The global IT company SmartDocs is an official SAP® Partner that provides enterprise-level software to automate and optimize business processes for the clients running the SAP ERP system. SmartDocs offers a wide range of comprehensive business solutions to address most areas of any organization, including finance, procurement, HR, and sales.
SmartPayables is one of the most in-demand SmartDocs software solutions created for Accounts Payable process automation for SAP ERP users. By integrating additional functionality, this platform can be easily adjusted according to the customer’s needs and requirements.
The SmartDocs prospective customer was looking for a solution that would allow creating a world class Shared Services Centre to process all incoming invoices. An important requirement was to add Optical Character Recognition and Data Capture capabilities to the SmartPayables platform since the client wanted to fully automate the financial workflow, getting rid of manual data entry. Looking for a suitable software to enhance the functionality of SmartPayables, SmartDocs contacted ABBYY’s Partner in India — TRS Forms & Services — an integrated solution specialist focused on data-centric innovative technology.
ABBYY FlexiCapture — a highly accurate document capture platform — perfectly fitted all the client’s requirements. The choice was also determined by a range of FlexiCapture advantages — its wide feature set, flexibility and ease of integration with the SmartPayables solution. All this allowed to deliver the whole project to the customer within just 3 months.
Today the entire cycle of invoice processing, from scanning up to invoice posting, is done automatically. This enables the newly born Shared Services Center to process 300,000 pages of financial documents per year.
Each incoming document is sent to a scanning station where FlexiCapture applies OCR. When the recognition is complete, the software automatically extracts data from specific fields needed for further workflow. At the verification station, users can manually check correctness of the extracted data paying attention to the spots highlighted by the program. After the data fields are verified, they are exported to the SmartPayables. Depending on the type of data and for whom they are needed, further workflows are triggered accordingly. Finally, the processed documentation is stored in the SmartDocs Content Repository with easy access at any time if necessary.
Since ABBYY FlexiCapture was implemented, the former need to use manual labor has been replaced by automated data capture. This has helped to relieve the staff of the routine tasks, reducing time, costs and minimizing the risk of mistakes caused by a human factor.
The project implementation resulted in the successful creation of a new efficient Shared Services Center for the client. By substituting the most time and labor consuming invoice processing stages with automated data capture, SmartDocs has managed to considerably improve the performance of its solutions. During the four months that the platform has been functioning, the final client has achieved a 50% higher invoice processing speed, not to mention a markedly lowered number of involved staff (down to three employees). Furthermore, the implementation of the OCR and data capture capabilities has led to the reduction in the overall TCO of about 50–60%.
Thus, such a fruitful and beneficial collaboration between SmartDocs and ABBYY has helped to make the whole workflow efficient and accurate, thus fulfilling the initial request.
