Accounts Payable departments are making great strides in automating their operations by leveraging Microsoft software already available in your organization. According to IOMA, world-class Accounts Payable departments can process upwards of 80,000 invoices per person per year. This efficiency translates into a cost savings of more than $3 per invoice.
2. Invoice Processing Average cost to process an invoice around, $12 Firms with high level of automation (imaging, EDI or e-invoicing, near paperless processing, etc.) have half the processing costs compared to non-automated firms with a median cost to process an invoice $6 going as low as $3 Therefore if you process just 1000 per month savings could reach over $70000 per year.
3. Benefits of AP Automation Capture - Scanning Increased processing speed Reduced labor – less data entry Reduced paper handling Decreased errors, Higher Accuracy Feeds ERP (Great Plains, SAP, Oracle, Lawson, etc.) systems
4. Benefits of AP Automation Results of electronic paper Faster retrieval time Easy access to invoices (electronic) On-Time payments More early payment discounts Auditable business processes – greater visibility Support compliance No more misplaced/lost invoices Storage costs reduced or eliminated
5. Agenda for Today’s Webinar Challenges facing Accounts Payable departments What to look for in a solution Benefits of automated invoice processing Invoice capture process Sample implementation Why a Information Worker centric solution Invoice capture demonstration Product Overview KnowledgeLake customer case studies
6. Challenges and Key Issues for Accounts Departments Found in majority of organizations In fact any organization involved in buying or selling goods! Need for process automation increases 70% of incoming mail is bills 96% of processing is manual keying of data from paper
7. Things to consider when you review Your Process Identify and document existing processes What errors occur and what improvements can be made Remove paper from the process early on, sooner the better Store off-site if needed Control access - secure storage Have an accurate audit trail - record receipt Track users productivity
8. What to Look for in a Solution Ease of use ‘Out of the box‘ No complex learning period Requires little to no maintenance No supplier-specific set-up or 'tuning' required Same level of performance when invoices change or are added Improve your accounts payable process Automatically prioritize invoices from suppliers with early-payment discounts Route high-value invoices or problem invoices to exception handling - Workflow Delivers maximum cost reduction, don’t pay for more than you need. Take advantage of existing software and hardware investment
9. Benefits of Automated Invoice Processing Review Improved Data Accuracy Automation yields better data accuracy Preventing errors less costly than correcting them Human errors inevitable Difficult to catch, expensive to reverse
10. Reduce Invoice Processing Delays Reduce the time delay between receipt of invoice and posting Leverage early payment discounts Avoid late payment penalties Financial information available real-time Quicker month, quarter and year end close AP staff are knowledge workers, not data entry clerks Separating data entry from accounts payable tasks saves money Accounts payable staff use their expertise in a more productive manner Negotiating discounts Reduce Paper Handling
14. Data for Extraction Date Purchase Order Number Invoice Number Supplier Details Total Tax Grand total Information is extracted and validated by operators or through database look-ups Matched to ERP system
15. Backend System Integration Best-of-breed solution Open architecture platform - Compatibility with back-end systems
17. “We now receive invoice approvals in hours versus weeks.” “With KnowledgeLake and SharePoint, we got rid of faxing and emailing for approvals [and] we increased processing by 40%!” Larry Bryant AP Supervisor Amdocs Lewie Wake CIO Advantage Sales & Marketing “The document capture solution from KnowledgeLake and Microsoft SharePoint has allowed Build-A-Bear associates to scan business critical documents from stores around the country and share them in SharePoint.” Dave Finnegan Chief Information Bear Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. Client Testimonials
19. ECM Information Input Sources Information Worker (IW) Capture Ad hoc input: scanning, electronic files Desktop driven content Production Capture (paper to image) Converting paper and working with digital images Centralized and remote capture High volume Scan and index done by dedicated staff
20. Information Worker (IW) ECM Who are Information Workers Senior management, middle management, staff, clerks from all departments Busy people who don’t want new responsibilities unless the investment will make their job easier Produce and Handle High Value Content $$$
21. Information Worker ECM Challenge Ease of Use, they don’t want: Complicated save and index processes Searching multiple repositories for related content Inefficient search process (lack of metadata) Desktop not tightly integrated with ECM so users don’t publish content to repository Low user adoption defeats ECM investment
79. Sample KnowledgeLake Customers… Financial Scottrade Bank of America Axis Capitol Western Union Lutheran Church Extension Fund Cambridge Investment Research Circle Lending Healthcare/Insurance WellPoint Carle Clinic Good Shepherd Hospital BJC Healthcare AAA Auto Club Retail/Mfg. Pella Window Build-A-Bear Save-A-Lot Valero Oil Delta Gas Advantage Sales/Marketing Government/Education Unified Government Adams County State of Illinois Washington University Winona State University Notables. . . Scalability Scottrade – 20M Documents, 275 Capture Locations Accosta – 285 capture locations Advantage Sales/Marketing – 5,000 Users Integration Amdocs – Oracle Financials Valero Oil – SAP Build-A-Bear – Lawson Legacy Migrations Washington University – Optika/Stellent LCMS– FileNet Tricor Braun – Documentum House Hold Names Bank of America WellPoint Chevron
80. Company Marketplace Experience Microsoft Document Imaging & Capture for Microsoft SharePoint Regional offices throughout North America Partners throughout the world Years of experience with legacy ECM products First mover in SharePoint ECM since 2003 100’s of successful customers using SharePoint for ECM Founded in 1999 Headquartered in St. Louis Privately held by KnowledgeLake executives and Fujitsu Managed Gold Certified ISV Member Technology Adoption Program Member Partner Advisory Council Member Developer Advisory Council About KnowledgeLake…
81. ROI with KnowledgeLake 94% of imaging projects pay for themselves in less than 1 year* KnowledgeLake drives user adoption KnowledgeLake drives Hard Costs Savings Savings of 43 hours per year per employee (save, index, search 10 docs/day) $1,000 per desktop user (SAVINGS POTENTIAL $$$) Save $20 in labor to file a document Save $120 in labor to find a misfiled document Save $220 in labor to reproduce a lost document KnowledgeLake helps leverage Microsoft Investment
82. Resources KnowledgeLake White Papers Product Demonstrations Streaming Presentations Webinars ROI Calculators and Assessments
83. Contact Information Sales at KnowledgeLake insidesales@knowledgelake.com KnowledgeLake, Inc.3 City Place Drive, Suite 700 Saint Louis, Missouri 63141 Phone: 314.898.0500Fax: 314.898.0501Toll Free: 888.898.0555
Editor's Notes
IOMA - The Institute of Management & Administration
AmdocsAccounts PayableImaging and Approval Workflow 50 branches 500 invoices per month per location 3 month ROI Advantage Sales & Marketing 50 LocationsApproval 40% fasterSave $95,000/Year5,000 Users
IW Capture These are people like you and me. Work in office and outlook all day. Create lots of contentElectronic Files These are documents like HR Policies, Manuals, Vacation Forms, 401K Info, employee reviews, sales policies, etc Without ECM it is difficult to ensure that the latest documents are usedProduction Capture
These are the users typically left out of traditional ECM implementations Too expensive - $2500 per user Difficult to implement Difficult to useMake it easier, not harderLosing your own documents
Ease of Use, they don’t want:Complicated save and index processesSearching multiple repositories for related contentInefficient search process (lack of metadata) Desktop not tightly integrated with ECM so users don’t publish content to repository Low user adoption defeats ECM investmentEasy to find Accurate results – too much data Search for : Sales PowerPoint
For our first example of KnowledgeLake in action we’ll walk through an Accounting capture experience.This demonstration will step you thru capturing images using KnowledgeLake Capture, indexing, searching and reviewing from within SharePoint.The first step is the scan the documents we start by opening KnowledgeLake Capture. As you can see it has the familiar ribbon bar that you will see in all new Microsoft Office 2007 products. Prior to capturing our accounting pages SharePoint was configured to store and organize these various document types. In this scenario both Invoices and Packing Slips will be captured, we have selected Invoices as our default document. Next press the Scan button.
The next step is to index the pages, upon selecting this function the ribbon bar will change automatically. Prior to indexing you could have scanned, moved, deleted and inserted additional pages.
In the right column the index panel appears, this lists the various document types and related indexes. Here the Invoice index values are listed. You can also see at the top of the screen the Index ribbon panel offers a number of functions including page, document, field and Zonal OCR.
Here we have entered the first key index of PO Number 55555. In this demonstration we have configured the client to enable some index automation.By entering the first index value of 55555 KnowledgeLake Capture sends a request to the SharePoint server configured with KnowledgeLake Image Server to invoke a database lookup. Image Server provides the capability to connect to your LOB databases and send a query requesting additional data about this PO Number. By using auto indexing via db lookup the accuracy of data can be increased, and the labor entering index fields can be reduced dramatically.
Here you can see the Invoice Amount and Vendor Name are returned and entered into the index values.
Now the only indexes requiring manual entry are Invoice Number and Date. We enter the Invoice number Tab to the Date index.
We now complete the indexes for the other documents
These indexes will be used later to search for the documents from within SharePoint
In addition to manual keyboard entry of key index fields another option is available, Point and Shoot OCR. By dragging a box over any text on the image a drop down list appears offering all available indexes for this document. Simply highlighting that index field will perform OCR recognition of the text within the box and then deliver into the assigned field.
The index was successfully converted and entered into the PO Number field. You can see a snippet of the image extracted from the page directly above the index value. Once again the database lookup is initiated and the additional DB lookup fields are entered.
The final index field is completed and the document is ready for release to the SharePoint server.
By tabbing down to the Accept button the indexing step is completed and the user is prompted to authorize the Release of the Batch. Upon pressing the button the images with their respective index values are delivered into SharePoint. This completes the capture process.
Now we’ll move over to SharePoint
Here is a typical document folder within SharePoint. As you can see there are a number of invoices with different Invoice numbers, dates, PO Number etc. This is only a small sample of a repository, imagine that this could store 1000’s if not 10,000’s of images. KnowledgeLake actually organizes these documents with SharePoint in folders automatically created as you capture the content, we’re just not making those folders visible in this view.
Here you are presented with a search page, created by KnowledgeLake Search, to retrieve your files. Administrators, or even users, can build these very simple yet powerful search pages to find anything stored by KnowledgeLake within SharePoint. Here you can enter the search criteria, these are preset fields setup by the Admin. The end user doesn’t have to worry which folders, or even document types they are search for.
In this example the user enters the PO Number and a date, any criteria could have been offered for the users to search. Here we enter 55555 and the date of August 3, 2007. These are the indexes we entered during the capture process. And then press the Search button.
At the lower panel of the page the search results are listed. The columns in the result were also pre configured by the Admin. Here you can see two results, one was our Invoice, the second a Packing List, you can also see the additional index fields. It’s clear the results have a PO Number of 55555. Unlike traditional web based search where you really don’t see why the results were returned, here you can easily distinguish which file you wish to view, and why.
Upon clicking on the dropdown list, next to our selection, a number of options are listed, two of which are specific to KnowledgeLake. View will launch our image into a new browser window and open the KnowledgeLake Viewer. This viewer requires not Active X or Java plug-ins and will work with most versions of Internet Explorer, users don’t have to install anything on their system. No confusing and sometime threatening 3rd party installations.
This zero-footprint viewer makes it possible to view thumbnails and rotate, zoom, print and email images directly from a web browser. In addition, users can view and/or edit the SharePoint properties while viewing the document. In addition, KnowledgeLake View is integrated into SharePoint and Office Workflow, so users can participate in or start workflows directly from the viewer. Here we can see our multipage Invoice along with the stored index values.
You can also annotate documents from the browser using text and image stamps, highlights, line drawings and sticky notes. Workers can also bookmark specific pages of large documents for easy access, plus easily send URL Links to these bookmarks to any SharePoint user.
Here you can see a Highlight annotation added to the document bringing attention to the Invoice #, date and Customer ID.This will conclude the demonstration of capturing, indexing, storing and retrieving an image, we’ll now move onto capturing an e-document.
Document copied 19 timesReduce Environmental Impact – Less paperImprove Operational Efficiency - WorkflowEnhance Customer Service – Faster responseEliminate Shipping and Faxing – Dist. CaptureStreamline Document Processing - WorkflowEnable Regulatory Compliance – Records MgmtDecrease Operating Costs – All aspectsDecrease Storage Space – No more filing cabinetsProvide Disaster Recovery - Backup
Hard Dollar ROI vs. Native SPPer Information Worker (IW)Save 10 document/files per dayIndex 10 documents/files per daySearch 10 documents/files per day+ $1,000 per IW per year (~ 47 hours)Production ECM ROI$25,000 - $35,000 per capture specialistSame IW savings as above
Every day, in offices throughout the world, people are in constant motion, creating products, delivering services, making decisions, and forging relationships. What is the one ingredient essential to driving success in all these vital activities? Easy access to the documents and data needed to produce results.
KnowledgeLake provides companies like these with the leading document imaging and capture software that simplifies how Microsoft® SharePoint® users organize, store, access, and route millions of documents. These documents include everything from reports, correspondence, invoices, forms and other printed materials to faxes, e-mail messages, financial data, and other information stored electronically.
Not only can KnowledgeLake can deliver a new ECM system, but also migrate and integrate with other leading industry solutions.
KnowledgeLake drives user adoption Ease of use of productsAutomated content loading and indexingDirected/Index Search with robust viewingConsistent user experience with Office and Image documentsKnowledgeLake drives Hard Costs SavingsSavings of 43 hours per year per employee (save, index, search 10 docs/day)$1,000 per desktop user (SAVINGS POTENTIAL $$$)Save $20 in labor to file a documentSave $120 in labor to find a misfiled documentSave $220 in labor to reproduce a lost documentKnowledgeLake helps leverage Microsoft Investment