We are a consortium of municipal utilities and, under commercial management contracts, handle the accounting for several power plant and storage companies.
For processing incoming invoices, we are looking for an electronic approval workflow integrated with SAP. This should include an audit-proof archive. It would be desirable if any specific requirements of the energy sector could be taken into account.
The software must meet at least the following requirements:
- Automatic import of incoming invoices.
- Convenient scanning of paper invoices.
- The scan date must be documented in the workflow.
- It must be possible to determine whether a document arrived at the company in paper form or electronically.
- Duplicate invoices must be detected.
- The interface to SAP must operate in real time.
- There must be a text field with a name and timestamp where additional information can be exchanged.
- The search function must allow searching for all terms entered in the workflow.
- It must be possible for any user to add additional documents to the main document (the invoice), such as a list of participants.
- Every action in the workflow must be traceable via a change log.
- For process control, the workflow must be able to send reminder emails automatically and manually.
- The workflow system must run stably and with very high availability; no documents may be lost.
- It must be possible for many users to access the workflow simultaneously.
- It must be ensured that a workflow item cannot be opened by different users simultaneously.
- The OCR software must be able to automatically recognize the vendor based on the SAP master data.
- The workflow should also serve as an audit-proof archive.
- In SAP, a link to the workflow item should be created during preliminary entry.
- Any type of text file and scan should be usable as invoice documents.
- The workflow must support multiple clients.
- Foreign currencies in incoming invoices should be supported.
- At a later date, it should be possible to implement an approval policy within the workflow.
The software we are seeking is intended for use both within our company and by the companies we manage.
We anticipate planning for 300–350 software workstations.