Accounts Payable (AP) Document Management Three-way Match Solution

This solution reconciles purchase orders, vendor invoices, and packing lists in automated document workflow reconciliation that is business rules driven. The accounts payable process begins with a purchase order being generated in a financial system for stock items, the shipping and receiving of those items, and the payment of a vendor invoice. This solution also handles non-stock invoices from vendors that need to be paid where no shipping or receiving takes place.

The first step was the capture of vendor invoices and packing list with a front-end capture software product and a production quality scanner. The types of documents that are entered are primarily split into:

Stock Invoices (Invoices for goods relating to items that are in inventory – materials related to jobs and parts for warranty, other)
• Single PO Invoices
• Multiple PO Invoices
• Single PO Invoices with Surcharges
• Multiple PO Invoices with Surcharges

Miscellaneous or Non-stock Invoices (Invoices for items that are not related to inventory – office supplies and Non Job services)
• Miscellaneous Invoices
• Utility Bills
• Credit Memos

Details for each document type and its associated business rules were developed and placed into an administrator module that contains a business engine, business rules tables, and control features for the solution.

The BSC Capture Solution was designed for automated processing of the Customer’s forms. Our customers were trained to prepare their documents by removing stables, tape, dog ears and paper clips so that the forms will easily be scanned. Clean, machine-printed, original invoices are processed for the best results. Other forms were processed using either standard templates or Key from Image (KFI) templates using BSC’s OCR product as appropriate.

The second step was processing documents in the BSC Workflow Product that manages recognition of a three way match of the invoice, purchase order, and shipping / delivery document. Once this is done, if the invoice matches, it is flagged to pay in the financial accounting software and the process ends. If the invoice does not match and does not appear to be correct it is sent to a clerk to resolve. If it appears to be correct, the invoice is then routed to the appropriate district clerk, and in turn routed to the appropriate manager to approve the invoice to pay. If the miscellaneous invoice is routed and approved it is then loaded into financial accounting software as one or more Journal / Voucher Entries. The district clerk can either select a GL Chart of Account code for the invoice or break it out to multiple codes. If the invoice is not approved it will appear on a report for the clerk to take the appropriate action.

The Three-way Match solution can be controlled at the administrator’s module so that a solution can be summary or detail. The match at the invoice – purchase order level only is a summary solution while the match of line item details on the invoice, purchase order, and the shipping document is a detailed solution. Non-stock invoices can be exempted from automatic payment by thresholds set in the administrator’s module that control the workflow of documents in the system.

This document management workflow solution is agnostic to financial accounting software and interfaces are developed to work with the most popular products. BSC is a partner with several leading Document Management Software companies and provides solutions based upon best fit and best practices for our clients. If you want additional information about this solution, then contact: jimthompson@bscsolutions.com