collaborate rapidly in real time, while creating a secure knowledge base for new employees and team members. Pulse is a major step toward enabling customers to capture their organizational memory through the archival of formal and informal user conversations.
So…how can those in the business process around Invoice Processing utilize social networks? While I believe the use is unlimited, I will focus on a few examples.
Individual Information Sharing or what would an Accounts Payable Professional want others to know. By using tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pulse, etc an individual can inform others when they will be out of the office or they may want to share recently achieved Professional certifications. They may want to inform a group such as selected suppliers of upcoming requirement changes. Information might be shared with internal clients on payment activities.
Departmental Information Sharing – The department may want to share internal statistics such as on time payments and discounts earned. They can recognize those process participants that helped to achieve new success with invoice processing. The department may want to announce staffing changes such as retirement, promotions or transfers. They may want to create groups for selected participants such as procurement so they can immediately address resolutions being handled with SAP Invoice Management. For me, I am now able to know if one of my colleagues is traveling to the same event that I may be attending. I can also see when colleagues are on vacation…live vicariously through their adventures…makes my work day a little more pleasant.
Corporate Information Sharing – Your shared service center may want to utilize social networks to introduce policy changes to both internal and external clients. As with the Department, they may want to announce staffing changes. They may desire to communicate real time with internal Accounting Departments related to closing activities such as accruals. The use of the OpenText Pulse would be a great tool to increase the visibility of current policies and regulations. I for one monitor real time changes to travel budgets as well as new presentations that others may have saved to the content server. I don’t have to wait and hope I receive an email telling me about new presentations.
Let me know…how are you using social networks to improve your corporate contribution?
For more information on SAP Invoice Management http://ecohub.sdn.sap.com/irj/ecohub/solutions/SAPVIM
For more information on OpenText Pulsehttp://www.opentext.com/2/global/products/products-collaboration/products-opentext-extended-collaboration.htm
Sunday, July 4, 2010
How To Communicate Without Saying a Word
How to Communicate Without Saying a Word
This can be a difficult challenge in the world of Accounts Payable when working to post invoices accurately and quickly. Just accurately and quickly alone is a major task but when you add “quietly”…is it really possible?
Think of all the people involved…Accounts Payable Professionals, Approvers, Corporate Procurement, Field Procurement, Receiving, Contract Management, Master Data Management, Tax Professionals…just to name a few. There are a number of Vendors offering solutions to address the accurate and quick...although in many cases you have to decide…do you want it accurate or quick…one or the other but not both. Yet very few address the quietly issue. Why is this important? For invoices that are received and immediately posted without any human intervention due to issues such as problem resolution or approval, communication is not a critical factor. Yet when that 80/20 rule kicks in where 20% of your invoices result in 80% of the problems, the Accounts Payable Professional must reach out and communicate. They need to communicate with the individuals that have both the knowledge and security authorization to resolve / approve invoices as required by best practice separation of duties. As an example, in an ERP such as SAP this communication is often started by running a report such as MRBR to find invoices blocked for payment. Without a solution that includes “quietly” as a building block, the first communication triggers a barrage of activity including but not limited to emails, phone calls, entries into spreadsheets for follow up, follow up calls, making copies of invoices and pulling contracts.
So how do you add “quietly” to the process flow? You must examine the entire process flow from how you receive the invoice, how you capture the meta data at the header and line item level, how you determine if there is a problem and then who must be involved to resolve / approve. Equally important is anticipate what that person requires to complete the task…such as…access to invoice and related document images, history of others that have worked on the process including their comments, transactional data such as purchase order, goods receipt, prior postings to purchase order and options to resolution / approval.
One excellent example of a “quite” solution is provided by SAP with their SAP Invoice Management and optional OCR.
One last thought…quiet extends to reporting also…you need to anticipate the need for information related to the invoice. While invoice payment status is certainly important you must also anticipate others will want to know trends such as invoices paid without problem and if a problem…what type of problem is most common. Yet a truly quiet process goes beyond the expected reporting…the invoice occurred because of a purchase…the purchase occurred due to a larger business process such as a building project and so on. You must anticipate that others must be able to see the invoice as part of the bigger picture. This bigger picture is ECM. You would expect that a large ERP would anticipate this more holistic requirement and SAP has also done that by providing an ECM solution through it partnership with Open Text that takes the invoice and quietly makes it available as part of the ECM big picture. This allows you to see for example all the invoices from one vendor on one project in one virtual view or to see all the invoices related to the project regardless of vendor. No longer is it required to communicate and ask the Accounts Payable Professional to accumulate all the related information and wait for a response…it is already waiting for you to access immediate and quietly.
So…Accurate…Quick…Quiet…yes it is possible!
See SAP EcoHub for More on AP Optimization
This can be a difficult challenge in the world of Accounts Payable when working to post invoices accurately and quickly. Just accurately and quickly alone is a major task but when you add “quietly”…is it really possible?
Think of all the people involved…Accounts Payable Professionals, Approvers, Corporate Procurement, Field Procurement, Receiving, Contract Management, Master Data Management, Tax Professionals…just to name a few. There are a number of Vendors offering solutions to address the accurate and quick...although in many cases you have to decide…do you want it accurate or quick…one or the other but not both. Yet very few address the quietly issue. Why is this important? For invoices that are received and immediately posted without any human intervention due to issues such as problem resolution or approval, communication is not a critical factor. Yet when that 80/20 rule kicks in where 20% of your invoices result in 80% of the problems, the Accounts Payable Professional must reach out and communicate. They need to communicate with the individuals that have both the knowledge and security authorization to resolve / approve invoices as required by best practice separation of duties. As an example, in an ERP such as SAP this communication is often started by running a report such as MRBR to find invoices blocked for payment. Without a solution that includes “quietly” as a building block, the first communication triggers a barrage of activity including but not limited to emails, phone calls, entries into spreadsheets for follow up, follow up calls, making copies of invoices and pulling contracts.
So how do you add “quietly” to the process flow? You must examine the entire process flow from how you receive the invoice, how you capture the meta data at the header and line item level, how you determine if there is a problem and then who must be involved to resolve / approve. Equally important is anticipate what that person requires to complete the task…such as…access to invoice and related document images, history of others that have worked on the process including their comments, transactional data such as purchase order, goods receipt, prior postings to purchase order and options to resolution / approval.
One excellent example of a “quite” solution is provided by SAP with their SAP Invoice Management and optional OCR.
One last thought…quiet extends to reporting also…you need to anticipate the need for information related to the invoice. While invoice payment status is certainly important you must also anticipate others will want to know trends such as invoices paid without problem and if a problem…what type of problem is most common. Yet a truly quiet process goes beyond the expected reporting…the invoice occurred because of a purchase…the purchase occurred due to a larger business process such as a building project and so on. You must anticipate that others must be able to see the invoice as part of the bigger picture. This bigger picture is ECM. You would expect that a large ERP would anticipate this more holistic requirement and SAP has also done that by providing an ECM solution through it partnership with Open Text that takes the invoice and quietly makes it available as part of the ECM big picture. This allows you to see for example all the invoices from one vendor on one project in one virtual view or to see all the invoices related to the project regardless of vendor. No longer is it required to communicate and ask the Accounts Payable Professional to accumulate all the related information and wait for a response…it is already waiting for you to access immediate and quietly.
So…Accurate…Quick…Quiet…yes it is possible!
See SAP EcoHub for More on AP Optimization
Monday, April 5, 2010
Accounts Payable Shared Service - Round 2
Accounts Payable Shared Service - Round 2
In past years, the never ending search to increase corporate productivity led down a path to shared services. It quickly became apparent that one quick win was Accounts Payable. In round 1 many corporations equated shared services with moving the same functions to a less expensive labor pool. Obviously direct labor cost was reduced so this was deemed a success and others joined the movement. As the demand grew, basic economics kicked in…the law of supply and demand. The demand grew for skilled workers. In some areas once thought of as the place to move the tasks, the workers now move every few months due to double digit wage increases. The net result is the people processing your invoices are entry level and about the time they are trained; they are off to another company. When you compound this with the issues around time zones, language and scalability; the winner of round one may not be so clear.
As corporations reexamine their shared service concept, they are often finding that moving the transactional functions back within the corporate walls makes more sense. This is especially true when they take advantage of the process optimization and automation provided by ERP such as SAP Invoice Management by Open Text. The new solutions provide the ability remove non value touch points while replacing critical manual touch points with immediate electronic touch points. This is not to say human logic is eliminated, rather it ensures when required, the right person has the right information at the right time. In addition, AP processes now have a single point of contact. Standard process is the rule rather than the exception.
The winner of round 2 is definitely the corporation that utilizes the strength of an ERP combined with process optimization and automation. Best of class invoices are received and posted immediately without human interaction and those invoices that have an issue are resolved and posted in 1 – 3 days. Cash management is optimal, balance sheets are correct and timely and reporting promotes continual process improvement.
What will determine the winner of round 3…mobile AP functionality, dynamic discounting, ERS, standard invoice format, vendor networks, ?
See SAP EcoHub for More on SAP Invoice Management
In past years, the never ending search to increase corporate productivity led down a path to shared services. It quickly became apparent that one quick win was Accounts Payable. In round 1 many corporations equated shared services with moving the same functions to a less expensive labor pool. Obviously direct labor cost was reduced so this was deemed a success and others joined the movement. As the demand grew, basic economics kicked in…the law of supply and demand. The demand grew for skilled workers. In some areas once thought of as the place to move the tasks, the workers now move every few months due to double digit wage increases. The net result is the people processing your invoices are entry level and about the time they are trained; they are off to another company. When you compound this with the issues around time zones, language and scalability; the winner of round one may not be so clear.
As corporations reexamine their shared service concept, they are often finding that moving the transactional functions back within the corporate walls makes more sense. This is especially true when they take advantage of the process optimization and automation provided by ERP such as SAP Invoice Management by Open Text. The new solutions provide the ability remove non value touch points while replacing critical manual touch points with immediate electronic touch points. This is not to say human logic is eliminated, rather it ensures when required, the right person has the right information at the right time. In addition, AP processes now have a single point of contact. Standard process is the rule rather than the exception.
The winner of round 2 is definitely the corporation that utilizes the strength of an ERP combined with process optimization and automation. Best of class invoices are received and posted immediately without human interaction and those invoices that have an issue are resolved and posted in 1 – 3 days. Cash management is optimal, balance sheets are correct and timely and reporting promotes continual process improvement.
What will determine the winner of round 3…mobile AP functionality, dynamic discounting, ERS, standard invoice format, vendor networks, ?
See SAP EcoHub for More on SAP Invoice Management
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