The Conceptual Modeling for an Invoice, Idea of Invoice Match, the Deviation and Automated Invoice Matching Levels.
(Photo : Pixabay)

The most extensively used legal form in the world is an e-invoice. Though it encompasses only one aspect of the entire supply chain, the e-invoice plays a crucial role in digital business development. The coordination and matching of invoices are one of the primary tasks for the accounts payable department. Organizations that buy product items are well aware of the challenges posed by the cash payable team that consumes a lot of time on the manual handling of the whole purchasing process, from preparing the sales invoices to processing of the items. It's a job that can be complicated and hectic. Yet invoice matching could instead minimize the AP team's time by allowing touchless invoice handling and processing through reliable AP automation technologies where the modern automation software is utilized.

The conceptual modeling:

The conceptual model defines and depicts the field of invoices as broadly as possible. Such a system is based on a semantic framework, which can represent the invoice domain by various abstraction stages. For the marking process of concrete rectangles, derived from invoices, the conceptual model is used and to create a model (Document Model) for each invoice group. For each rectangle, the Record Template includes spatial coordinates, which can be inferred from an invoice, and the associated semantic mark. Once the Report Model is created, an invoice by its symbol or logo can be added to understand the model. 

Deviation - The Discrepancies:

Advancements in invoice preparation allowed the task much easier and quicker than ever before but also found it more difficult to progress at the same speed for accounts payable. This is due to the many complex interactions and inter-dependencies in the procurement process. 

A discrepancy or deviation (or exception to invoice) occurs if the information on the invoice does not suit the relevant and supporting documents. There are two forms of deviation: 

  • Deviation of quantity: the number of products invoiced does not match the amount on the purchase agreement, order and/or delivery of the products.

  • Price deviation: The commodity price on the invoice doesn't really equate to the price of the item on the purchase agreement or order

When a discrepancy is found as part of the invoice matching process, an explanation and investigation are needed to determine whether this is an appropriate variance, and the invoice can be retrieved for payment, or whether the seller has to be approached to resolve the invoice errors. Managing discrepancies and deviations are often among the AP department's most time-consuming activities. Many companies use a 3-way matching framework. It's important to understand that you have to ensure your master records, including retailer ledgers, sales request information and documentation of products will synchronize smoothly between the ERP system and the AP automation tool to allow automatic 3-way matching. Sometimes purchase orders aren't used for indirect bills and expenditures; however, some invoices generally fall outside the mechanism of matching the invoice, which requires manual handling. The link https://www.freshbooks.com/invoice-templates/word has brilliantly explained the issue and tricks regarding the invoice.

Automated matching of invoices represents a real benefit for AP staff, reducing huge amounts of time and money. It's not just as a quick and simplistic task as applying AP automation systems - you need to make sure that there is a secure link between both the AP automation system and the ERP to guarantee complete success in master data synchronization. Associations that do not register their purchases/order in an ERP framework are also unable to instantaneously compare order, packing slip and invoice, and automatically record the receipt and invoice in the administration upon agreement.

We work in the ever-changing business atmosphere and should ensure that the new and up-to-date material is stored in our data repositories. When new suppliers and vendors are introduced, pricing lists are revised, and inventory lists have modified the AP, financing, and procurement departments have to constantly update data ledgers to facilitate the significant levels of automatic invoice matching required to remain effective and productive. To accomplish high levels of automatic invoice matching does not occur immediately or automatically only by implementing a new program. Accounts payable need to implement a constant improvement methodology to their workflow automation. There are two key steps that may be taken by AP teams to boost automation. First, the constant development of the quality of the data both internally and with distributors and then the data within the AP automation system should be leveraged to find bottlenecks in the matching phase for invoices. 

Were invoices from a single company more likely to hang in the cycle? If this lack of a PO number or details is submitted in the wrong field, then a quick phone call could be a short term solution to the provider in order to remind them of the mistake or error. If a certain form of invoice still leads to price discrepancies, it could be because the list of prices with the acquisition has not been modified. Furthermore, the AP team may customize the AP automation system to enable a certain degree of variance to increase the number of automatically matching invoices and thus minimize manual evaluations and reviews. Pre-configured levels of flexibility and tolerance are often used to acknowledge rising additional costs such as delivery, administration fees or swap of currencies. You can also decide to allow a minor variation in price for a specific product or form of an invoice. Just enabling 50 cents to deviate will make a huge difference in the number of invoice violations that require manual treatment. 

Automated matching of invoices will cause the invoice processing to be completely touchless. It ensures that if all documentation on the invoice meets the supporting documents, the invoice can go straight from collection and information capture to final payment listing in the ERP with no heuristic analysis, human review or touch-up. Any payment handled in a touchless manner saves huge amounts of time, effort and resources. Most highest-performing organizations have performed touchless processing and continue to reap the profits and grow exponentially.