Overview
The Invoice Connect product suite from Concerta Consulting provides customers with a a highly configurable and flexible solution for the variety of integration points between their financial accounting environment and Accounts Payable processes, and OpenInvoice.
The Invoice Connect suite provides the following general features:
- Highly configurable, using configuration file options and customer-specific data abase objects.
- Extensive logging for determining status of any specific “approved” transaction from OpenInvoice, including emailing and reporting of exceptions.
- Modular architecture, allowing easy extensibility for other Financial Accounting systems and Document Management systems.
Document Capture (Kofax Integration)
The OpenInvoice solution will typically encompass anything from 60 to 80% of a customer’s Accounts Payable transactions via direct entry (EDI). The remainder will still be received by the customer, either in paper form or via email as an attachment. The purpose of the Invoice Connect Document Capture feature is to allow these paper invoices to follow the exact same approval process as those received directly via EDI.
Tightly integrated with the customer’s Financial Accounting system (for purposes of looking up vendor details, checking for duplicate invoices etc), Document Capture uses the market-leading Kofax Capture product to scan invoices in to OpenInvoice. You can use existing scanning hardware, including MFPs (Multi-Function Printers), or use purpose-specific document scanners (Concerta Consulting is also an authorized Fujitsu reseller).
Once the invoices have been scanneed (or imported from email), they are tagged with invoice header information, including vendor number, invoice number, invoice date and amount. This data is then automatically uploaded to OpenInvoice (via Open Image) together with the scanned invoice (uploaded as a PDF).
Financial Accounting Integration
There are a number of components to the integration between OpenInvoice and the customer’s Financial Accounting System:
Approved Invoice Upload
Once invoices are approved within OpenInvoice, they are available for upload to the customer’s Financial Accounting system. Invoice Connect takes the approved invoice transactions, performs a variety of validations on the data, and then uploads them to the accounting system.
Invoice Connect currently supports P2E’s QByte accounting system, but the modular nature of Invoice Connect means that adding additional accounting systems is relatively straightforward.
Document Management
Invoice Connect can optionally be configured to capture the invoice documents from OpenInvoice and store them in the customer’s in-house document management system. This includes the original invoice (whether it was received via direct entry/EDI, or scanned/imported via Kofax Capture), and any attachments which might also have been uploaded by the supplier.
Invoice Connect currently supports the document management systems listed below. The modular nature of Invoice Connect means that adding additional document management systems is relatively straightforward.
- OpenText eDOCS
- Microsoft SharePoint
- PowerVision
Payment Status
Invoice Connect can also optionally be configured to transfer payment information back to OpenInvoice, thereby giving the supplier visibility in to when the invoice is actually paid (including cheque number, amount date etc) or voided.
Master Data
Fundamental to the operation of OpenInvoice system is the availability of accurate and up-to-date master data, including AFEs and Cost Centres, against which invoices can be coded (either by the supplier, or by the user within OpenInvoice). Invoice Connect includes a set of utilities that can be scheduled to extract the required data from the customer’s Financial Accounting system (and also optionally other systems such as AFE Navigator) and make this available for upload to OpenInvoice. The synchronization includes the ability to perform full uploads or incremental (delta) uploads.
Reporting
The Invoice Connect suite has recently been extended by the addition of support for OpenInvoice’s Unapproved Transactions interface (UAP). Via UAP, data pertaining to unapproved invoices is made
available via an XML data file (usually on a daily basis). Invoice Connect takes this data and loads it in to a set of Oracle tables within the customer’s in-house IT environment, thereby making it available for all manner of internal reporting and querying requirements. Examples include accruals reporting, cash flow management, and also just general vendor queries.
We’ve also created a web based invoice report. This give the ability to search for invoices and find out the status whether it’s already paid or waiting to be approved.
For further information please contact us at: info@concerta.com 1.888.299.3561
