Process: Booking of purchase invoices - mainly imports of materials from the EU / outside the EU

For the last several years, MDDP Outsourcing has been providing services to a large international production company. In the last year, the company went through a restructuring process that involved the purchase of an organized part of an enterprise and migration to a new, higher version of the SAP system. During the said restructuring, the number of purchase invoiced increased significantly, which posed a great challenge to the customer. That is more, the customer struggled with problems connected with the new SAP system such as non-functioning shortcuts and changes in the document circulation, which resulted in a backlog.

MDDP Outsourcing was asked to provide several-month support both in the registration process of purchase invoices as well as in general optimization of the process.

Previous state:

Import invoices would go through a very long verification process. Employees from the accounting department responsible for the passive cycle had to verify the inventory receipts by using a general report that, unfortunately, did not include all the necessary information. The report lacked key data such as the new number of the supplier in the SAP as well as information whether External Receipts (PZ) had already been settled with the invoice and the PZ reference numbers were incorrectly input by the warehouse workers.

What is more, the verifying person had to check the details on customs declarations in two systems because the data were not migrated to the new SAP.

The invoices from Asian suppliers would often be without the bank account number. Selecting the correct one required a manual verification by using the data available in the old version of the SAP system.

Single urgent documents that had to be booked were sent to several personal e-mail accounts. When something was sent to the e-mail of an employee that was absent from work, other team members would not know about it.

The current state:

The daily repot has been greatly improved in order to support the accounting process. Now, every day around seven o’clock, the customer generates a list of invoices that need to be booked. The list is handed over to members of a team that is composed both of our and the customer’s employees. The report was extended with detailed information, individual sheets such as the current list of persons that the invoices should be sent to, depending on the supplier, the current numbers in SAP as well as division depending on the maturity date of the payment. There is also an available instruction on how to handle exceptions, comprehensive information on suppliers and settled and unsettled positions migrated from the old SAP system.

Moreover, we received reports such as, for example, a list with order numbers (PO) that were used in the old SAP system and were in invoices from 2023 along with corresponding new PO numbers used in the new SAP system and new invoices. The next tool facilitating everyday work is an account plan for the old and the new SAP system and decryption of tax codes used in the SAP software.

Additionally, we created a file with suppliers’ bank accounts and a list of customs declarations booked in the old SAP, which eliminated the need to log into the previous system over and over again.

We also introduced regular meetings at which we can discuss all sorts of problems related to accounting.

We also established a new strategy that involves sending urgent invoices to a joint e-mail account, providing every team member with access to them and ensuring a quick response to the customer’s needs.

Summary:

The cooperation and understanding of the customer’s needs were of key importance to increase the workflow of the accounting team. As a result, it was possible to eliminate errors and delays in the booking process of invoices. What is more, the continuous communication and joint analysis of the issues helped in ensuring an effective implementation of the improvements. It should be highlighted that our support was initially supposed to last several months. However, it was extended to other branches of the customer, including their foreign units.

The customer noticed a significant improvement in the transparency of the process and fast responses to urgent needs. The change contributed to establishing the cooperation with our company and greatly increased the customer’s satisfaction.