Scaling Productivity Through Utilization of AP Automation

⇨ One of the areas that automated applications can especially help make more efficient is finance, specifically accounts payable (AP) processes.

⇨ AP automation softwares can assist SAP users in implementing a key system of controls which helps to overview validation of invoices inside the SAP.

⇨ Softwares like the one provided by xSuite can be especially useful for global suppliers due to their ability of creating a shared services center which significantly simplifies overview of all data.

In a world of growing innovative technology and constant drive towards modernization, there are two things that businesses cannot afford to occur: time waste and manual mistakes in production and operations. In the recent years, technology experts found a global solution: automation.

SAP users know that there are many obvious benefits that arise from deploying automation in SAP systems, including elimination of manual, time-consuming tasks, reduction of errors and improvement in productivity. One of the business areas that automated applications can especially be of help with is finance, specifically accounts payable (AP) processes.

One such example can be found in the experience of KIRCHHOFF Automotive – development partner to the automotive industry. A global supplier, KIRCHHOFF Automotive produces complex metal and hybrid structures for body-in-white and chassis, as well as crash management and dashboard supports.

Because the company’s reach is international, it soon realized that the different plants in the various countries where it operates handled their APs on their own. This inevitably led to differences in how each location managed its invoice processing and established its operations and logic. The difference in handling of AP processes meant that the company and their SAP system would have to produce extra work to follow up on each of those different SAP purchase orders, complicating the process and delaying transparency on who is responsible for releasing invoices.

This is where KIRCHHOFF Automotive found the solution: by turning to xSuite’s SAP integrated invoice-processing solution (xSuite Invoice), the organization managed to implement a key system of controls which helped to overview validation of invoices inside the SAP, rather than in separate locations of each individual plants.

Furthermore, xSuite’s AP automation solution allowed KIRCHHOFF Automotive to simplify the processing of 250,000 invoices yearly through utilization of 80% of them with PO reference in SAP MM and 75% of them arriving by e-mail in PDF format. The invoices are then routed to central mailbox in the shared services center which helps maintain a transparent overview of all data for accountants.

The example of xSuite’s assistance for KIRCHHOFF Automotive AP processes demonstrates that automation can be key in the efforts of scaling up SAP users’ operations and functions, saving the time, energy and eliminating possibilities of risks of manual mistakes in the globally interconnected financial world.