Electronic Billing

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Content
Problem
Solution
Description
Benefits
Technology
Related Information

Problem

In almost all suppliers of products or services, the process of billing is composed of the following steps: emission and printing of the invoices through a billing system, being then placed inside envelopes and mailed to clients.

This is a job that, in companies that emit hundreds or thousands of invoices, requires a great deal of attention and is subject to constant mistakes from the people who perform it.

Normally, this work is carried out by resources from the accounting department, which takes up too much of their time in repetitive and tedious tasks, when these same resources could be committed to more important tasks in running the company.
On the other hand, from the point of view of the clients that receive these invoices, the processes of checking the purchase orders sent to the supplier are also complex, considering that approximately 20% of the invoices received contain mistakes.

The expenses associated with the payment of values that were not obliged, the emission and remittance of rectifying documents, phone calls due to claims resulting from the mistakes detected, etc., are all elucidative of the importance of this process.

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Solution

As a reply to the challenge of making available to our clients tools that may assist them in their daily work processes, Methodus has developed the eBPP (Electronic Billing Presentment & Payment) solution.

This solution allows its clients to access documents emitted by their suppliers through web technology, thus substituting the current process of emitting invoices and making them available in paper. This leads to a reduction of costs for all entities involved.

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Description

This solution can be structured according to the following phases of the EBPP process:

• Presentation of Invoices to the Client;
• Revision of Invoices by the Client;
• Dispute of Invoices with the Supplier;
• Payment of Invoices by the Client;
• Analysis of the Information by the Clients and Suppliers;

Presentation

• Summary and listing of emitted invoices, ordered by search criteria;
• Visualization of invoices with their respective details;
• Importing / Exporting of invoices in the following formats: XML, CSV e EDI;
• Manual input of invoices by suppliers;
• Management of alerts;
• Notification of client of existence of new invoices in the system upon arrival;
• Modification of the state of the invoices;
• Filing / Retrieval of invoices.

Revision

• Conferring of the invoices received through a conferring component that interacts with the client’s ERP system;
• History of errors found when conferring the invoices.

Dispute

• Document claim by client;
• Notification of supplier of client’s claim;
• Reply to claim by supplier in the system;
• Claim history;
• Result of the dispute’s resolution.

Payment

• Payment of invoices by money transfer, direct debit, or credit card;
• Confirmation of Payments / Receipts made;
• Banking reconciliation;
• Payment aggregation.

Analysis

• Elaboration of Legal Maps;
• Reports of dispute analysis;
• Client’s current account;
• Payment prediction;
• Reports ordered by the state of the invoice;
• Visualization of reports on the screen;
• Exporting to HTML / Word.

This solution also offers the following functionalities:

• Secure communication, guaranteeing: Authentication, Confidentiality, Integrity, Authorization, Non Repudation, and Registration;
  Integration with ERP systems;
• Workflows of invoice approval to be presented to the client, of invoice disputes between client and suppliers, and of client payments;

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Benefits

For Suppliers:

• Reduction of expenses associated to the paper, printing, control, and sending of documents;
• Increase of the brand’s notoriety, and consequently of the fidelity of its products and services;
• Increased opportunity of client contact and a directed presentation of products and services;
• Establishment of a bilateral communication platform that supports the exchange of information between suppliers and clients;
• Remote access to information;
• Control of the document states;
• Consultation and treatment of claims;
• Integrity of information guaranteed by the business rules;
• Swiftness resulting from the electronic communication of data and documents;
• Balanced distribution of work between all workers.

For Clients:

• Reduction of expenses associated to the reception, treatment, registration, and filing of documents;
• Alternate channel to access, analyse, confer, and pay invoices;
• Reduction of time in conferring invoices;
• Automatic reconciliation between purchase orders and invoices;
• Better management of the company’s working capital;
• Automatic insertion of invoices in the client’s ERP system;
• Establishment of a bilateral communication platform that supports the exchange of information between suppliers and clients;
• Remote access to information;
• Control of the document states;
• Alerts emitted by the system;
• Integrity of information guaranteed by the business rules;
• Swiftness resulting from the electronic communication of data and documents;
• Balanced distribution of work between all workers.

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Technology

• Web Technology – Microsoft Internet Information Server and ColdFusion Server
• Secure communication between the client browser and the application server through the use of encryption algorithms (SSL-Secure Sockets Layer)
  

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Related Information

www.aberdeen.com

www.ebilling.org

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