As we mentioned in a previous post, SAP VIM Solutions Beyond Invoice encompasses a series of solutions that automate the processing of incoming documents in SAP. If we accompany it with OpenText’s OCR solutions and its machine learning technology, the manufacturer offers us a comprehensive solution that allows us to optimise the process of capturing, processing, and automating a wide variety of document types. Today we are going to talk about how this product can manage the processing of remittance advices.
A remittance advice, or payment advice, is an information document sent by a buyer to its seller containing payment processing details.
The purpose of a remittance advice is to assist the seller’s Accounts Receivable department with the allocation of the payment, and its subsequent clearing of the relevant open items in the customer’s account.
A remittance advice is considered a courtesy document, like a bank statement. The problem is that the lack of a defined “standard” has led to a wide variety of formats and layouts for this type of document, which makes it difficult to process.
What are the problems with the processing of remittance advices?
– As courtesy documents, they do not follow a clearly defined format or outline across sectors or clients, making them difficult to process.
– Incomplete or illegible remittance advice documents are received.
– Large payments may involve multiple disbursements through many individual invoices that are not always clearly referenced in remittance advices.
How does this problem affect our company?
– The Accounts Receivable team must constantly and manually follow up to compare outstanding invoices and invoices already paid by the customer.
– A lot of time is spent examining bank statements and receipts to match remittance advice documents.
– The additional time spent can result in increased DSO (Days Sales Outstanding), leading to inefficiencies in the Treasury process and cash flow problems.
The Remittance Advice solution is part of the Order to Cash Solutions covered by the VIM product, and with its implementation we can eliminate all the usual problems we have described for the processing of these documents:
– Automating your application across all invoices to reduce errors and missed payments.
– Dramatically reducing delays, errors, and time-consuming tasks.
– Providing the ability to flag any items on the invoice that do not match for the team to assess and resolve.
– Reducing DSO and eliminating the risk of double invoicing, or prematurely (and erroneously) flagging paid items.
– Saving valuable time and increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the order-to-cash process.
The summary is simple: implementing the VIM solution to manage your Remittance Advice across your business will save you cost and time, and make you better equipped to deal with the uncertainties of today’s world.
Do you want to know more? Do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to advise you and answer any questions you may have.
