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Other | Accounts Payable Automation
PSA Security Network Reaps Company-Wide Benefits from Paperless Accounts Payable Initiative
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Other | Accounts Payable Automation
As the world’s largest electronic security cooperative, PSA Security Network receives a daily influx of invoices and other documents in digital and hard copy format from clients and vendors. The sheer volume and frequency of the manual data entry into “CORE” systems of engagement including their NetSuite ERP was a time consuming and error prone process. After deploying ABBYY FlexiCapture software along with the experienced professional services from solutions integrator, ProConversions Corp., PSA is now reaping bottom line benefits across their organization. ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices entirely automates the data capture process, providing a single, flexible, reliable and secure system to streamline PSA’s invoice process.
The accounting department at PSA conducts thousands of purchase transactions between its vendors and security integrators. The task to manually key in 500 + invoices each day was labor intensive and time consuming and the manual process never allowed PSA to efficiently access client historical records.
PSA required an automated intelligent capture solution that could import the diverse types of documents being received each day and automatically classify and index them with a high degree of accuracy. The solution needed to ensure that the data being captured off the invoices matched 100% with the purchase order data in NetSuite and at the same time it could be easily integrated to their NetSuite Accounting System. The Integration needed to allow for the flow of data to and from each system and have inherent security features to manage the data’s integrity.
The PSA executive team considered the project to be an integral part of the company’s corporatewide paperless initiative. An advance capture solution along with an Invoice approval workflow would be deployed across the organization. Due to the complexity of the solution, assistance was required from a recognized systems integrator with expertise in consolidating internal systems. ABBYY’s premier business partner, ProConversions Corporation was selected to map PSA’s business requirements and design a a customized distributed capture solution built on ABBYY’s recognized technology.
The foundation of the solution proposed by ProConversions was ABBYY’s FlexiCapture for Invoices. FlexiCapture allows for the consolidation of all document types (forms, files) from invoices, statements, credit slips, repair bills, service papers and delivery receipts. In the new process, all documents would have the same entry point via PSA’s Microsoft Office 365 email account and would be automatically imported into FlexiCapture to classify and capture the key index data. ABBYY’s Web client verification module ensures that the invoice data captured matches 100% with the original purchase order residing in NetSuite. In the event of a discrepancy in price, quantity, or delivery, the invoice would be flagged and routed to an exception que, while the processing of the next invoice would continue. Once the invoices were 100% verified, the data and images are exported to NetSuite to automatically create a voucher to pay. Simultaneously the images and data are exported to PSA’s Treeno document management system where each new invoice triggers an Invoice Approval Workflow. Once the Invoice is approved in the workflow tool by the approving manager, it’s routed back to the AP clerk to pay the invoice and complete the workflow.
Within six months of having the automated system in production, PSA has seen significant improvements across the organization. Moving from paper to electronic processing of documents has created efficiencies throughout the entire accounts payable process. Before implementing the OCR capture system, PSA’s processing time to receive and index an invoice was 48 Hours. The change from manual data entry to a fully automated system, has allowed the accounts payable team to processes invoices in a fraction of the time it took previously. PSA has realized a substantial increase in productivity and can now process all invoices received each day with no backlog.
These efficiencies have streamlined the accounting team’s ability to process an increased number of invoices each day and PSA can now ensure all customer transactions are accurate at the start of the fulfillment process. ABBYY’s three-way automated checkpoints are designed to validate that invoice data is accurate, so data integrity is maintained throughout the entire process. There is a renewed confidence in the process and the historical search results are now accurate when looking for specific information associated to an invoice, statement or other business document.
