What are the alternatives available when planning to introduce accounts processing automation for SAP? Abie Spies looks at the options.

Automating accounts processing just makes good business sense for almost all organisations. Invoices can be scanned and workflowed for processing, approval and payment. If organisations are also using SAP for financial and logistics management, the benefits just add up and the case for integrating your invoice handling with SAP is virtually a no-brainer.

Exactly what constitutes invoice integration into SAP is,  “however, a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question. It can range from simply linking an image of an invoice to an SAP transaction electronically, to a fully-fledged automated system that scans high volumes of invoices, subjects them to optical character recognition (OCR), and automatically populates SAP with the data thereby allowing for straight-through processing. All done without any human interaction.  For most organisations, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. This makes understanding the exact business requirements and selecting the ‘right’ solution so vitally important.

Historically SAP was lacking in some invoice scanning functionality (like a scanning interface, OCR engine etc.). Therefore many independent companies stepped into the breach and developed SAP-certified solutions for the scanning and integration of invoices to SAP. These include Open Text, Readsoft, Esker, Kofax and many others. All of them deliver competent integration solutions, and none of them are dominating the market thus far.

Because most of these solutions are very feature-rich (and consequently quite expensive), some smaller organisations choose to build the key features into their standard SAP systems. This is done by utilising standard SAP workflow and ABAP routines, sometimes married up to inexpensive scanning solutions.
What are the key classes of Invoice Management solutions available to organisations using SAP?

SAP has over the past few years forged a very close alliance with one of the bigger players, Open Text, and now sells the “Vendor Invoice Management by Open Text” (VIM) product through the SAP sales channels. This is a high-end full feature solution, and if your organisation is mature enough to use the functionality and can afford the cost it may be a rational add-on to your SAP suite.

Other SAP-certified solutions like Readsoft, Esker etc. have been around for a long time and have a large installed base of very successful users. If the functionality they offer suits your needs and the price suits your pocket, they offer very competent and efficient solutions. ·All the commercial solutions use standard SAP ABAP and workflow routines to build the additional screens and functionality. So, why can’t you just build it yourself? If you just need limited functionality, this is a very feasible option, provided you have access to a developer who really knows this field.

Which option is right for you? Here are a few pointers to consider:

Take a good hard look at your organisation’s maturity, and what level of business process automation you could embrace. Most organisations do not have the competence, maturity and level of trust required for deep automation, and therefore implementing a more complex solution than your staff can handle could be very risky. Sometimes ‘baby-steps’ are best.

Understand your invoice and AP business processes, how they will change with automation, and the change management necessary to make a success. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Consider different technology options, as outlined above. No solution is likely to be a ‘perfect fit’, so do your homework and talk to people with knowledge of different systems. Talk to reference customers, and make sure you cut through the ‘new-car-owner’ waffle to get to the real truth.

Make sure you understand all the costs related to implementing different options (including associated functionality, like content storage). Compare apples with apples.

Consider  the  implementation  expertise available for the alternative options. Consulting expertise for different solutions varies significantly in Australia, and competence of implementation partners will have a material impact on your success. A great product can be reduced to a dog by an ordinary implementation, while an average product can be made to sing in the hands of a master. When organisations get accounts processing automation right, the benefits are spectacular. This is one area of SAP where the investment cost is often recovered in months, rather than years, but that is just the tip of the value iceberg. The real benefits are in what it does to your business efficiency. Plan your implementation well and you will fly!

Abie Spies is founder and Managing Director of Engineering Informatics, a product-independent Enterprise Content Management (ECM) consulting company. www.ei-anz.com