Accounts Payable

The benefits of invoice approval automation are widely known, however finding an affordable solution that is easy to use, enterprise wide, and can be modified to adhere to your specific business rules and processes can be hard to find. An OnCourse solution checks all of those boxes as well as eliminating the manual capture processes by your team through integration with your ERP.

An OnCourse solution meets you at your point of need; from invoice receipt that allows your vendors to seamlessly continue to submit invoices without change, to indexing the required fields backed by extensive quality control verification from your databases. Using a permissions based approach, access and actions are defined by your rules, not software limitations. Approval routing can be fully automated, ad-hoc direct to approver, or any combination. Escalations can be built in and a detailed audit trail is standard. Let us help you configure a solution that gives immediate visibility to your entire spend.

Accounts Payable Problem

A Medical Device Company spent over a year trying to implement AP automation through their financial institution. With limited IT availability the company was forced to alter its business rules in order to accommodate the rigid structure of the bank’s invoice processing requirements and inflexible approval routing. The implementation failed after significant human and capital resource expenditure.

Solution

OnCourse provided a two-phase solution. First: OnCourse assumed responsibility for all front-end processing, capturing the required data and verifying accuracy from PO and Vendor databases, while protecting confidential information as required by corporate policy and HIPPA laws. Second: The resulting files were made available via a flexible invoice approval route that was configured to the company’s existing business rules. Utilizing FileBound Document Management Software, the invoices were routed for approval, GL coding was applied, an audit trail with escalations was created, and the approval loop completed with ERP integration.

Outcomes

Instead of routing approvals through undocumented e-mail, invoices are delivered electronically with tracking and escalation capabilities
Invoices are available for viewing and approval by authorized users anywhere.
The approval cycle is documented, faster, and controlled
Invoice status tracked from the minute the invoice is uploaded.
Automatic re-routing of misdirected invoices to the correct business unit.
Vendor e-mail notification available for all invalid invoices.

Process Overview

Customer programed existing AP invoice e-mail address to auto-forward to dedicated OnCourse e-mail address.
OnCourse receives e-mails, attachments extracted from e-mail, split into single invoices, and converted to PDF format
Required fields indexed and verified via customer databases
Invoices are visible in FileBound Workflow/Archive software within 24 hours
Data file formatted to ERP specifications and output to ERP

Advantages