Ask the Accounting Community

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris

Chris,

I would need to understand the GL that your company uses for a full answer.  However, I implemented an end to end paperless AP solution in PoepleSoft.  The paperless process starts with centralizing the receipt of invoices to one location or email account, designing a standard invoice format for your vendors to use when billing you, mapping that format and implementing an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool.  Designing and implementing workflow in the system including checks for duplicate invoices, rules that check pricing against contracts, mapping to the proper account on the GL and workflow that allows the "owner" of the purchase to validate (approve) expenses online. 

For a full paperless AP process it is a project and you would also need funding for the software and hardware.

Hope this helps.

Heather

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Heather Kelley CMA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2018 10:29 PM
From: Christopher Zator
Subject: Paperless AP

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris

AP both trade and non-trade is so much better when used with a purchase order system. The last time I digitized a non-trade payable system, I was using MS Dynamics.  It was valuable to have some PO's, but most of the spend was direct (no po's).  The accounting system had a function that allowed all the documents to be scanned within different areas.  Long-term contracts and vendor docs (w-9's) were scanned and attached to the customer card.  Quotes were attached to the requisitions.  Receivings docs were attached to the receiving screen and the payable docs attached to the invoice matching.  All direct payables were attached to the entry screen.  That process took about two-weeks to get it right, so I had the staff complete the full month to keep track of the starting month. My Cap Ex entries also included secondary scans of po's, payables and financing. All of the paper was used in the traditional sense to complete the payable cycle and filed. After the first full year was completed, the docs were boxed and retained until destruction.  The auditors requests were much easier to retrieve. All analyze were complete electronically.   Life became much more easy for me. In just a click or two the entire deal was viewable.  Good luck and remember until you get it right, do everything, then create your best practice.

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John Sprague
Chief Financial Officer
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2018 10:29 PM
From: Christopher Zator
Subject: Paperless AP

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris

Good Day Chris,

I too was in your circumstance. It is too large a job to do the historical data. What I did was to change methods for filing to the beginning of the new year.

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Garnetta Crabtree
Student
Vancouver WA
United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2018 10:29 PM
From: Christopher Zator
Subject: Paperless AP

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris

Thank you all for the great suggestions! I think I will initially work on the back end with document retention after invoices are paid. We will need to get some cloud storage set up because our server is just about full. We use Traverse and I know it has built in capability to attach PDFs to POs. I can scan the signed PO, signed packing slip, and attach them to the PO stored in Traverse.

I will need to make a compelling cost savings case for management backing. At the very least I will need to determine how much disk space our current invoice load will consume moving forward and choose the most cost effective cloud based solution.


Original Message------

Good Day Chris,

I too was in your circumstance. It is too large a job to do the historical data. What I did was to change methods for filing to the beginning of the new year.

Before the switch, I asked my group if they had <g data-gr-id="77" id="77" class="gr_ gr_77 gr-alert gr_gramm Grammar multiReplace">filing</g> on their desks to give it to me.

Now every document gets scanned in and electronically filed. Hope this helps!

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Garnetta Crabtree
Student
Vancouver WA
United States
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Original Message------

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris

I don't remember the name of the AP scan but I used it with Lawson. You could see the invoices on the left. The nice feature was the view. Ask the vendors what viewing capabilities and imagine quality you have. Make sure the company s IT infrastructure supports and you might need to do the training. I imagine there are multiple ones. I have done a lot of clean up. Just coding guidelines goes a long way. Also, book the clean up entries carefully. It is good to make them at one time I think. Sometimes they can go way back and management is not happy with the results.

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Natalie Anagnostis
Other
Smyrna GA
United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2018 10:29 PM
From: Christopher Zator
Subject: Paperless AP

I work for a small manufacturing firm specializing in metal fabrication. They do about 25M in annual billings.

I am currently tasked with cleaning up AP, which was left in a bit of a mess by my predecessor. All of the AP is still paper based and I would really like to move document flow and retention to all electronic. This would be a sizable task but I feel that it is a great opportunity for me to add value in my new position.

Does anyone in the community have any advice they could give me and/or any resources they could point me to in this regard? It would be helpful for me to connect with someone who has succeeded with a similar project.

Thanks much,

Chris