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AdvanFile_C-Profit_White Paper
- 1. White Paper
- 3. Contents CONTENTS 1 ABSTRACT 3 WHY C-PROFIT? 4 C-PROFIT SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE 5 DATA EXCHANGE LAYER 5 C-PROFIT DATABASE 7 OUTSTANDING MODULE 8 MONITORING OUTSTANDING 8 INDICATOR CALCULATION 9 ANALYSIS TOOLS 10 DISTRIBUTION MODULE 13 E-FINANCE 16 COLLECTION WORKFLOW 18 DISPUTE HANDLING 25 ADVANCED REPORTING 27 TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE/REQUIREMENTS AND INTEGRATION GUIDE 30 CONTACT 30
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- 6. 4 Why c-profit? Contemporary ERP systems tend to cover all the business requirements modern enterprise can ever have. It is very difficult however to provide all the customer required functionalities and sustaining uniformity of large scale solutions in the same time, especially in multi-national organisations. . Flexibility and usability of implemented solution is often limited, which can create a gap, being frequently filled by building in-house bespoke solutions in many cases on inappropriate platforms. C-profit, being specialized, flexible, fully customisable and connected software, provides all the Account Receivables functionalities in the same manner as typical bespoke solution. It has all the features and quality, robustness and scalability of enterprise grade software product. By implementing c-profit, customer can achieve numerous benefits. Most important of them include: • Immediate effect in receivables and bad debt - estimated to increase payments received 15-25% • Reduce manual workforce • Digitizing the end-to-end AR process - billing, dunning, reminders and archive • Analyze, understand, develop and automate whole Order-To-Cash process
- 8. 6 Typical data, that are imported to the c-profit is enumerated below: • Invoices – can be imported from ERP system, Accounting system or external billing solution depending on the current setup. Invoices are imported both as images and/or metadata describing the invoice. • Outstanding data – current status of paid/unpaid invoices taken usually from Accounting System or ERP. Individual payments (balance updates) can be imported as well. • Customer data – customer name, code, e-mails, addresses, also credit limits and other possible data – exported from ERP or CRM system. It is assumed that c-profit does not affect any data that is stored within external system. However full, two-way interface can be established as well. C-profit data exchange module utilises standard vendor provided interfaces like SAP iDoc, but custom database and file based connectors can also be provided on customer’s request. Data feed can be scheduled according to customer requirements and other systems constraints. Correctness of data import is being monitored constantly by data integrity mechanisms implemented.
- 9. 7 Detailed integration summary is shown further in the hereby document. c-profit database Main c-profit module: • Assuring secure and reliable access to the stored data, • Converting and remapping input data to be presented in uniform way throughout entire solution • Providing role-based access control • Storing system master data and configuration of the implemented solution • Execution and orchestration of business activities rendered by other c-profit modules
- 10. 8 Outstanding module fig. 2 - outstanding module Outstanding module enables to manage outstanding from different scope and time perspectives – from yearly view of entire group down to single customer in one calendar week. Monitoring outstanding • Group level – total outstanding aggregated • Business entity level – divided by department, branch, business type, etc • Country level – legal entity, country agency, etc • Customer level – single customer outstanding monitoring
- 11. 9 • Ability to analyse outstanding within defined timeframe in Calendar Week - snapshots. Indicator calculation • DSO – Daily Sales Outstanding - measure of the average number of days that a company takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made. DSO is presented in form of a line chart and number value and is being calculated using the following formula: o 91 * (outstanding / turnover_in_91_days) fig. 3 - DSO chart
- 13. 11 • Outstanding analysis – line chart showing overall outstanding within the group, business entity or the customer. fig. 6 - outstanding chart • Aging analysis – summary and pie chart showing outstanding based on aging buckets, typically: o not due o 1-7 days late o 8-30 days late o 31-90 days late o 91-365 days late o over 365 days late
- 15. 13 Distribution module fig. 7 - Distribution module C-profit distribution module is capable to output invoices imported from customer system in different formats, including: • Document images (usually in form of PDF files) are being imported from customer’s ERP system, so if any other format is used by customer’s system to generate invoices, c-profit is able to distribute them as well • Invoice data o XML – AdvanFile custom XML format of single or consolidated invoice – XML format available upon request o EDI – EDIFACT INVOIC type o Finvoice
- 16. 14 • Consolidated Billing Invoices – for longer-term collaboration between customers, especially in the situation where large invoice volumes are involved, it is more convenient to deliver invoices in consolidated format, rather than sending out single invoices. Consolidated invoices can be generated based on issued invoices in a given time period in a form of XLS or CSV files. Layout of consolidated invoice XLS can be configured by the user who can choose columns included and their placement on the spreadsheet. User is also able to enable consolidated billing for selected customer and setup scheduling of consolidated invoices creation. • Distribution media o Printer – ability to mass print on available network printers § Scheduling of print jobs § Ability to assign invoice type or single customer to a given printer § Ability to exclude customers or invoice types from hardcopy printing o SFTP target – invoices can be distributed to remote FTP server o E-mailing – simple e-mailing based on e- mail setting within customer settings, as well as advanced features including:
- 17. 15 § Setting different e-mail creation rules, i.e. number of invoices per e-mail § Ability to enter multiple e-mail addresses for the customer and assign those addresses to the invoice types to be distributed. § Per customer distribution schedules (example: send invoices for customer on Monday and Thursday only) o SOAP Web Service / HTTP REST API • Other features o Invoice searching, selecting, printing or e- mailing – invoice stored in the database can be searched for, viewed, printed and e-mailed. o Cover sheet creation – coversheet containing summary of all invoices distributed in current batch can be created and attached to printed or e-mail batch of invoices. o Excel export – table of invoices that is currently displayed, can be saved as an Excel document
- 18. 16 e-finance e-finance is a dedicated portal for chosen end- customers to provide them with financial data in form of issued invoices and current outstanding situation. From e-finance portal end-customer is able to: • Search for, view and download invoices issued for him • Observe outstanding status for each invoice – what was already paid and what is still outstanding • Raise a dispute for any invoice together with reason of disputing • Monitor status of registered disputes fig. 8 - e-finance Since sensitive financial data is involved, e-finance portal is significantly protected against unauthorised accessing by means of:
- 19. 17 • e-finance portal is not enabled for all customers by default. Single customer, or customer group is able to access the portal, only when c-profit operator enables it. • Upon inviting selected customers to the e- finance, secure, strong password is being generated by the system and send to the customer by e-mail To further protect the data, e-finance can be secured even more using: • Database separation – e-finance data can be stored on other database server than the one used by main c-profit system. Data is being synchronised in a daily manner. Only enabled customer’s data is replicated. • SMS authorisation – customers are able to enter the e-finance portal using single SMS distributed password
- 21. 19 Collection workflow is based on three principle ideas: • Collection actions – within c-profit, collector is able to complete the whole process by means of the following actions: o Call – ordinary telephone conversation with a person responsible for payments. Calls to be made are suggested by the system, together with relevant contact details. After the call is being made, it is recorded with collector’s note on the outcome. o Statement distribution – unawareness of existing outstanding is the most common reason for payment delays. C-profit is able to generate and distribute current statement of outstanding to the customer. Statement can be also generated by the operator for manual distribution. o Dunning letter – formal letter calling the customer for outstanding payment. C- profit enables to define three templates of dunning letters with increasing level of strictness – the first one for example can only be polite reminder to pay, while the
- 22. 20 last one should suggest further legal action. o Payment promise – if the customer makes any consistent declaration on the date when invoice is going to be paid, it can be registered in the c-profit system as well. When the payment promise is not fulfilled, the collector is being notified suggesting subsequent actions to the customer. o Legal action – this action tells the collection team, that no further action is required from collection team, as the outstanding item has been handed to the legal department. • Customer segmentation – process of cash collection usually is not the same for entire clientele. While only certain actions enumerated above are applicable to certain customers, it is common that the customers are being divided into groups with individual collection policy applied to each of them. It is possible to create as many customer groups as required. Policy of each group can be setup based on: o Workflow enabled – especially applicable to special, important customers. If this
- 23. 21 option is selected, the workflow module does not create any collection tasks. Those customers are being maintained in fully manual mode o Blacklisted – customers belonging to that group are highlighted within entire c- profit system o Automated mode – if enabled, all the collection documents and actions are being created and distributed automatically, without collector’s involvement. o Collection action levels enabling – it is possible to include or exclude certain collection actions for given customer group. For example important customers should be rather called each time overdue invoices appear, while for others, there is no need to call – the dunning documents can be sent at once any invoice become overdue. o Workflow reaction time – number of days since the invoice become overdue and/or previous action has been completed to create a new collection task
- 25. 23 letters), they are going to be sent out without collector involvement. o Semi automatic – all tasks are being created automatically by the system, but the collector triggers any distribution of documents. o Manual – no tasks are created automatically – collector creates all tasks and distributes documents Based on above, c-profit workflow orchestrates collection process – either by creating actions together with applicable documents based on customer group setting, or allowing the collector to register the actions done himself. Following features supports the collector in the process: • Full activity logging – all actions are being registered in the system together with date of single action, responsible person, comments, status and free word note
- 26. 24 fig. 11 - Full activity logging • Concern codes – it is common, that one large organisation can contain many smaller legal entities. They all must exist in the system, as they usually issue invoices, but accounting and account payables are being maintained on the group or corporate level. C-profit allows to define such structures as single concerns and all the collection tasks are then created on the concern level. • Document layout editor – ability to edit collection document templates by the c-profit user with relevant access level. Templates can be defined on business entity and customer group level, meaning full compliance of the system with multi-national, multi entity structures, especially shared service centres. • Notifications – account receivables staff can be notified by e-mail about different events, like ignored action, or unfulfilled payment promis
- 28. 26 • Solve the dispute in two ways: o Won by customer – meaning that dispute has been raised correctly, and corresponding invoice needs to be corrected o Won by company – the invoice was issued correctly and the dispute is declined Any updates on the registered dispute are being shown on the e-finance portal or notified by email. Since it is common, that customers raise disputes just to prolong the payment, it is possible to setup the workflow to continue the collection process despite there are registered disputes in the system for particular customer or customer group.
- 29. 27 Advanced Reporting C-profit gathers massive amounts of financial data in account receivables area. Advanced reporting module supports AR management as well as many layers of organization, up to top-level financial decision makers. fig. 13 - Advanced reporting • OLAP based reporting solution with rich KPIs, dimensions, slices, data cubes, • Accessible from cProfit using every modern web browser including mobile version • Contains set of standard KPIs based on cProfit’s AR data + ability to do design custom ones • Standard set of dashboards – global and customer-based • Anual, Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly and Daily aggregations of data
- 30. 28 • Very good performance – constant time OLAP queries even for complicated scenarios with daily data a lot of slices, filters, etc • Uses standard MS SQL Analysis Services (OLAP) being part of MS SQL Standard. • Possible to use as data source for Excel – works like Pivot Tables but is connected to database, automatic refresh of data, possible to use standard Excel Pivot Tables & Charting tools. fig. 14 - Advanced reporting • Dimensions: o Organization: Countries, Business Units, Business Areas, Sales/Cust Serv/Fin teams, Collectors, Offices, o Invoices: Invoice Types, o Disputes: Dispute Reason, Case Status, o Customers: Customers by name of code, Concerns (defined groups of customers),
- 31. 29 o Date: YQMD or YWD o Custom – organization structure mapped during implementation. • Cubes (facts): o AR – all KPIs related to Accounts Receivables: DSO (total and in aging buckets), BPDSO (best possible DSO), turnovers (total or avg), outstanding amounts & shares, etc o Disputes – inflow of disputes (docs & amounts), outflow of disputes (docs & amounts), open disputes (docs & amounts) o Invoicing Accuracy – analysis of Credit Note and Dispute influence of invoicing quality in every possible combination of filters and dimensions.