Integrating SAP Invoice Automation With SharePoint in Richmond
To be competitive today, businesses must conduct an audit of their processes and systems in pursuit of areas where productivity and expenditure reductions can be exercised.
Using out-of-date operations and physical workflows can easily add days and even weeks to the lifecycle of a process. In the world of Accounts Payable (AP), this further effort and time can also drastically swell your company’s average cost per invoice.
In addition to that, these outdated methods prohibit team leaders from having insight into processes and can be a serious problem in case of an audit when complete, and timely collection of documentation is required. This can get tricky really quickly when you are not able to comply to supervision queries.
Thus, it's important for your organization to expedite your processes, identify areas for automation to enhance productivity, and consolidate and/or standardize operations where it makes sense.
Therefore, what workflows should you strive to enhance through automation? A good place to start is in streamlining Accounts Payable processing. Usual Accounts Payable workflows that can be digitized involve handling sales orders or purchase requisitions, AP data entry, routing payments, invoice approvals, and document storage.
In today's piece, we’ll concentrate on invoice automation with Microsoft SharePoint integration with Systems, Applications & Products (SAP). But first, let's take a moment to discuss how invoice process automation works.
What is Invoice Process Automation?
To understand how invoice process automation works, let's take a look at the invoicing process.
Receive the invoice
Document capture
Data extraction
Invoice approval
Routing payment
In a traditional setting, this procedure could have 3-5 people involved. The more individuals involved in a process, the higher the chance for human error, back and forth communication, delays, and conclusively, cost-inefficiency.
Having said that, in a modern AP department, tools namely an Enterprise Resourcing Platform, or ERP system, can help you to automate processes and computerize record archives.
Then, with a process made known as data scraping, line items, pricing, and any other relevant information are captured electronically with innovation like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and transmitted to an Enterprise Content Management (ECM), like Sharepoint, for archiving.
Now that we've reviewed how invoice mechanization operates, let's address how Sharepoint and SAP are involved in the process in further detail.
How Sharepoint Connects with SAP to Automate Invoice Processing
SharePoint is a web service tool that integrates Microsoft Office 365 tools with a robust ECM to develop productivity, improve overall team collaboration, and advance the velocity of knowledge throughout the company.
SAP is an ERP solution that utilizes robotic process automation (RPA) and OCR to create prominent digitization for essentially any AP procedures.
SharePoint and SAP merge to create a Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) tool that combines mechanization and authorization functionality with document administration for complete end-to-end management of the invoice lifecycle.
For those who are striving to expand their Sharepoint and SAP application to other parts of the company, SAP also provides CRM functionality and company process blueprints to aid you in getting started easily.
The Benefits of Invoice Automation
We comprehend that many organizations are wary to apply new operations or methodologies when they've been performing it the same way for multiple years. Let’s check out the advantages of invoice automation to help you make the right decision.
Lessen time exhausted on by-hand tasks and data entry
Tags make finding your files quick and simple
Reduction in cost per invoice
Quicker validations and upgraded invoice tracking
Elimination of concrete procedures implies a lower carbon footprint
A digital audit record is more protected
Faster invoice handling = strengthened supplier connections
Performance analytics and reporting
Let Wave Help You Implement Your Invoice Automation Solution in Richmond
By-hand AP tasks hinder your ability to compete, slow you down, and may essentially strain your vendor connections. These inefficiencies can also extend payment cycles, amplify invoice processing costs, and limit the amount of transparency and regulation you have in your business.
Although all organizations can gain an advantage from mechanizing their accounts payable processes, having the assets and throughput to carry out a new method and potentially new tools is not always an easy sell.
At Wave, we understand that a transformation can be challenging. That is why we team up with our clients as partners, helping you to take an inventory of your workflows and procedures so we can locate areas to digitize, and start with the lowest hanging fruit first.
We also do not expect you to uproot a legacy system that's strongly established inside your company. For these sorts of clients, we can provide supplemental supervision and technology that could develop your existing technology.
Via an individualized plan for digital conversion and back-office modernization all set, we can customize your ERP, ECM, or VIM integration platform to best suit your AP processes and take implementation one step at a time, optimizing processes as we proceed.
We’re comfortable working with tools like Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, MFiles, SharePoint, and OpenText.
If you'd like to discover more about how Wave can help support your [[accounts payable|AP] automation plans in Richmond, contact us today.