Although ADP is best known for providing payroll services, the company is playing an increasing role in the ePayables space with the ADP Procure-to-Pay (P2P) solutions. ADP has been in this space since January of 2010 through its acquisition of DO2 technologies, a provider of electronic invoicing solutions that was well-established in the oil and gas vertical and managed the ‘receive’ and ‘process’ parts of the AP process. Since the acquisition, ADP has extended the cloud-based solution into other industry segments (such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services etc) as well as expanded the product footprint to leverage existing ‘pay’ capabilities (ACH or check) to provide a complete end-to-end ePayables solution. Today, almost three years later, ADP P2P finds itself in a great position having experienced significant growth in this area. ADP P2P currently processes over 10 million invoices representing in excess of $120 billion in spend.
Now, with a new release of the ADP P2P solution impending (November 9th, 2012) ADP has announced some enhancements around invoice coding, document routing and document management all of which will prove to be beneficial to current and future clients. Below are some details around the enhancements:
- Advanced coding – At the moment, invoice coding is configured during the implementation phase and is based on categories such as supplier, site, spend category, etc. The new capabilities however, provide a higher level of flexibility in the invoice coding process and are based on a more intelligent design. Invoice coding in the new release will be based on historical precedence (i.e., how a similar invoice was coded the last time) and invoice data attributes such as supplier name, spend type, dollar amount, etc. Essentially, the system learns as invoices are processed through the system, with the idea being that after all the various types of invoices have been received at least once, the system will recognize invoice types and process them accordingly. This reduces the need to review every invoice and figure out the coding thereby speeding up invoice processing cycle times.
- Document routing – With the current version of the solution invoice routing is based on pre-existing format such as organizational structure, by department or by HR hierarchy. The new release again offers more flexibility in this area and when combined with the advanced coding may have a significant impact on processing times and accuracy. The new document routing capability will allow invoices to be automatically routed to the right person based on pre-defined business rules and data captured from invoices. For example, an invoice from a specific supplier can be set up to always be routed to a specific user or department.
- Document management – Currently, whether an invoice is processed within the P2P application or exported to the client’s ERP directly depends on whether there is an underlying PO. The new document management capabilities will allow users to manage multiple types of documents in a more efficient manner. They will be able to create rules to determine how various types of documents are processed. For example, invoices that are based on blanket PO’s can be set up to follow a specific workflow, while invoices requiring three-way matching follow a different route.
All in all, the three major enhancements to the ADP P2P solution are sure to result in improved processing efficiencies for clients allowing them to streamline and cut down processing times. This is especially important to clients that are hoping to capture more early payment discounts by accelerating the processing cycle.
