We automated an invoice approval process – enabling invoice documents to be analysed, actioned, and tracked – reducing manual effort and errors.
Problem:
An electrical engineering company were struggling with paying invoices promptly as they were relying on using email for the approval process. Invoices were often missed in mailboxes, not approved for payment, or read and not actioned. The process of extracting key information out of invoices was a manual admin task which took time away from staff. Lastly, the management team had no overview or metrics regarding invoices.
Solution: (built using SharePoint, SharePoint Syntex, Power Automate, and Power BI)
OfficeLabs built a SharePoint Library as a single storage depository for all invoices with a SharePoint Syntex model sitting behind it. Employees could forward any invoice from their mailbox to an Invoice Mailbox. A workflow monitors the invoice mailbox and moves the attached invoices to the SharePoint Library. A SharePoint Syntex model extracts all the key information making it easy for users to see. An approval process was put in place with an auditing list to give management full oversight of outstanding invoices. Custom permissions were applied to each invoice to ensure they were only seen by the necessary staff. A Power BI dashboard was built to provide key analytics to management to help with discovering bottlenecks in the process and future resource planning, by highlighting the average approval time and the total amount due in future months.
Benefits:
OfficeLabs were able to give the customer clear processes around invoices. These processes helped save time for employees by not having to complete repetitive manual tasks and enabled managers to have better control around payments.
Staff were taking on average 5 minutes to process invoices and they averaged 500 documents per month. By automating these tasks, it saved employees over 37.5 hours per month, equating to 12 weeks over a year.
We can build you any document approval solution to reduce your manual effort and improve reporting. Let OfficeLabs help you map your path to improved productivity – contact us today.
