Automated invoice checks and validation

The process of automated invoice checks and validation involves several steps. First, the system extracts data from the invoice, such as the supplier name, invoice number, date, and total amount. This data is then compared against existing data in the company's database to verify that the invoice is legitimate and matches previous transactions with the supplier. Next, the system checks for errors or discrepancies in the invoice data, such as incorrect pricing, missing information, or duplicate entries. Any errors are flagged for review and correction by an accounts payable clerk or other staff member. Finally, the system can also perform additional validation checks, such as verifying that the supplier is registered with the company, checking for compliance with tax regulations, and ensuring that payment terms are being met.

Automated invoice checks and validation can save businesses significant time and resources, as they eliminate the need for manual data entry and review. They also help reduce errors and fraud, as the system can detect inconsistencies that may not be immediately apparent to human reviewers. Additionally, these systems can provide valuable insights into a company's accounts payable process, allowing for ongoing improvements and optimization.

Delivery confirmation strategies

The delivery check ("PO-Flip") is a process from the past, which forces vendors to tell the customer that goods have been delivered. This process is entirely obsolete with the usage of B-Op! Instead the customer has access to new delivery confirmation strategies, which use the power of cross-company data exchange and save both sides a lot of time:

• De-Minimis strategy - customers have to option to define certain order types to be "De-Minimis" (of minor importance), e.g. uniform orders or office stationaty mailorders to the home office. De-Minimis orders will then not require a manual goods intake action by the receiving customer at all. Instead, the shipment notice automatically sent from the vendor to the customer organization over the B-Op dataphere trade network triggers a fully automated clearance process.
  B-Op automatically sends out shipment notices to a customer digital when shipments have been made. The customer organization just reveses the regular goods-intake process: The goods are considered delivered after a certain amount of days (definable), except the ordering party objects against the goods arrival.
• Warehouse intake strategy - Regular deliveries which target a warehouse undergo the regular goods-intake process in a b-op application like ZUGSEIL Warehouse Management System (WMS), where the customer counts the recieved items and typically performs a quality check as well.
• Personal confirmation strategy - Requested deliveries, which are not bound to a warehouse but office or other item, need to be confirmed in a b-op application like ZUGSEIL Shop to have arrived at the customer.

For simplifying the delivery confirmation in De-Minimis and Personal confirmation strategies, ZUGSEIL offers the Pending order tasks app, allowing clearance with very little effort.

Advanced invoice checks and validation

Beyond automation with all its errors (OCR faults) and flaws, the B-Op technology offers the next level of order validation as:

• contracts are exchanged over the B-Op network automatically: Each purchase order is covered by a contract, which is mutually signed and exchanged over the network with all details.
• the invoice validation happens already on the vendor side: Vendors are only permitted to send bills into the network when they have a purchase contract exactly matching the billing details.
• bills are enriched by customer background information: As the purchasing process is handled entirely digital on the customer and the vendor side, all details on the customer side (which are not known by the vendor) can be matched and can be used for automatic validation.
• delivery check: As B-Op is not a standalone purchasing tool, but also includes warehousing and inventory managment functionality, it also is able to gather information from the other processes, which entirely removes the necessity to verify the effective receipt of goods in the procurement tool.

Benfits of b-op in this process

The usage of b-op comes with these advantages for both parties throughout the process:

• Digital Collaboration Data Model - b-op virtually creates a shared data object with three categories of data posession: customer data, shared data, vendor data. This approach is 100% compliant with data protection and privacy regulations.
• Integrated process - All information from the order process can fully be used in the accounts payable process.

Tangible benefits on the customer side

• Internal costcenter distribution - during ordering process the system automatically ensures the validity of the costcenter, so that problems of invoices with wrong or invalid costcenters is dramatically reduced.
• Full digitalization - the entire P2P process can be digitalized and automated for non-standard orders by an ever increasing number of tools and innovation partners developing procurement tools with us. This helps avoid any manual work on once established processes.
• Integration with approval process - orders can only be placed, when cleared by the organization. If no clearance exists, no b-op PO is created and no bill can be automatically cleared for payment
• Integration with warehousing - so called PO-Flip processes are entirely obsolete
• Exact position matching - each invoice position is inherently referenced to a purchase order and contract position, so that all information is usable at the invoice checking.
• Over- and underdelivery accross multiple purchase orders - as products are fully described in a structured form (even on customizated products) in b-op, the system can automatically detect deliveries on non linked purchase orders.
• Process Transparency - as all information is shared fully automated in the background all information (also from the vendor side) are available locally and immediately in a digital form. This reduces the number of support calls and iquiries ("where is my stuff?") dramatically through the entire P2P process.

Tangible benefits on the supplier side

• Full digitalization - the entire P2P process can be digitalized and automated for non-standard orders by an ever increasing number of tools and innovation partners developing procurement tools with us. This helps avoid any manual work on once established processes.
• Competitive advantage - customers are generally more happy, when they have no work with procurement and have all information available at any time without having to call someone.
• Get your money faster - As invoicing is fully digitalized bills can be sent automatically and without any manual work. Also they are processed immediately without any delay on the customer side.

Related articles

• ZUGSEIL Shop
• ZUGSEIL Procurement-Suite
• ZUGSEIL Quality and Returns Management (QRM)
• ZUGSEIL Procurement Automation Tools (PAT)
• ZUGSEIL Made To Measure (M2M)
• ZUGSEIL Warehouse Management System (WMS)