If you are thinking of migrating to SAP S/4HANA, do not miss the opportunity to automate your accounts payable process

The digital age that we are living in, where technology is evolving really fast, highlights the importance of adapting in terms of digital tolos to be able to cope with the enormous amount of data that we must handle.

For this, the most important companies around the world are migrating from SAP to SAP S/4HANA.

What are the advantages that a company obtains by investing in a conversion Project to S/4HANA?

The new ERP developed by the German company offers a number of valuable benefits and important improvements over its predecesor.

See below the main advantages of SAP S/4HANA over ECC:

• Performance: high processing speed, transaction reporting, increased reporting efficiency, analytics planning, activity execution, and real-time reporting.

• Simplification: with ECC the data structure is complex. That is the main reason why companies are more attracted to S/4, because the data is fully automated, structured in the system in a simplified way so that the client can build an appropiate strategy to its own business.

• Innovation: the new SAP S/4HANA constantly updates its services to meet the needs of its customers in a constantly changing digital world.

• Agility: thanks to the high processing speed it counts with, it is posible to analyze huge amounts of data in real time, in order to make the best decisions for business growth.

• Simplified interface: through the new modern interface with SAP FIORI, structurewd tables and complex data can be accesed in a very intuititve and simplified way for users. In addition, the platform allows you to manage your business online using a variety of different devices.

To take full advantage of the benefits of a conversión to SAP S/4HANA, many companies choose to take advantage of the Project to optimize their accounts payable process, through the implementation of VIM, Vendor Invoice Management by OpenText.

But, what is VIM by OpenText?

VIM is a fully integrated module in ERP and developed by OpenText, a SAP partner company. It is the leading producto for the processing, management and accounting of supplier invoices.

Its objective is the automation in the accounting of invoices, with very little human intervation or none at all.

What benefits does VIM bring?

• Multiple input channels: with VIM it is posible to configure different input channels for different supplier invoices formats:
  1. Scanner(paper invoices)
  2. Email (invoices in PDF sent from the supplier and that automatically enter the system)
  3. Archived from SAP (PDF invoices)
  4. Integration with electronic invoice (invoices in XML)
  5. Integration with SAP Ariba (invoices in cXML)

• Automation in data capture: through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, the system i sable to automatically detect and extract in a fast and reliable way the information that is reflected in the document (invoice number, invoice date amounts, purchase order, vendor code, company code, line ítems, etc.) and send it to the SAP fields so that the correct posting of the invoice can be carried out.

• Descentralized exception management: depending on the type of problema identified (if no problems were found, the invoice would be automatically posted) the system is capable of automatically redirecting the Flow to the person in charge of solving the incident, increasing the monitoring of invoices, and facilitating the solution with suppliers in an agile way.

• Time reduction in invoice processing: accounts payable users really are the ones who obtain the greatest Benefit in terms of workload, Agility during the process and reductions of errors (such as duplication of payment).

• Approval workflows: it is posible to configure approval flows in VIM for invoices (before or after the generation of the accounting document), defining levels by amount, by company, the system automatically identifies the managerial user responsable for approving the expense so that later payment can be made to the supplier.

• Cost reduction: due to the compliance on payment dates, automatic accounting, discounts for prompt payment, etc.

At Brait, we are specialists in electronic invoices and in automating the receipt of supplier invoices processes and accounts payable in SAP® with Vendor Invoice Management by OpenText™, if you need more information or help with the implementation of your project, do get in contact with us, we will be happy to help you.