Meet the Expert Webcast Series – E-Invoicing

Invoice Portal Service

The SEEBURGER Invoice Portal Service allows for an automated processing of incoming invoices: from the receipt of the invoices to the final booking in your ERP system.

The administration and office organisation in both the private and the public sectors offer potential for further improvement. But it still is a long way ahead to paperless offices and elaborate processes as used in production.

Research by SEEBURGER shows that automated invoice processing leads to significant cost savings even with a medium volume of incoming invoices. Starting at 12,000 incoming invoices per year, you can cut costs by up to 85% – compared to conventional manual processing.

Besides that, the quality of your invoice processing is increased as you avoid manual mistakes. Lead time reduction and recording of all invoices in the central invoice book ensure the quality of your liquidity management.

Description

The Invoice Portal Service is an efficient solution for medium-sized companies processing more than 2,000 incoming invoices per year. Use our solution for 100% paperless electronic invoice processing. The incoming invoices can be assigned to accounts de-centrally and forwarded in a workflow for further approval. Your invoice approval process can thus be quickly replaced by digital processing.

For this purpose, you just forward the invoices received from your suppliers (creditors) to the Invoice Portal Service where the invoices are then verified for correctness and completeness according to country-specific and customer-specific compliance guidelines.

Invoices relating to a purchase order can be automatically checked against the order details and warehouse records in the system. If the invoice is correct, it is then entered into the ledger.

Once approved, all invoices, including attachments and logs, are forwarded to your ERP system and, if desired, delivered to your archive or, alternatively, to the SEEBURGER online archive for tamper-resistant storage.

 

More Information

The following services or applications are part of SEEBURGER’s E-Invoicing portfolio and may also be of interest to you:

  • Invoice Portal Service
    Web-based verification, approval and processing of incoming invoices (this Cloud Service)
  • SAP integrated invoice receipt
    Consistently automated processing of incoming invoices in SAP
  • E-Invoicing Service
    Automated exchange of electronic invoices in an international environment
  • Invoice Delivery Service
    Simple and secure delivery of electronic invoices

Advantages of the Invoice Portal Cloud Service
 

  • Optimized workflows

    Benefit from optimized invoice receipt workflows, shorter processing times and reduced effort for manual processing.

  • Quality increase

    The electronic processing of your invoices in the Invoice Portal Service allows you to lower the error rate and to avoid losing the original invoices. The entire invoice process is characterized by transparency and clarity.

  • Improved connection to creditors

    Optimized cash management and reliable invoice delivery result in less questions from your creditors.

  • Simple revision

    Overall, E-Invoicing leads to simpler and faster audits and higher compliance. All work steps from the invoice receipt to the approval are recorded in a tamper-resistant log.

  • Reliable
    The Invoice Portal Service is operated in ISO 27001 certified data centers with ITIL-based operation processes. The service is exclusively run by SEEBURGER experts.

Product Details of the Invoice Portal Cloud Service

Receipt:
The Invoice Portal Service processes invoices and credit notes automatically via four different receipt channels. You can use them without any system modification or training.

  • EDI: Processing of all current EDI standards and communications protocols
  • Email UN/CEFACT CII (Cross Industry Invoice): Processing of the European hybrid format for electronic invoices
  • Email PDF: Central mailbox for all PDF invoices coming in via email
  • Scan: Import of scanned invoice images

Preparation:
Upon receipt, the invoice contents are prepared for further processing. UN/CEFACT CII (Cross Industry Invoice) and EDI invoices are already available in structured form and have to be converted for further processing.
The content of scanned paper invoices or PDF invoices received need to be identified and extracted first using integrated OCR technology. The extracted data is then checked against the master data, order details and warehouse records in your ERP system and complemented if needed.

Processing:
Each invoice is checked against a comprehensive set of rules proven in many customer projects. The set of rules can be customized to customer-individual and country-specific needs. Using the rules, the Invoice Portal Service checks all invoices, e.g. on order reference, quantity and price deviations or just the supplier name. The system forwards the invoices to an integrated approval-workflow according to your company’s policies . The relevant users for approval or clarification of quantity and price deviations are determined automatically.

Output:
All steps an invoice passes in the verification process are logged. The invoice data required for the booking is forwarded to the customer’s ERP system. On request, attached documents as well as the invoice itself are archived tamper-resistant by the Invoice Portal Service, either in the SEEBURGER archive or in an archive of the customer.

More Features

Invoice book

All incoming invoices are recorded in a central invoice book. Here you can search (e.g. upon request of a supplier), monitor discounts or invoice due dates, and inform yourself about the processing status of all invoices.

Integrated Communication Function

An integrated supplier communication allows you to easily inform suppliers on incorrect invoices by email or post. The Invoice Portal Service provides text templates for this purpose. This way, you can reject incorrect invoices and block them for further processing, even before the invoices reach your ERP system.

Dashboard

SEEBURGER’s invoice portal dashboard gives users easy access to the information they need to do their jobs. Thanks to its clearly structured, userfriendly interface, users can see the performance of their invoice portal service at a glance. That makes it quicker and easier to make decisions both on an operative and a strategic level.

Self-organization by the User

As a user with administrator rights, you maintain the master data needed for the processing of your incoming invoices: e.g. the list of all accountants and approvers involved in the approval process, the required number of approval levels, the approval guidelines or the list of suppliers – either via an integrated user interface or automatically via an interface from your ERP system.

Machine Learning

The OCR software automatically learns from the revisions of the user and thus reduces the error rate with each use.

Multi-tenancy capability

The Invoice Portal Service is able to support multiple tenants. Corporate structures such as branches or subsidiaries can be represented by the accounting areas. This allows for automated validation against compliance guidelines on accounting area level.

Integrated Approval Workflow

For the approval of invoices without reference to an order, we provide an integrated approval workflow. The workflow can be easily adapted to your internal approval policies and supports the common one to multi-level approval steps.

Corporate Design

We provide the opportunity to customize the SEEBURGER Cloud to the corporate design of your company. This way, you can integrate the Invoice Portal Service into your company and increase your brand recognition.

Reports and analytics

The system collects a huge amount of process data while processing the invoices. A reporting and analytics module - the SEEBURGER Reporting Cockpit - reads this data and identifies how the automated processes could or should be improved. The reporting and analytics module is able to analyse extremely high volumes of data quickly and easily. It is therefore an invaluable source of information on the performance and resource usage of your system and its sub-processes, which means that any irregularities in processing can be readily identified and eliminated. It also reports statistics for any desired time period on average invoice processing times and how invoices are arriving, as well as amounts not yet settled and impending deadlines for prompt payment discounts. The module also instantly creates clear, easy to read graphs and diagrams. Decide what information you want in the system’s reports, and how much – from a brief overview to a statistical summary.

Price

The price for the Invoice Portal Service includes the following components: an initial setup fee for the required work within the scope of the initial project and a monthly fee according to usage depending on the number of invoices and your selected service options.

You can book the following options additionally:

  • Usage of the SEEBURGER Cloud archive
  • Automated purchase order matching
  • Connection via the specific receipt channel EDI
    (The receipt channels „Email UN/CEFACT CII“, „Email PDF“ and „Scan“ included in the Invoice Portal Service)

Please let us know, which specification you are interested in. We will be happy to advise you: The best expert for your B2B/EDI scenario will get in contact with you to discuss your requirements and expectations in detail and suggest a price range.

Do you have any questions?

Please don't hesitate to contact us!