We have written several times about how our technologies help and even process information from any type of documents and enter data into accounting systems. Today we’ll tell you how we implemented в – the largest supplier of heat and hot water in Moscow.
Imagine yourself in the place of an ordinary accountant. We understand that this is not easy, but try anyway. Every day you receive a huge number of paper invoices, invoices, certificates and so on. And especially a lot - in the days before reporting. All details and amounts need to be quickly and carefully checked, retyped and entered into the accounting system, manually conduct transactions and send documents to the archive, so that they can then be promptly submitted for verification to internal auditors, the tax service, tariff regulatory authorities and others. Difficult? But this is a long-standing business practice that exists in many companies. Together with MOEK, we have simplified this painstaking work and made it more convenient. If you are interested in how it was, welcome to the cat.
The photo shows Moscow CHPP-21, Europe's largest producer of thermal energy. The heat generated at this station is supplied by MOEK to 3 million residents of the north of Moscow. .
MOEK has a dozen and a half branches in Moscow. They service 15 km of heating networks, 811 thermal stations and boiler houses, 94 heating points and 10 pumping stations, and also build and install new heat supply systems. The company purchases a variety of equipment and services for business activities: . The preparation of documents in each department initiating the purchase is carried out by special employees - contract supervisors.
How do contracts work in a large company? When curators enter into an agreement, they receive many important paper documents from their counterparties: delivery notes, certificates of service provision, invoices, certificates, etc. Typically, the curator scans business papers and then attaches the scans to the order in the enterprise resource management system. The financial controller manually checks all data. After this, the curator takes the original documents to the accounting department. Or the courier does this, and then moving documents can take longer - from several hours to a couple of days.
And everything would be fine, but, as in many other companies:
- Papers may arrive at the accounting department several days before reporting is submitted. Then accountants have to spend days and nights at their workplace. You need to manually check whether all invoices, invoices, etc. are filled out correctly. Then, if everything is correct, the employee retypes the data into the accounting system and makes postings. At the same time, 90% of the accountant’s time is spent reprinting data - details, amounts, dates, item numbers, etc. Because of this, there is a risk of making mistakes.
- Documents may arrive with errors. And sometimes some bills or certificates are missing. Sometimes this becomes clear in the last days before reporting is submitted. Because of this, the timing of document approval may be delayed.
- After making entries, accountants store invoices, invoices and acts in separate paper and electronic archives. Why is this difficult? For example, MOEK works according to tariffs, and therefore is obliged to regularly report its costs to executive authorities. And when the next state or tax audit comes to the accounting department, employees have to search for documents for a long time.
This is what the MOEK accounting department used to look like:
MOEK was the first in the energy industry to decide to rebuild and simplify this scheme in order to quickly close transactions and submit reports, better assess market changes in procurement and plan its financial strategy. It was not easy to change the long-standing system of work of the accounting department on its own, so the company decided to transform it together with its partner - ABBYY.
No sooner said than done
A team of ABBYY specialists has implemented a universal platform for intelligent information processing at MOEK and configured:
- flexible descriptions (data extraction templates) for document processing. We talked in detail about what it is and what it is needed for on Habré и . MIPC processes more than 30 types of documents using the solution (for example, an act of installed equipment or an act for an agency fee) and extracts more than 50 attributes from them (document number, total amount with VAT, name of the buyer, seller, contractor, quantity of goods, etc. .);
- a connector for performing checks and uploading data, which connected ABBYY FlexiCapture, SAP and OpenText. Thanks to the connector, it became possible to automatically check data from the order and contract using various directories. We will talk about this below;
- export of documents to an electronic archive based on OpenText. Now all document scans are stored in one place;
- draft accounting entries in SAP ERP with links to scanned images of documents.
Then ABBYY and MOEK employees developed a search form so that the accountant could, in seconds, find important accounts by any attribute in the electronic archive and submit them for tax inspections.
The search is possible using 26 different criteria (the picture is clickable):
After MOEK successfully tested the entire system, it was put into operation. The entire project, including approvals, clarifications and improvements, was completed in 10 months.
Scheme of work after implementing ABBYY FlexiCapture:
Do you feel like nothing has changed? Yes, the business process remains the same, it’s just that most of the functions are now performed by the machine.
Wiring, done!
How are things now? Suppose the curator of the contract received a set of primary documents for a deal for the supply of pumps for thermal power plants, or, for example, the construction of heating networks. The specialist no longer needs to check the completeness and content of the documents himself, call a courier and send the original documents to the accounting department. The curator simply scans the signed set of primary documents, and then technologies take over.
Using a network scanning system, an employee sends scans in TIFF or PDF format to his hot folder or email. Then he opens the ABBYY FlexiCapture web input station and selects the type of document set to process. For example, “purchase of works/services with agency fees”, “receipt of material and technical resources (MTR)” or “property accounting”.
The type of set determines the number and types of required documents and data that the system must classify, recognize and verify.
The curator uploads scans for recognition. The system automatically checks the presence of all documents, the contents of each paper, and the server recognizes the details - contract date, amount, address, tax identification number, checkpoint and other data. By the way, MOEK is the first energy company in Russia to use this approach.
If the curator did not upload all the documents or some invoice does not contain all the data, the system notices this and immediately asks the employee to correct the error:
The system swears and asks to add missing documents (hereinafter screenshots are clickable):
The system noticed that the document is expired:
Thus, the employee no longer needs to determine whether the document is drawn up correctly. If everything is correct, then most of the data checks happen automatically right at the web entry station. It is enough to enter the order number specified in SAP ERP. After this, the recognized data is compared with information processed in SAP: TIN and KPP of the counterparty, contract numbers and amounts, VAT, product or service nomenclature. Processing and checking one document takes only a couple of minutes.
Using the details - INN and KPP - you can select the desired company from the directory:
If there is an error in the invoice or invoice, it will not allow the document to be exported to the archive. For example, if a document is incorrectly compiled or one of the characters is incorrectly recognized, the system will indicate this and ask the employee to correct all inaccuracies. Here's an example:
The system detected that Vasilek CJSC is not included in the list of MOEK suppliers.
This allows employees to track errors before the document reaches the accounting department.
If all checks are successfully completed, then in one click a scanned copy of the document is sent to the OpenText electronic archive, and a link and a card with its metadata appear in SAP. An accountant or curator can always view in the electronic archive a list of documents for the required order and information about who processed the documents, in what time frame, and with what result.
Pyotr Petrovich looked into the electronic archive, ...
...to see who uploaded documents for order No. 1111.
After uploading data and scans from ABBYY FlexiCapture to SAP, a draft transaction appears with pre-filled data and links to scanned documents.
Draft wiring:
Then the accountant receives an email notification with a link to the finished draft and scans. The specialist no longer needs to struggle with paper. All he has to do is check the final amount of the transaction in the scans, the presence of a seal, signature and make the transaction. The accountant now spends less than a minute on it.
Results of the project
- Using ABBYY technologies, MOEK has simplified and accelerated not only accounting, but also financial control. To make a posting, employees no longer need to wait for the courier with the original documents - all they need to do is receive a scan with already verified data from the electronic archive in one click. True, a paper document is still needed. But now it can be sent to the accounting department later. When it arrives there, the employee will check the “Original received” box in the accounting system.
- Employees immediately receive all the necessary data about the transaction from scans, make transactions on time and prepare all documents for reporting in advance. Now they are not afraid of either internal or external inspections.
- Accountants conduct financial transactions 3 times faster, and MOEK closes the reporting period 10 days earlier.
- All MOEK branches store accounting documents in a single electronic archive. Thanks to this, you can find any invoice, contract or act of completion, as well as any attributes from them (amounts, VAT, product or service ranges) 4 times faster than before.
- The solution processes more than 2,6 million pages of documents per year.
Instead of a conclusion
MOEK uses for 2 years now and during this time I have collected statistics. It turned out that accountants make 95% of entries without making changes to drafts. This means that such postings can be skipped completely automatically in the future. It so happened that this product was actually the company’s first step towards introducing elements of “artificial intelligence” into the company’s business processes: MOEK is developing a corresponding program.
Other Russian companies are also automating the work of accounting: making it simpler and more convenient. For example, using ABBYY technologies, the financial control service "» Receives important business information 2 times faster and spends 20% less time searching for the necessary invoices and delivery notes. Intelligent information processing technologies help the holding's accounting department employees "» instantly find the necessary financial documents during mass tax audits. In 2019, the company’s specialists plan to process about 10 million pages of documents.
Do you want to know more about the MOEK and ABBYY project? On April 3 at 11:00, Deputy Head of the MOEK Information Technology Center Vladimir Feoktistov will talk about the details of the case at a free . Join if you want to ask questions.
Elizaveta Titarenko,
ABBYY corporate blog editor
Source: habr.com