If you are going to reduce paper in your business processes, you have to give people a better alternative. You can start by putting in an enterprise content management (ECM) system, but if ECM does not connect into the end-to-end process, it will not give people working in the process a reason to get rid of the paper. And that will result in lost efficiencies from the automated process – even if it is equipped to handle electronic documents – as well as from the ECM system.

Take Accounts Payable as an example. Many organizations receive more than half of their incoming invoices on paper. By paper, I am also including FAX and PDF files that are received over the network, because these unstructured documents present the same challenges. The first thing that many people do when confronted with an electronic document is to print it out so that can be processed along with the other paper invoices. And that may not be the only paper copy. Additional copies may be made along the way by processors, reviewers, approvers, and procurement specialists.

A better alternative is to put the electronic image of the invoice right into every step of the process, and give people an effective way to view and annotate the electronic copy so that they are less inclined to print it. Paper invoices are immediately scanned and, along with those received by FAX and email, put through an Invoice Capture Center that converts the image to characters and intelligently identifies the fields on the invoice -- header data, line items, and tax information – matching these to what is available in the SAP ERP system.

Invoice Capture technology – often referred to as OCR – has improved dramatically in the last decade. Not only are more of the characters recognized, but more importantly, the technology is able to understand the meaning of the characters by the way that they are organized on the invoice. In addition, country-specific rules – such as for tax handling – are now embedded in the technology, so that the pre-processing of the invoice is much more effective.

The result is that the paper, FAX, and PDF invoices are automatically attached to the transactions in the ERP system. Some companies, such as Sysco Foods, are also automatically producing a formatted PDF for each invoice received over EDI channels, so that the people in the process have the same access to all types of incoming invoices. These electronic copies can easily be viewed and annotated right in the process step. The AP professionals can view the electronic invoice right from SAP GUI or NW Business Client; receiving staff can review the electronic invoice to help resolve exceptions from the delivery note; purchasing agents can review the electronic invoice to help resolve exceptions from the contract; and buyers can review and approve the electronic invoice right on their handheld device.

Many companies provide not just the invoice, but access to all of the documents that are collected in the procure-to-pay process. And because the ECM system is connected to the SAP process, the lifecycle of the documents is driven by the SAP system – so that the records retention policies are synchronized with the events in SAP such as payment dates and contract completion.

Now people have a better alternative, and very little need to resort to paper. But this does not just reduce paper consumption; it also streamlines the entire process. Your procurement professionals will have more time to work with your suppliers to identify other ways to improve sustainability.

What are you doing to provide a better alternative for the people in your processes? Next time, we will look at how HR can work more efficiently.

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