Automation in the Procure to Pay process

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When looking for opportunities to improve business functions and save money, many organizations look to their existing accounting processes. Accounts Payable processes specifically are typically antiquated, slow, and costly, and there are plenty of opportunities for improvement. A good place to start your accounting department’s digital transformation is within the Procure to Pay (P2P) process.

In PayStream Advisors’ 2018 Procurement Insight Report, they identified some of the biggest pain points within the P2P process. Some of the top pain points reported were that their process differs across departments, the technology they use is inadequate, there’s too much paper in the process, and that they are using several disjointed systems.

In digging deeper, they identified that almost half of all organizations don’t have centralized procurement, which alone can cause a completely inefficient process cross-departmentally. By not having a simplified, standardized procurement process, you risk late-payments and hiccups within your process. In fact, 25% of organizations don’t even have a formal process for managing and monitoring budgets, which if left unaddressed, can be detrimental to an organization.

What does a typical P2P process look like?

  1. Create requisitions
  2. Approve requisitions
  3. Create a purchase order
  4. Approve purchase order
  5. Accept or reject the receipt
  6. Evaluate supplier
  7. Approve invoice
  8. Pay vendor

Typically each of these steps are done manually. You have someone create the requisitions, someone else to approve them, someone who creates the PO, someone who approves it, and each step is passing paper back and forth between employees and departments until you reach the final step. The biggest issue is that there is a large margin for error within each of these steps. Maintaining consistent communication throughout the process can be difficult, and may lead to problems.

How can you automate each of these steps? It may be assumed that you would need to implement a separate solution for each part of the process, but a holistic, smartly integrated automation suite can solve your workflow woes all in one place.

Invoice Matching

Easily match vendor invoice, purchase order, and product receipt information. A state-of-the-art ECM (such as DocStar) makes matching and routing invoices to their correct recipients is incredibly simple. Many top organizations get started by using an ECM then progress to a system that combines workflow enabled logic with Artificial Intelligence to make their process even smarter (and faster). Quickly identify discrepancies with little manual work by utilizing Smart Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

Create & approve requisitions and purchase orders

Create custom forms for requisitions and purchase orders. These can easily be completed by employees and immediately sent to managers for approval.

ERP Integration

Utilizing an intuitive system that integrates with your ERP is crucial. The key to a successful fully automated P2P process is working with an ECM and solution provider that has pre-built integrations, and the experience to do it successfully. The best ECM providers can work to create integration in areas where you an API or prebuilt integration does not exist by leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to scrape the UI, extract the data, then push it to your line of business application. With integration, key tasks can be automated with close to no manual efforts and it’s much simpler to monitor procurements and budgets.

How Mosaic can help

Automating your entire P2P process can seem overwhelming, but we’ve had plenty of experience in helping customers simplify complex processes. We can create a fully customized automation plan for your Procure to Payment process. We’ll help you save time, money, and resources while moving towards complete automation.

Schedule a demo with us! Call 1-800-387-7859

Important Attributes of ECM You Need to Know

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Organizations of all types have become increasingly more aware of the consequences of not having a records retention policy and procedure in place, but many have not taken any action to correct their outdated process. Even in just the past 10 years, the landscape of records management has changed. What was once accomplished by some well-organized filing cabinets and diligent employees now must be actively maintained by excess labor or entire departments, taking up office space and employee time.  Beyond just being a hassle, and outdated content management system can have negative implications such as civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance, as well as the growing costs. These trends across organizations have caught the attention of C-level employees. Learn more about how Enterprise Content Management (ECM) can benefit your organization, as well as the traits to look for in an ECM system. 

How important is ECM?

Record-keeping activities impact an organization beyond just records managers, AP clerks, and finance executives.  The broad definition of records management requires that every employee at every level be responsible for following retention requirements. No department is immune.

Many managers don’t fully realize that their records consist of every scrap of paper and electronic documents, from faxes and invoices, to hiring and onboarding documents, to voicemails, emails and database reports. Organizations are disjointed with their storage, keeping important records in boxes beneath desks, filing cabinets in unused closets, and flash drives tossed in a drawer. This leads to missing files, incorrect information, or worst case, compliance issues.

Many organizations believe that using a free online document storage system, email archives, and physical off-site storage facilities are enough, but these systems aren’t secure, and the costs can add up.

How do you protect your organization while saving employees’ time and resources? Enterprise Content Management. 

Not just any ECM, but a feature-rich, user-friendly platform that’s designed to make content management much simpler.

What are some important features to look for?

1.  Advanced capture features that allow for the import of paper and electronic records in any format from any source. Regardless of the form of the record, the system should capture it at the earliest point of entry without additional steps.  Importing via scanner, fax, and print features are critical. The ability to store emails as well as attachments is a key difference of having a holistic ECM solution and not just a digital filing cabinet.

2.  Real-time indexing and data capture (including capturing metadata) that allows a broad array of information to be retained for searching

3.  Secure user access controls that prevent unauthorized viewing, alteration, and deletion of documents

4. Sophisticated search capabilities that allow users to combine powerful boolean searches, metadata searches, full-text searches

5. Automatic assignment of record retention schedule based on record types

6. Identification of the final disposition date

7. The ability to place records on hold for litigation purposes

8. Audit trails for records

9. Disposal management mechanism to make retention much easier and keep you compliant

10. Export and Transfer mechanisms 

11. Back-up system to protect against accidental loss

When looking to implement an ECM, make sure you inquire about these important features. Top ECM providers will be able to further explain how their solution offers and utilizes them, and will be happy to help to train you on using them once your system is implemented. Mosaic Paperless Solutions is a perfect example of an organization that offers these features within the DocStar ECM product they sell alongside the know-how to help you utilize them.

Call 770.452.7373 to get more information about their ECM offerings!

Focus on the Environment by Becoming Paperless

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Many organizations are shifting their focus to become more environmentally conscious and improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR), and there are plenty of undeniable benefits to it. Whether you are working to continuously improve your company image, are looking for 3rd party certification, or even if you’re simply trying to showcase your company values, you can work to become more environmentally conscious by reducing (or eliminating!) your company’s reliance on paper.

The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year, 45% of that paper ends up being thrown out each day. Even if your organization only has 50 employees, that’s still 225,000 sheets being thrown out annually or 11,250 lbs. of paper (nearly the weight of 3 cars!). You may not consider your organization to be “green” but it’s still important to consider your environmental impact, as well as the additional benefits to reducing your paper usage.

Many organizations don’t put reduce their negative environmental impact at the top of their priorities. But even if the environment is not a key focus, reducing paper usage can still benefit your bottom line. By going green, you can easily save some green. Businesses annually spend about $1,367 per employee annually on printing supplies alone. By becoming paperless you can easily offset a good portion of that cost, as well as the cost incurred from loss of productivity from searching for or correcting files.

How can your organization go paperless?

  • If there are certain things you must print, consider doing it on the backside of recycled paper (as long as it doesn’t have confidential information). By doing this you’ll reduce the amount of paper you throw away, and save money by not needing to buy nearly as many sheets.
  • If there are invoices, purchase orders, or other forms that need approval from different managers company-wide, utilize an enterprise content management (ECM) system to share, markup, and approve any important documents. Paper-heavy departments such as accounting and human resources can directly benefit from an innovative ECM. 
  • Utilize web forms to complete commonly used forms rather than print out multiples of the same form
  • Rather than throw away unused paper, look to see if your city has a single stream recycling program you can participate in. If there are pages with sensitive information that you aren’t sure about, you can invest in a paper shredder or find a local shredding day to be able to utilize an industrial shredder.
  • Keep all your employee records on a digital database. Instead of taking up space with full filing cabinets, scan your current records into an ECM. For future employees consider utilizing online forms to complete new hire paperwork, including benefit elections, i4’s, W-9’s, and direct deposit.

These are just a few of the ways your organization can work to become paperless, and often once you move forward with one method, the others aren’t so far behind! By starting off your process to become greener with ECM, you can often snowball your environmental impact and immediately notice the benefits of utilizing a smart digital storage solution. The team at Mosaic can help you learn more about how your individual organization can directly benefit from DocStar ECM. Learn more by contacting us.

By taking small steps to reduce your reliance on paper, your organization can save money while doing good for the environment!