Invoices received by mail are scanned, invoices received by email, e-invoicing or portal are imported and processed in ImageCapture. At this stage, you can assign free fields such as administration codes and booking date.
These fields extract their information directly from your CERM records, this means there is no need for periodic synchronisation with master data tables.
By using all available master data and booking logic from CERM, ImageCapture provides an automatic booking entry proposal for checking and further coding of the invoice. This supports all administrative fields such as general ledger accounts, cost centers and cost carriers.
For invoices which are regularly broken down into several accounting lines, automated invoice processing with ImageCapture for Invoices offers the great advantage of line recognition. This allows an imported invoice to be presented directly as a multi-line booking proposal.
Purchase order related invoices can be matched directly to open orders and/or receipts in CERM. In doing this, ImageCapture not only reads the invoice’s header, which matches the total value of the read invoice’s amounts received lines of the purchase order number, but depending on the invoice lay-out, also reads the invoice lines. The article numbers, numbers, description, gross and net prices are also read.
Based on these, matching is carried out at on the purchase order at individual line level to reveal any differences in invoiced numbers and purchase prices. If there are any deviations, administrative corrections can be carried out, such as the amendment of the expected purchase price or entering price differences and freight charges. In the cases of large disparities, the invoice will be created and put on hold in CERM, whilst awaiting the receipt and processing of a credit note.
ROBOTIC ACCOUNTING
It is possible to have invoices processed fully automatically in ImageCapture, without human interaction. This can be done using robotic accounting functionality. This functionality can be activated per creditor or administration, and can be used for purchase order invoices, for example. If these 100% match the previously placed order in CERM, the invoice can be posted automatically.
UBL invoices can also be processed fully automatically in this way, as can the invoices of creditors selected by you. For example, when invoices contain monthly recurring costs, or when recognition of these invoices is always 100%.
After the invoices are processed, the entries and the link to the corresponding document are offered for processing in CERM. Validation for correct processing takes place immediately, whereby any error messages from CERM are immediately captured.
The entry is then consultable from CERM, either with or without the status “blocked for payment”. The underlying document can be retrieved directly from CERM.
During the processing of the invoice, based on the procuration scheme in ImageCapture, the correct authorization list is immediately selected, taking into account preset threshold amounts. Based on these thresholds, invoices are only presented to management for approval if they exceed a certain amount. The authorisation scheme can be configured according to creditor, administration, type of invoice or other accounting dependencies.
Approvers automatically receive a notification that invoices are ready for review in ImageCapture, along with a link to the ImageCapture web client. The booking is then already entered in CERM with the status blocked for payment. Also, the digital document is already retrievable from the booking in CERM. When the approver logs into ImageCapture, a complete overview of invoices to be approved and invoices in process is displayed.
The extensive workflow functionality allows the approver not only to approve or reject, but also to ask a question to a colleague, delegate the invoice to a colleague or skip it, for example while waiting for an answer from the supplier. When reviewing the invoice, all current booking information from CERM is visible, also at the logistics level, for instance order number, prices and quantities are visible.
Also shown are the approvers following in the review process and all audit trail information from the preceding process steps. From the moment the invoices are imported into ImageCapture, they become part of the digital archive, including all booking, approval and process information. The digital archive in ImageCapture is searchable with text labels. Access to the documents in the digital archive can be set up very dynamically, for example on the basis of booking fields such as administration, ledger account or amount.
The archive functionality can be expanded with a management reporting tool. This gives you full insight into the status of your invoices at all times and keeps you in control of costs, lead times and payment terms of your suppliers. In addition to the digital archiving of your invoices in the ImageCapture archive, the digital document complete with audit trail is also directly retrievable from the booking and various other angles in CERM.
