Using RecFind to Facilitate a Smooth and efficient Accounts Payable
Operation
RecFind has been designed to handle many different processes and applications.
As well as its normal uses for file tracking, correspondence management, electronic
document management, imaging and workflow it can be configured and used to solve
a multiplicity of other application needs.
A great feature of RecFind is the ability to create as many discrete ‘data-sets’
(called ‘databases’ within RecFind). One copy of RecFind can manage any number of
different databases and each of these databases can be configured to suit a particular
application using particular terminology and even including different help screens.
As an example, RecFind is an ideal tool to use to assist Accounts Payable
departments to quickly and efficiently process invoices for payment. It is not a
replacement for the accounting package but an 'add-on' to facilitate greater efficiency
and higher vendor service levels.
That is, use RecFind-Corporate to scan incoming invoices, assign them to
a customer folder, assign workflow, (e.g., 'send' to the person
responsible for approving them, sending an electronic copy rather than
paper), etc. Using RecFind to track invoices and the processes needed to
approve them; having instant access via the network to all documents and
the status of all processes (RecFind's Workflow).
Using RecFind means invoices can be received in one central point,
scanned and immediately 'sent' (using workflow) to the person
responsible for approving them. Invoices no longer get lost and are
immediately retrievable when answering vendor enquiries. RecFind
accounts payable verification and tracking can provide many benefits to
your organization as well as being easy to do, easy to set up and easy
to use.
This use of RecFind should be a easy to sell to management because you can be
sure that every single one of your vendors has some trouble processing
invoices, we know this as a fact from trying to get GMB's invoices paid
and from the number of "we can't find the invoice can you send us
another copy” calls we get. There are no extra costs involved; you are
simply leveraging off an existing asset to improve your organization’s
operating efficiencies.
- No more invoices 'lost' in overcrowded in-trays when staff are
absent or sick.
- No more not knowing where an approval process is up to
when an irate vendor rings up.
- No more ‘double-payment’ of invoices
because of paper copies in the system.
Warning - keep it simple, steer away from
complexity, integration to other systems, etc - at least until phase two.
(RecFind has many ways to integrate to other systems but I wouldn’t attempt
this until you have this basic approach running and proven). The more
complex you allow it to become the less your chance of getting it off
the ground. Propose it as an adjunct to the accounting system, not as
part of it. Offer it to management as a productivity and workflow and
imaging and productivity tool. Introduce it as something that will make
the job easier and more pleasant. Summarize it as something that will
reduce mistakes, reduce costs and make the accounts payable clerks' job
much easier and more enjoyable (no more angry vendors on the phone).
It will also help to not pay an invoice twice - this happens all the
time when systems are based on paper and invoices are 'lost'. We have
often been paid twice and it is a huge pain in the 'you-know-what' for
both parties to fix.
How to configure RecFind to capture invoices and handle all Accounts
Payable processes.
******You obviously need a copy of RecFind-Corporate and at least one
TWAIN compatible scanner (I use a $69 Canon N650U scanner and it works
fine).
Create a new RecFind database
Enter all of the people required to ‘action’ invoices as RecFind Action Officers
Go to RecFind’s Config module and select the E-mail Enablement tab. Turn on e-mail
enablement for workflow related actions. This means Action Officers will be
automatically advised by email immediately an invoice is received and
registered in RecFind.
Now select the Codes module and then select Prompts
Select File Prompts and enter the terminology (captions) you want to see
in RecFind. I have entered some terms (as an example) that will work for invoice
processing, see below.
Do the same for the Document Prompts (you will create one Document Profile
for each invoice received) and each Profile as well as a scanned image of the
invoice will reside within the vendor’s File Folder.
Next (still in Codes) select File and then File Type Codes. Enter a new File
Type as I have below.
If you are interested in managing your paper correctly you should enter some
kind of retention code to govern when the physical paper can be destroyed. I have
used a Series Code to manage my paper invoices in this example.
Still in Codes now select Retention then Retention Codes. Add one as I have below.
I have decided to keep my paper invoices twelve years before destroying them; you need
to decide an appropriate time for your organization.
To make life easy I intend to manage my paper as a Series (the most common
way to handle this type of paper record). I will create a series for each calendar
(or business) year.
Still in Retention now select Series and add a Series code as I have below.
Note how I have linked the Series Code to the Retention Schedule I just created.
I can now go and create a File Folder for each vendor. See the example below.
Note how it uses the terminology (captions) I entered when changing File Folder Prompts.
Now we have a little more work to do in Configuration to make all future work
as quick and automatic as possible.
Back to Admin and Codes and this time select Document
Select Action Type Codes and add one Action for each step in the invoice
approval process. I have created four below in a simple example. Your process
may be different; no matter, just break it down into its logical components as follows:
>
When you have all the processing and approval steps defined you then combine
them into what we call a Procedure Set. This is what drives the automatic workflow
in our sample accounts payable application.
Still in Codes, Document now select Procedures (Action sets). Click Add to
create a new one. Mine is called ‘Invoice’. Call yours what you will. Note that
you can define as many Action Types as you need and as many Procedure Sets as
you need. I am using just one Procedure Set but you are not limited to this. You
may for example, build different Procedure sets for different kinds of invoices.
I then added all of the Action Types I had just created, adding additional
descriptions of what is required and selecting the Action Officer who will do
the work. Note that you do not have to select the Action Officer here. You can
select ‘*Doc’ and this allows you to choose an Action Officer when the
invoice is registered (entered into RecFind as a Document Profile).
Now for the final step in creating our automatic workflows. We need to
create a Document Type and link the Procedure Set to this Document Type.
Still in Codes, select Document then Document Type. See my example below.
I have decided it should take 45 days to process and pay invoices. You enter the days
appropriate to your organization.
Now all the groundwork is done we can begin processing vendors’ invoices.>
Go to RecFind’s Active toolbar. Select Doc. Maint. (for Document Profile Maintenance).
Make sure your TWAIN scanner is installed and working. Click Add.
I have set up the Document Registration number to be automatically generated
by RecFind in a format of YY/SSSS so I press Tab to get past this field
(RecFind will generate the number when we click OK). Fill it in as I have done,
selecting the Vendor File Folder number from the ones you have created earlier.
Select a Document Type (to have RecFind automatically allocate workflow and
advise all Action Officers by email of their responsibilities). Select
your ‘main’ Delegator (probably the person in charge of accounts
payable) and your main Action Officer (probably one of the accounts
payable clerks). Note that your workflow may be multi-step and complex
and involve many Action Officers. However, these will all be handled by
workflow – the two on this screen are just the main Delegator and main
Action Officer for ease of reference.
Fill in Location (whose desk is it going to be sitting on), the invoice number,
details of the invoice (enter whatever you think you may want to search on in the
future under details. All text, numbers and dates in the Invoice # and
Details fields can be searched on using RecFind’s text searches). If
you are not sure enter more rather than less, you will soon work out
what is most important to your organization. Enter the invoice date in
the Dated field and then click the Attach Doc button.
This is where we see if you have installed your scanner correctly. Place
the invoice in the scanner and click Add. The following dialogue should appear.
Click Scan, (you would click Read if you had previously scanned the invoice and it was
stored somewhere on your hard disk).
If you installed your scanner correctly a screen something like the one below will appear.
Note, each scanner has its own software, which we call via the TWAIN
driver. Unless you also have a CanonScan N650U it will look different
(but similar) to the following example.
I have set my default to ‘Text Enhanced’ and 300 dpi for optimum readability
of the scanned invoice. Anything more than 300 dpi will be a waste (of your time and
disk space) because your screen can’t display higher than this resolution.
Even 200 dpi is fine for most uses. The higher the dpi the larger the scanned image.
After you preview and then click Scan RecFind drives the scanner and then you
will see the following screen. RecFind displays the scanned image in its generic
viewer asking you if it is OK or whether you want to scan it again. If you are
happy click Close.
Then modify the name to something appropriate, I have entered the invoice number.
Then click OK>
Click OK again when RecFind displays the Document Profile screen. RecFind
stores the Document Profile, stores the image of the invoice and indexes all of
the text in the Invoice # and Detail fields.
You can now search for the invoice by any of a number of fields including
invoice number, date, products, total amount, vendor name or number, etc, etc.
Here are a few examples. You should experiment with the File, Document and
Attachment searches to see all the ways this invoice can now be found.
Search by Vendor Number – this is the longest path. Select Search, select File,
select File Folder Number. Enter or select the Vendor number. Click OK.
Display the Vendors File Folder (see below) - make sure you have the correct vendor.
Then click the Document button to display the Document (Invoice) Profile
(Metadata); making sure it is the correct details
Then click the Attach Doc button to display the actual invoice.
How do you check on the Approval Process?
You can see what’s happening in the approval process by going to either Workflow,
Actions or Search, To Do.
Go to Workflow, Actions.
Select the Document Profile (registration) number and RecFind will
display all of the automatically generated and assigned workflow. Note
at this point you can dynamically add or modify workflow actions.
Now go to Search, Search, To Do. Select the responsible Action Officer and
display all of the workflow he/she is responsible for. This is also where the Action
Officer will enter details of work (processes) completed.
To see the facts behind each task you highlight the task and then click the
Document button on the above screen to go direct to the Document Profile
And then click the Attach Doc button to go direct to the actual invoice
>
Of course there are far quicker ways to find the invoice. Let’s see a few examples:
Go to Search and select Document, Search by Text. Enter the invoice number
in the Invoice # field as I have below. Click OK.
This takes you direct to the Document (invoice) Profile.
Now click the Attach Doc button to view the invoice.
Reporting
Would you like to produce reports on Action Officers and Invoices and Vendors
and workflow in process? In RecFind-Corporate this is simplicity itself.
On RecFind’s Active toolbar select Reporting. Select the Document tab. Now
click the select a report arrow to see the selections (different report types)
available. Note that if you are a Crystal Reports whiz you can actually take any of
these standard reports and modify them saving them as Custom reports.
Select Action Control Entries. Enter the BOOLEAN selection criteria you need
to select your data from RecFind’s database and click OK.
Play with the selection criteria and options; see how many different reports
you can produce from this one report.
Note that by selecting the envelope icon, you can produce this report in
virtually any form including an email, Word document or disk file.
Now try the Completed Projects Analysis Report. RecFind treats each invoice
(Document Profile) as a project. Once again, experiment with the options.
RecFind will produce two reports, one detailed and one a summary.
Now try the Outstanding Projects Summary and the Graph complete, Overdue
Projects report. Once again play with the options.
Want another way to report on Vendor files and invoices? Try RecFind’s
inbuilt (simple) Report Writer. Unlike Crystal Reports, this one doesn’t require
a training course. Select either File or Document and built a custom report. If you
build one you like, save it for future use.
From the Active toolbar select Writer. Select Document and select the fields
to be reported on, the sorting sequence and enter your report heading.
Then select your records to be processed and produce the report.
Summary
We have seen how we can use your existing copy of RecFind-Corporate
(which includes all of the functionally for records management, electronic
document management, imaging and workflow) to very easily and quickly build
a system for accounts payable invoice approval. We didn’t have to write any code
and we can use terminology, processes and standards entirely unique to
this application. If we wanted to get fancy we could build a Windows
Help file describing all the processes and your organizations rules and
procedures and add it to the RecFind Help system. (See Admin, Config and
then select the User Help tab)
The above system allows you to capture and scan invoices and automatically
allocate approval actions (workflow) and then track and report on virtually
anything. We have still only used a small part of RecFind-Corporate to achieve
our aims. Now think about what else you can achieve.
Regards,
Frank McKenna
President
