Accounts Payable EDI Allows More Time to Challenge Deductions
EDI…It’s All We Do!
You know false and costly discounts are claimed by vendors. Yet, you do not have the staff time to challenge them. Fortunately, an economical solution is at hand: require vendors to invoice by EDI. The time is now to take advantage of your reliable EDI system to import invoices.
Here are the steps necessary to automate Accounts Payable data entry for vendor invoices:
- Count the number of invoices received quarterly for each vendor.
- Prioritize the list based upon transaction count and invoice completeness and accuracy.
- Calculate the number of vendors with sales over $100,000,000, which is a benchmark for the ability to send a high quality invoice using EDI. (A vendor does not have to receive a PO by EDI in order to invoice by EDI.)
- Ask DCS for an integration estimate and then calculate the ROI. (Be sure to include the benefit of more staff time to challenge erroneous discounts.)
- After the first few vendors are successfully integrated “work the list” every month. Adding each subsequent vendor takes about 2 hours of DCS or I.T. time for testing.
- Later you may consider the integration of vendors’ Remittance Advices to reduce pricey bank fees.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the computer-to-computer exchange of routine business documents such as Purchase Orders, Shipment Notices, Invoices, and Remittance Advices without human intervention. Data moves from your customer’s computer system – through the Internet securely – to your computer system.