Esker is expanding its cloud offering in Australia/New Zealand in 2011 with the launch of a versatile document processing solution for SAP users.

Esker is extending its automation cloud platform with SAP-certified integration for both paper-free accounts payable invoice processing and 100% electronic accounts receivable invoice delivery as well as automated processing and delivery of orders and other documents in the cash conversion cycle.

Esker’s DeliveryWare server platform is already certified for integration with SAP applications to automate processing of sales orders, customer invoices, purchase orders, vendor invoices and other documents. Over 1,000 companies running SAP are running the Esker DeliveryWare platform and solutions to automate the process of their business transactional documents.

Christophe DuMonet, Managing Director of Esker Australia & New Zealand,  said organisations are now embracing the ROI value of using a single platform, either in the cloud or on-premise, to automate multiple document processes and formats including fax, mail, email, Web, EDI/IDoc and XML - with capabilities encompassing document capture, workflow, delivery and storage.

“There is a significant potential in Australia and New Zealand for organisations processing from 2,000 invoices a month to gain efficiencies through a cloud AP automation solution.”

Almost 50% of Esker’s worldwide revenues are now coming from its cloud-based solutions, which also integrate with a range of ERP platforms ranging from enterprise down to small and medium sized business.

According to Esker, automation can save organisations 40 to 60 percent of AP operational and administrative costs. Other benefits of automated vendor invoice  processing include shortened reconciliation and payment cycles, increased visibility of invoice processing and  approval status, improved reporting and audit trails, elimination of duplicate payments and fraud, and strengthened credit rating, compliance status and supplier relationships.

“There is a significant potential in Australia and New Zealand for organisations processing from 2,000 invoices a month to gain efficiencies through a cloud AP automation solution,” said Dumonet.

“These organisations may have looked at on-premise solutions in the past but found the staff and operational savings did not justify the upfront investment required.”

With the Esker solution, supplier invoices go to one central location for imaging and electronic approval by the appropriate people. Invoice data goes into the SAP system automatically and invoice images are immediately available from the SAP interface.

Automated fax processing

Esker DeliveryWare is already being employed by a range of Australian organisations, primarily to integrate automated faxing and processing of incoming faxes.

There are still a large number of organisations that prefer to transmit a purchase order (PO) via fax rather than email, as fax is still the only communication method to provide a digital confirmation that the document has been received.

Esker DeliveryWare can also automate and streamline the paper-heavy, labour-intensive process of approving customer invoices within accounts receivable received via fax and email, Esker DeliveryWare performs database lookups and delivers an XML document to a SAP system.

Introduced in March 2011, the latest version of Esker on Demand features additional functionalities for the automation of vendor invoices, including the capacity to process vendor invoices according to formats and specifics in over 20 countries: invoice layout, paper size, currencies, date formats, tax codes, accounting charts, etc.

Developed as a global document automation solution for all business processes (vendor invoices, sales orders, customer invoices and document delivery), the new version of Esker on Demand also includes new features for vendor invoice automation.

Vendor invoices are automatically matched with corresponding purchase and delivery orders, regardless of the ERP system.

Touchless mode enables completely automated processing of invoices,  void of any manual intervention — from data extraction  (vendor name, invoice number, date and amount)  to  automatic  verification and integration into an ERP system.

New OCR engine

A new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine delivers improved recognition:  The  new version of Nuance Capture SDK 16.4 is integrated, guaranteeing improved recognition quality for line items in particular and enabling even more invoices to be processed in touchless mode.

An enhanced flexible and powerful workflow engine allows more complex workflow design, including the ability to add approvers during the approval process, to send invoices back to the previous step, to reset workflows, etc.
Improved default verification and validation workflow includes the ability to return an invoice to the vendor’s accounting department, to block payment, to put an invoice on hold or to request additional information.

During the invoice validation stage, AP is alerted to any invoice that resembles one that has already been processed. The system compares values in different fields — vendor name,  part number, date and total amount — to prevent double invoice entry and subsequent  double payment.

This new version of Esker on Demand features SAP standard interface integration and a multi-platform connector enabling implementation with any ERP system. Its official launch is scheduled to take place at the forthcoming SAP User Group (SAUG) Summit in August 2011 in Sydney.