“AP Automation” is the business buzzword of the last few years. Like many of you, we’ve diligently researched and monitored the claims and effectiveness of new solutions that appeared. And we’ve been investigating the most effective way that we can add this functionality to our product suite, write our own or work with an existing solution.
We are thrilled to announce that we’ve developed a partnership with SoftWorks AI, makers of Trapeze to bring invoice processing to ENet Docs. This partnership will combine the powerful Trapeze invoice processing, with our existing publishing and workflow tools. We will introduce a new automation server, the ENet Automation Server, that will bridge the gap between these systems, as well as communicate with your ERP system to ensure smooth processing.
Let’s take a quick look at how we envision this will work.
Step 1 – Receiving the Invoices
These days the majority invoices are delivered by email, which can be published directly to ENet Docs with no user intervention. Regardless of the publication method, invoices will be placed in “AP Invoices – New”. When the invoice is ready to be processed automatically, the AP clerk moves it to “AP Invoices – To Process” within ENet Docs. This manual step is optional and allows you to control which invoices are processed automatically.
Step 2 – Transmission to Trapeze
The ENet Automation Server periodically scans ENet Docs for invoices in the “AP Invoices – To Process” folder. When there are invoices to process, they are downloaded and placed in the Trapeze input directory and within ENet Docs, they are moved to “AP Invoices – IN PROCESS.”
Trapeze extracts and validates key data within the invoice.
Step 3 – transmission to ENet Docs
The data generated by Trapeze is digested by the ENet Automation Server and used to update the invoice in ENet Docs with the invoice number, purchase order, vendor ID. Within ENet Docs, the document is moved to “AP Invoices – PROCESS COMPLETE”. The data is used to create an import file, or files that can be imported by your ERP system.
Step 4 – ERP Update
Many ERP systems can automatically import invoice data when the data is placed in a designated location, while some require a manual import. Either way, the time that your employee spends on each invoice is greatly reduced.
Conclusion
Businesses are always looking for ways to improve efficiency and thereby reduce costs. In today’s unsettled economic climate, finding these efficiencies is more important than ever. If you are looking for ways to automate your AP invoice processing, give us a call.