About Company

A 30-year-old Strategic Advisory organization, that has capitalized on the inefficiencies and opportunities within the market since its inception, amplified its strategic advisory, and augmented its productivity with automation and real-time visibility of the Accounts Payable Processes. The client organization helps maximize the business value of global portfolio managers keen on devising strategies with extended support and autonomy.  In addition, the company has diversified investments in infrastructure, risk analytics, proprietary technology, and, more significantly, in America, Europe, and Asia. 

Client’s Invoice Management Challenges

The company had to manage around 15000 invoices manually across the year. Until now, the organization would carry out accounting and payable processes by adding all the data manually. The IT or SNOW team would create the Purchase Requisition (PR) in the system and send it to the concerned team for further processing. No dedicated individual was assigned to perform invoice matching, including coding or approval. In short, the entire process was a little cumbersome. 

Further, with the advent of multiple global investors, managing invoices and the AP processes got chaotic for the organization.

“There was a predominance of manual work in the purchasing department, from filling OCR sheets to assigning GL codes for every product to verification of hardcopies that accompany invoices,” said Procurement Manager. She also added, “Mundane tasks created monotony, resulting in a time crunch and enhanced scope of error - impacting productivity”.

A purchase request (PR) was generated on the basis of which an invoice was generated. They had only a 2-way check wherein they matched with the invoice and purchase requisition, not the purchase order.  

The staff had to undergo a manual process that required creating a PR in ServiceNow. Once created, the SNOW Team would send it to the AP mailbox of the concerned team, which underwent manual monitoring for matching to checking the SNOW requisition number. It made the management of multiple invoices a little too complex.

All invoice types, including PR, non-PR consulting, and non-consulting, had different workflows for approval. The invoices were sent manually to various departments and people for support. In the absence of defined workflows, it killed time and transparency.

THE AAVENIR APPROACH & SOLUTION

Aavenir AI-enabled Invoice Management Solution for Investment Management

Aavenir streamlined the invoicing and AP processes on ServiceNow for the client organization by eliminating the manual processes and moving towards greater visibility and significant optimization of PR in SNOW for matching purposes. As a result, we kicked off the systematic approach for them, where all invoices will hit the mailbox and get automatically mapped according to the information. 

Leverage the Usage of AI - Smart Invoice Capture

The Aavenir AI engine simplified processes for multiple invoices flow by allowing automatic extraction and updation of multiple line items and fields, mapping them to the right accounting code, thereby reducing manual entries and human errors. 

"I have a quality of life now. Handling the procure-to-pay alone has never been this effortless. I can imagine everything that I was doing manually is now happening automatically with the Aavenir AI engine.  Delighted and relieved that team Aavenir could understand the typical industry needs and supported me throughout. I am spellbound to witness how the Aavenir navigated through and tried to gauge everyones’ needs from the quick conversations,” said Procurement Manager.

Aavenir AI-driven Invoiceflow with data extraction and touchless processing worked as a catalyst in the invoice approval process for the client organization. 

Benefits:

• The invoices get automatically identified according to the category (PR, Non-PR Consulting, and Non-consulting) and routed to the respective workflow for approval and processing. 
• The accounts team is no longer caught up in follow-up with groups. 
• Notifications and alerts have further eased the collaboration among teams. 

Simplified Processes for Multiple Invoice Flow

Aavenir InvoiceFlow solution powered the client organization with complete visibility of Invoices with their status and overall invoice lifecycle, thereby ensuring efficiency and transparency.

Cost center allocations and multiple line items mapping to respective General Ledger(GL) codes has been implemented to simplify invoice processing. We have utilized all the multiple invoice categories in their accounting system to fit into our unified product. 

Benefits:

• This automation offers complete transparency for invoice possibilities. 
• In addition, the system has an automated 2-way matching of PR Invoice validation in place that compares invoices and captures any exceptions for faster and more accurate approvals.

Task Automation

Aavenir Invoiceflow automates the humdrum task of reviewing, mapping, and disbursing invoices. With the seamless integration, all invoices are ready for at the disposal of accounts that need just a glance and hit submit. 

Benefits:

• The necessary payments can be done with Nav and sent back to accounts, terminating the time spent on disbursing and mapping invoices weekly. 
• The accounts team can check the status in real time and update the supplier on the payment.

Key Results

The quick implementation of Aavenir Invoiceflow built on ServiceNow enabled the client organization with remarkable results in a short period.

• 85% Zero-touch review directed to auto-mapped approval flow saving hours on the job
• 85% improvement in first-time-right invoice processing: Aavenir solution empowered the team to take off 15000+ invoices approved in a jiffy. Highly transparent workflows eliminate manual tasks to a greater extent
• Zeroing probability of human errors: AI-enabled Aavenir Invoiceflow automates major tasks, nullifying manual glitches
• 80% increase in employee productivity: Discarding manual reviews and mapping exercises between Servicenow and NAV
• 75% stability and intelligence build for GL allocation for relevant cost centers
• Reliable auto-push to ERP with scheduled batch set for payment disbursement