We are looking for a way to create a seamless 3 way match process, and it looks like we have to customize. I am wondering if anyone has any customizations on this front and if so, how they operate?
Right now we want to address two issues (below), but we’re open to hearing how other companies operate:
the automation of the invoice entry (we tried unsuccessfully with Docstar which seems quite finnicky), including the loading of lines. We would like the system to able to understand if the line is received or unreceived (based on receipts).
Our AP team has to manually action invoice receipt match for unreceived lines once they are received. Ideally, the system should be able to run a process to match unmatched received lines to invoices loaded into the system once the release is received so that we can close out the PO.
Are you on APv1? I think v2 does better at matching, but I have not gotten the time to get v2 running for us. One of the things I got from last Insights was less is more on matching and that may be a help with your finicky issue.
Yes, @gpayne is correct. The newer V2 workflows have an AutoMatch task that attempts combinations of un-invoiced & received lines and determines if there is one or more ‘solutions’ (or combinations) of lines that will match the invoice subtotal. Most of the folks here even close to using it are still in the testing (or pre-testing) phase.
Also, many of us are successfully using both the “header/footer” and “detail lines” processing with IDC and ECM and it’s working quite well. Do you have IDC? It is a huge help in getting accurate data into the ECM workflows and those workflows are pretty solid once you have them tuned for your process.
We even created a receiving workflow that allows our dock folks to record the receipt transaction in ERP AND attach the paperwork to it, so when the invoice gets to ECM there is already a “related document” in order to do the 3-way match visually.
Thank you both (@gpayne and @MikeGross)! I will bring this suggestion back to our team and see if this is something we wanted to consider. We did try to deploy ECM for AP, but we abandoned it due to all the technicalities. I know we are using it (and IDC) for our sales orders, so hopefully the v2 will get the buy in needed from the finance side!
@EpicorGal Back in 2020 we tried to implement DocStar when they using Artysl for OCR but we were also unsuccessful and abandoned the project due to several issues we had with the software. We are now revisiting AP Automation again. I’m wondering if you looked into ECM v2 for AP or if you found something else?
We are currently exploring ECM V2 with an Epicor consultant - we’re still in the very early stages, but we are motivated to get this moving, so I can provide an update once I have one. Sounds like we abandoned ECM v1 for the same type of reasons, so hopefully, we will be more successful this time.
@EpicorGal I’ve reached out to our Account Manager to put us in touch with someone who can go over the differences between v1 and v2. I will reply on what I have learned. The list below is list of issues we had with v1 that one of our finance managers put together.
Renaming files doesn’t work on a lot of our Supplier invoice formats.
DocStar doesn’t remember where we have items to scan and need to relearn formats.
Blanket PO’s aren’t efficient. We need to delete multiple line receipts individually.
It’s more work bringing Non-PO invoices through DocStar than directly entering them to Epicor.
More steps entering a miscellaneous invoice in DocStar.
Allows the entry of invoices with a variance between the invoice total and the invoice line amounts.
Doesn’t keep a running total of remaining dollar amounts when splitting GLs.
Can’t recognize a miscellaneous invoice if a PO is listed only as a reference (Ex. Freight Bills).
Managers have to review all invoices.
Can’t navigate to PO Tracker.
Anything we can’t enter into DocStar (Loans, DMR’s, Holdings, Credit Card, garnishments, etc… ) has to be stored separately or manually uploaded and saved to the correct folder location.
More steps for buyers to approve invoice issues.
Very complicated on the back end, so additional training and support required from IT.
Just because the WF starts with those issues does not mean you can take them out or adapt the process to your company. You have to make choices about what to process and how to do it. We already had an approval process, so we don’t do that in ECM. Our comptroller wanted invoices under X dollars to go into ECM and appear in Epicor with no intervention. We started with $200 and currently allow up to 50K no touch.
I reworked a couple of things in IDC for non-po to make a unique invoice number based on the month and year, so they did not get stopped by the duplicate invoice check. It does fail sometimes when the cell bill hits twice in the same calendar month.
I only have one trainer per document type since we found we would untrain IDC if someone else (IE me ) made different choices than the AP or SOA trainer.
We take the speed where it helps since we will get a ton of invoices for under $50 and do other messy items where they are faster.
I am working with someone else right now on importing in the invoice headers into the AP groups.
I have been successfull bring these in with DMT, but want to setup a smoother process to get the groups.
I believe I have a solution for reading the inbound files from Suppliers using Bill.com
) made different choices than the AP or SOA trainer.