Accounts Payable Automation (Complete)

Project Goal

Accounts Payable (AP), Business Systems and Services and our ECM provider, Hyland, is embarking on a project that will allow for supplier invoices and non-employee expense reports to be electronically captured and routed into Oracle with limited manual intervention. Additionally, an electronic workflow within Perceptive Content, the ECM application, will be developed to route internal invoices (e.g., non-qualified scholarships, requests for payment) and supplier setup forms to administrative areas that may need to review, approve and/or address issues related to these documents.

The objectives of the first phase of the project are:

• Assess existing design of ECM Invoice solution to determine which elements remain as is and what elements must be added or changed to support the automated solution.
• Record statistics associated with time, personnel, volume, etc. to determine ‘pay back’ period for solution.
• Implement Intelligent Capture for PO-related invoices in order to systematically extract and validate data elements from invoices and populate an AP Invoice eForm.
• Implement the use of an AP Invoice eForm and systematic validations to allow for systematic and manual matches of PO-related invoices against Oracle Financials purchase order data.
• Implement the use of an AP Invoice eForm and corresponding mechanisms that allow for Non-Employee Expense Report data to systematically populate the AP Invoice eForm.
• Develop mechanisms that allow for key data elements associated with supplier information and purchase order information to be sourced from Oracle Financials and be delivered into the Perceptive Content.
• Develop mechanisms that allow for matched PO-related invoices and Non-Employee Expense Reports to be imported successfully as invoices into the Oracle Accounts Payable module.
• Generate automatic linking of invoices between Oracle and Perceptive Content.
• Create/modify existing workflow in order to incorporate additional units into the workflow process (UCO, Taxation, SPA) for invoice/supplier review and approval.
• Identify and create appropriate supplier, PO-related Invoice, and Non-PO Invoice queues and corresponding document keys and custom properties associated with each document type.

Project Close Out Summary

This phase of the AP Automation Project accomplished the objectives listed above.

Purchase Order (Supplier) Invoices: The solution allows for PO invoices to be emailed into Perceptive Content and route to Intelligent Capture (also known as Brainware) where the information on the supplier invoice is evaluated against data provided through nightly updates from Oracle. The information evaluated includes supplier data and purchase order data. Invoices failing validation are addressed by AP. Invoices that are validated against the Oracle data are exported to Perceptive Content where various validations occur. Invoices that fail Perceptive Content validations are sent to one of the pre-defined queues established to allow AP to address discrepancies. Once discrepancies are addressed or invoices validate successfully within Perceptive Content, invoice data is exported from Perceptive Content to Oracle using custom logic that allows for the invoice data that is exported from Perceptive Content to be mapped to and loaded onto the AP Open Interface tables. A final validation of the invoice data is performed via Oracle. Validated invoices import successfully into Oracle AP. Invoices that do not validate successfully are addressed via the AP Open Interface tables and then are imported into Oracle. Invoices are automatically linked to the invoice record in Perceptive Content, which allows users to view the supplier invoice from within Oracle by utilizing the Perceptive Content icon on the Oracle Invoices toolbar.

Non-Employee Expense Reports: Non-Employee Expense Reports (NEERs) are generated through the use of Transform, a Hyland product, and the original implementation of NEER reports had created a workflow that allowed for NEERs to be seen and addressed by those areas/departments necessary to the process. The AP Automation project made slight changes to the original NEER form and the process of submitting and approving the expenses. The project modified the workflow path taken by the NEER form by incorporating the University Contracts Office (UCO) into Perceptive Content. This allows the UCO to receive and take action within Perceptive Content for NEERs where the non-employee has responded in the affirmative to one or both of the questions regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. NEERs are routed to Taxation for audit purposes and then to a Supplier Entry queue. Once the non-employee is setup as a new supplier or confirmed as an existing supplier, the NEER routes through a validation process. This validation process and the subsequent export step are the most impactful changes to the original NEER implementation as these acts remove the manual entry of NEERs into Oracle by AP. The validation process compares the accounting information entered on the NEER against data provided nightly from Oracle.  NEERs that fail validation are addressed by AP and then are re-validated. NEERs that pass validation are exported from Perceptive Content to Oracle using custom logic that allows for the NEER data that is exported from Perceptive Content to be mapped to and loaded onto the AP Open Interface tables. A final validation of the NEER data is performed via Oracle. Validated NEERs import successfully into Oracle AP. NEERs that do not validate successfully are addressed via the AP Open Interface tables and then are imported into Oracle.  NEERs are automatically linked to the NEER record in Perceptive Content, which allows users to view the NEER from within Oracle by utilizing the Perceptive Content icon on the Oracle Invoices toolbar.

Supplier Forms/Pay Forms: CMU forms that generate payments and/or initiate the creation of a supplier record in Oracle were also incorporated into the AP Automation solution. These forms are emailed into the solution and go through an initial queue where specific data elements and attributes are manually captured or assigned. The attributes (e.g., Document Type) are used for determining the workflow routing applicable to the document. Supplier forms generally route through the UCO queues and then either to the Tax/Audit queue or onto Manual Review directly. The manual review queue is where AP performs verification of supplier information before the supplier is permitted to be setup in Oracle. Most pay forms are routed to Manual Review, as well. From Manual Review, supplier documents and pay forms route to a Verify queue where senior level AP personnel review the information related to each form gathered or entered up until that point in the process. The forms then route to the Supplier Entry queue where the supplier information on the forms is reviewed and it is determined as to whether the supplier on the form needs to be setup in Oracle. Supplier forms route to a queue that generates an email to the address that sent the form to AP to serve as notification that a supplier has been setup in Oracle. Pay forms route to one of two different invoice processing queues, depending on ledger assigned to the form, where the pay forms will be entered as invoices in Oracle and will be manually linked to the Perceptive Content record. The act of linking the form to the Oracle record allows users to view the pay form from within Oracle by utilizing the Perceptive Content icon on the Oracle Invoices toolbar.