Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Manufacturing for Invoice Management

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the way to first automate processes and tasks building concurrent instances within the system to generate economies of scale; and second to infuse efficiency within the system to improve performance, reduce errors, and streamline connected processes.

Now, the manufacturing sector, as we know, prioritizes the sustenance of a seamless production process. One of the key measures where tech doesn’t just assist but also goes on to boost the quality and quantity of the throughput – is Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) via cMaintenance. Read more about it here.

Today we will focus on another process automation solution – Crave’s RPA automation leveraging SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (IRPA) to smoothen invoicing, exception, and supply chain management.

The manufacturing sector is an intricate mix of material, assets, processes, and people to create and sustain a value-added output. So, there’s a lot of processes, material, and services that run concurrently to the centric production process. There are many vendors and partners that provide raw materials, spare parts, support, and logistics services for a single manufacturing unit.

All these vendors and partners publish their invoices regularly. It’s important to keep the invoicing process clear and speedy to maintain the consistent flow of material, equipment, and support on the shop floor.

The problem arises when there are hundreds of invoices coming through your emails. Each invoice may be in a different structural format and have specific service level agreements (SLAs) regarding deadlines. Reading, sorting, and processing these emails manually is a time-consuming and strenuous task.

This often leads to errors, delays, and even discrepancies. These, in turn, cause vendor dissatisfaction, longer lead time in supply chain, and even audit complications.

Crave InfoTech brings in the ideal invoice and exception management solution for the manufacturing sector. Building over SAP’s industry-leading IRPA, Crave offers superior invoice automation right from the moment the invoice is received right through the point of closure with the vendor and the ledger files.

The system has built-in compartmentalization and encryption which ensure end-to-end security within invoice extraction and processing. The bots would take only the relevant invoice data and particulars through a targeted search and capture method.

• These bots pull the invoice as it appears in your mailbox and pushes it through an intelligent Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process.
• The OCR process reads and captures the key info from the invoice and pushes it into the system.
• The system auto-detects anomalies (exceptions) like incorrect or missed data and pushes the invoice back to relevant stakeholders with actionable notifications. It also logs the anomaly details into the ledger for referencing and processing.
• The validated data is further directed for approval and payment processing with relevant actionable notifications and reminders.
• All development is processed, tracked, and recorded in real-time.
• Everything is automated.

This results in faster and error-free invoice processing to establish a healthy credit cycle, high vendor satisfaction, and a smooth-functioning supply chain.

Crave’s RPA enablement helps improve invoice processing by 95%! It brings down the per invoice processing time from 20+ minutes to less than 1 minute.

Here are the Top 4 benefits of RPA, including the two that have been already established above.

Resulting in a strong supply chain

Achieving a zero-exception rate, in-turn building a seamless audit process

Hundreds of invoices are processed concurrently (at the same time) without any time lag. The total number of concurrent invoice processes is only capped by infrastructural metrics like database and network strength. You can always scale your processes through a secure BTP enablement. You can read more about it here.

If you get a hundred invoices a month and spend an average of 20 mins per invoice, it amounts to 33.33 work hours or 1.4 days per month processing invoices. This doesn’t account for the delay in initial invoice reading (the mail can get buried among other emails); data-capture errors resulting in exceptions, SLA violations, claims/disputes; approval and processing delays; etc.

All this can be automated and processed in far less time, as pointed out above. It translates into clear cost control. Further, the time saved, like 1.4 days per month, can be reapplied in more productive work, generating greater value.

Two more factors, other than the top 4 mentioned above, that showcase the true impact of RPA-enablement are faster time to value and overall employee satisfaction.

Crave InfoTech has the top-class expertise and finesse to enable your enterprise with the most potent RPA solutions in record time. You can be up and running with total invoice automation within a month with zero-to-no coding required.

Invoice reading, extraction, and processing is a repetitive and hard job for employees. It’s a mundane task that often leaves the ‘doer’ drained. Also, due to its repetitive nature, the process induces a monotony that may perpetuate oversight (where employees may miss critical data just because they have already seen similar invoices over a hundred times).

Crave’s RPA-enablement helps free the employees of this task, so they can reduce the overall workplace stress and establish a better work-life balance.

There’s far more to RPA-enablement and you can tap into superior automation across a range of processes with Crave InfoTech, contact us for more details. Just drop in and experience the difference.