Business Challenges

Which are the Retail, Pharma, Distribution and Manufacturing business problems?

Retail business involves a very large amount of attention to detail and a considerable level of complexity in terms of financial processes. Automation of the invoicing process comes as a business catalyst inside a retail company’s activity and improves the results generated by the actual workflow.

SmartInvoice™, is an invoice management solution based on the modern concept of BPM (Business Process Management), that provides Retail, Pharma, Distribution and Manufacturing companies a simplified and automated tool for monitoring, managing, verifying and routing invoices for payment or correction. The high level of automation will reduce manual processing and will redirect all human effort to more significant and result oriented activities.

The most common problems are: incorrect article codes, wrong VAT values, calculation errors, discrepancies between the order and the invoices attached to it, inefficient communication inside the company and with the supplier, payment delays, poor integrity of the whole information inside the company’s database, low flexibility and adaptation to change etc.

Benefits

Implementing an invoicing management system one can take advantage of benefits such as:

• Reduced invoice-processing costs;
• Improved productivity by reducing time wasted in low-value activities;
• Enhanced visibility into liabilities and operating expenses;
• More frequent taking of early payment discounts;
• Improved forecasting and management of near-term cash management requirements.

Main functionalities

• Designing and improving of the whole existing business process

The solution starts with the understanding the entire lifecycle of an invoice inside the company’s financial process. The analysis will highlight the segments of the existing process that need to be revised and improved.

• Updating and integrating all existing systems into a well structured architecture

Implementing a new system inside the company involves communicating with existing applications. SmartInvoice™ is fully flexible when it comes to maintaining a well structured integration inside a company, because it has an important part of SOA layer (Service Oriented Architecture).
The SOA Layer is able to manage the communication both way: the import part (extracting information from the internal systems) and the export part (sending information to the internal systems).

• Achieving a high level of automation concerning human based activities

SmartInvoice™ goal is to solve every invoice issue by having a minimal interaction with the human factor. The departments involved in the processes are: merchandise department, compensation department, financial department, stores

• Periodically monitoring and improving the business process

As post-implementation strategy, the SmartInvoice™ proposes a set of periodical improvements made on the basis of the permanent monitoring of the process implemented.

• Using complex reporting tools

SmartInvoice™ implements complex statistics and reporting tools in order to provide a 360 degree view upon the whole financial activity of the company.

• Implementing user friendly interfaces

SmartInvoice™ is highly reliable from the user point of view because it implements easy to use interfaces for every step in the process. Intuitive actions and efficiency in manipulating data are the main characteristics of the solution’s interface.

 

Relations with Suppliers

A successful retail business company needs to conduct an efficient and correct communication with its suppliers.

Supplier’s benefits:

• Reduced invoice issuance cost (labor, postage, etc.);
• Improved on-time invoice payment rates;
• Eliminated or reduced invoice receipt discrepancies.

By implementing SmartInvoice™, the supplier interactivity will be covered by all the following tools embedded in the solution:

• Web Portal

The Web Portal delivers real-time data to the supplier concerning his orders, invoices, products, payments and facilitates an efficient communication with the retail company.
Another important aspect of the Web Portal is its capability as an input tool for invoices. Any supplier can send its invoices to the retail company by entering the data required for an invoice.
The Web Portal security is implemented through an optimized identity management system.

• Automated Notifications

SmartInvoice™ defines a series of customizable e-mail notifications that are automatically launched by the process when a defined event is taking place. Every other invoice error can become an event for an automated notification. There is full flexibility in defining the rules for sending automated notifications.

• Custom solution for suppliers: EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and FTPS protocol

Case study

With an approximate number of suppliers of 1000, one big retail company implemented SmartInvoice™ and solved all issues stated above, achieving the following metrics:

• 5000 invoices enter the system each day;
• 800 suppliers receive their payment reports daily by e-mail;
• 30% of the suppliers use the automated mechanism for sending electronic invoices;
• 80% is the level of automation concerning the business process;
• 1.5 minutes is the time spent by an invoice inside the process in order to reach payment if it is correctly issued according to the order;
• 200 invoice tasks are solved daily in order to classify price/quantity errors;
• 4000 order-invoices cases are finalized daily and integrated in the company systems;
• 30% is the level of improvement achieved during one year of using SmartInvoice™ concerning litigations.

 

Success Stories

We invite you to download the description of the project "SmartInvoice™ - solutie implementata cu succes la Carrefour Romania"

We are here for further information regarding SmartInvoice™ solution. You can directly contact us by sending an e-mail us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.