SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation processes your vendor invoices electronically from capture and matching, to invoice approval and query management. The solution manages all PO and non-PO vendor invoices. All invoice data is captured using SoftCo’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology or via SoftCo’s outsource data capture service.
The dynamic matching engine handles both 2-way and 3-way matching to match your invoice data to your purchase orders and goods receipt notes. SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation assigns your non-PO invoices to an automatic general ledger and cost center through posting templates that are associated with your vendors. For your recurring invoices, such as subscriptions, leasing, rent and utilities, the solution automatically matches them to your underlying contract PO, and routes them for appropriate approval, without the need for supporting POs or GRNs.
SoftCo’s automated approval workflows ensure that your invoices are routed to the relevant approvers. Approval notifications and reminders ensure that your notifications are actioned efficiently. The process of approving your invoices is accelerated via signoff by e-mail or the mobile app.
With SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation you:
- Automatically capture all vendor invoice data.
- Remove manual data entry, printing, scanning and filing of invoices.
- Automatically match invoices to PO’s, GRN’s and vendor Contracts.
- View all invoice exceptions and the associated match fail criteria.
- Streamline the processing of non-PO invoices.
- Route invoices for verification and approval.
- Approve invoices ‘on-the-go’ via email or via the SoftCo app.
- Achieve 80% straight through processing with 3-way matching.
“SoftCo has fulfilled everything that we were looking for, and more. Our query resolution times have reduced by 75%, meaning our AP staff spend less time on reconciliation and more time on value-adding activities.“
Brian Conneely, Finance Director, Grafton Ireland
How does SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation work?
Invoice Data Capture
Eliminate paper and fully automate your invoice data capture process.
Invoice Matching
Efficiently match your PO invoices to orders and deliveries.
Recurring Contracts
Validate your invoices against your subscriptions/contracts.
Non-PO Invoices
Revolutionize the approval of your non-PO invoices.
Exceptions and Queries
Handle all your invoice exceptions and queries in one place.
Invoice Approval Workflow
Fully automate your invoice approval process.
ERP Integration
Seamlessly integrate with any ERP system to hand over approved invoices for payment.
Real-time reporting/AI Analytics
Maintain full visibility with detailed spend, accruals, budget, and KPI reporting.
Eliminate paper and fully automate your invoice data capture process
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Invoice Data Capture
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation captures all invoice data, regardless of the format received from your vendors, using advanced Optical Character Recognition technology or via SoftCo’s outsource data capture service.
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Automated Scanning and Data Extraction with OCR
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation uses powerful Machine Learning technology to extract the captured data required for automatic matching. Robotic Process Automation technology routes the data for automatic matching with the corresponding purchase order data.
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Outsource Capture
SoftCo provides a fully managed invoice processing outsource service. Documents are forwarded to a dedicated email address, header data extracted, verified, QA’ed and loaded into SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation. PO based invoices are automatically routed for matching, non-PO invoices are sent to the AP team for coding and onwards for approval.
Efficiently match your PO invoices to orders and deliveries
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Powered by advanced Robotic Process Automation and artificial intelligence technology, the SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation matching engine removes all manual elements of invoice matching to deliver an error-free, highly efficient process for all invoice types.
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2-Way Matching
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation offers 2-way matching of invoices to purchase orders, by automatically verifying that the quantity billed and invoice price is consistent across your purchase order and the vendor invoice. The invoice is automatically returned to the requisitioner for final sign off, ensuring that the invoice for goods and services always matches the value ordered and has received appropriate business sign off.
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3-Way Matching
The solution offers 3-way matching of your invoices to your purchase orders and goods receipt notes. This ensures payments are only processed after completion of goods receipting.
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Confidence Matching
The advanced matching artificial intelligence engine provides confidence matching where there is a missing element in the 3-way match. It analyses all other elements and provides a suggested match profile.
Validate your invoices against your subscriptions/contracts
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Automatic Matching
For your recurring invoices such as subscriptions, leasing, rent and utilities, SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation automatically matches recurring items to your underlying contract PO, and routes them for appropriate approval, without the need for supporting POs or GRNs.
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Installment Plan
The installment plan feature enables creation of forecasted amounts per month for each of your contracts. As each invoice is processed, against the agreed contract, it is allocated to its correct month.
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Tolerance Setting
The solution provides tolerance settings, allowing invoices received to be higher or lower than the agreed contract by a certain predetermined amount, and still automatically match. Automatic alerts are sent for any charges that are outside of set tolerances, which are then queried with vendors.
Revolutionize the approval of your non-PO invoices
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Indirect Spend
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation allows all non-PO invoices to be processed for goods or services where a purchase order has not been issued.
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Invoice Coding
The solution is configurable to assign non-PO invoices received to a general ledger and cost center through pre-configured rules with your vendors. Other options include manual or spreadsheet import or selection of a posting template associated with your vendors.
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Approval Process
Default approval routes are assigned to your vendor invoices based on rules and templates. Each approver receives a notification email with simple action buttons for ‘approve/reject’ within the email. The email includes the invoice as an attachment, the summary of the invoice header details and status and details of the general ledger and cost center to which the invoice has been coded.
Handle all your invoice exceptions and queries in one place
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Exception Handling
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation provides real-time visibility and detailed analysis over all of your invoices that do not automatically match. This enables efficient resolution of all invoices that need to be re-matched.
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Query Management
The solution ensures that all query invoices are actioned immediately. Invoice queries are routed directly to the appropriate user’s email where they respond to the query, while ‘on-the-go’, using email approval or via the SoftCo app
Fully automate your invoice approval process
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Automated Approval Workflows
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation delivers an accelerated and secure invoice approval process with configurable automated workflows. The system allows multiple verifiers and approvers to be added to workflows. As invoices are routed for approval, automated email notifications are sent, followed by reminders. If the invoices remain un-actioned, the system re-routes them to an alternative approver, ensuring minimal delay in the process.
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‘On-the-Go’ Approval
SoftCo’s ‘on-the-go’ approval functionality ensures that it takes just seconds for verifiers and approvers to progress invoices to the next stage. They simply log into the system to action the invoice or action it via email, or through the SoftCo app.
Real-time reporting/AI analytics
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The Reporting and Analytics suite facilitates better decision-making on real-time information. SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation provides real-time information and visibility of all activities within the AP function.
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CFO Finance Dashboard
A holistic view of finance information enabling decision making on spend and a single view of all payable invoices impacting working capital.
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Status Reporting
Active invoices by status, invoices by exception reason, invoices awaiting approval by user.
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KPI Reporting
Straight-through processing percentage, invoices processed per AP clerk, average business approval time.
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Accrual Reporting
Non-PO invoice accrual report, PO invoice accrual report, contract invoice accrual report.
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Payment Practice & Performance Reporting
Average number of days invoice receipt to payment, payment to terms, payment by days, average time to pay.
Proven ERP Integration
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Key Benefits
Integrating your ERP system with SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation ensures a seamless handover of approved invoices for payment in real-time. It enables all invoices to be viewed via a link from within your ERP system AP ledger and removes all double data entry through a seamless interface.
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Proven Experience
SoftCo has over 30 years of experience successfully integrating with all major finance systems and databases, completing hundreds of ERP/3rd party system integrations across multiple industries.
