ABBYY Europe, a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and linguistic technologies, has improved and standardised automated invoice processing for Röchling Automotive AG & Co. KG. The business now uses ABBYY’s FlexiCapture for Invoices at branch offices in four countries to process invoices received via e-mail and paper format. The software captures the documents, extracts the invoice data and sends it to the SAP systems. Röchling has now optimised previously complicated and time-consuming workflows, enhancing networking between locations and restructuring invoice processing to become more uniform.

Röchling is a supplier of plastic parts for the automotive industry. The company's subsidiaries in Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium and the United States receive invoices from around 2,000 suppliers in different languages and formats, totalling up to 50,000 invoices annually. Previously, invoice data was automatically captured at respective locations and imported into SAP workflows and archiving systems. The incumbent solution did not support either distributed capture, which enables the capture at remote locations via web scanning stations and multi-channel input of documents from various devices or electronic invoice processing. Data access was also slow.

"In the US, 90 per cent of invoices are received as e-mail attachments. Invoices in Europe are still very much in paper format, although digital invoices are slowly catching on," explained Andreas Lupfer, team leader PLM / SAP application support for Röchling Automotive SE & Co. KG. "The previous solution was unable to process e-mail invoices – only documents received from connected scanners. In order to process all invoices via a single system we had to first print out electronically received invoices, then scan these into PDF format along with incoming paper invoices. It was a highly labour intensive procedure that is now obsolete."

Now, paper invoices are scanned locally and e-mail invoices are exported directly into the ABBYY solution. ABBYY capture software extracts header and footer data automatically. Documents requiring manual review or correction of capture results are assigned to the responsible administrative personnel at verification stations. Validated data is then forwarded to the specialist departments for invoice review and approval and imported into the corresponding workflows in the SAP system. In contrast to the prior solution, ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices offers automatic system training. Typical invoices are manually selected from the system as models for future invoices from a given supplier (to determine the location of additional invoice fields, for example). This enables continuous optimisation of the quality of extracted data and improves the capture of invoices of new suppliers. With the document router of the ABBYY partner, KGS Software, can extract invoice data from PDFs that are directly entered into the appropriate SAP processes for further processing.

"We needed a solution that was able to process invoices in all formats and languages that enabled uniform processing across multiple locations," said Vivien Rebsdat, IT director at Röchling Automotive SE & Co. KG. "ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices met all our requirements, delivering exceptional invoice capture results and eliminating a huge amount of administrative work for our employees. We are very satisfied with ABBYY support. The next step will be for us to implement processing of invoices compliant with the 'ZUGFeRD' electronic invoicing standards using ABBYY."

ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices is a turnkey solution for automated invoice capturing for the accounts payable process. Based on the enterprise capture platform, ABBYY FlexiCapture, the solution provides key functionalities while remaining flexible and agile to customer-specific needs, company-internal processes and IT infrastructures. The solution is essential for efficient streamlining of invoice processes, affording complete transparency across the entire invoice cycle and helping minimise business (e.g. thanks to compliance with legal regulations for invoice validation and processing). The solution is also adaptable to enable capture and processing of other document types used by businesses, such as forms for customer communications, personnel documents, orders and incoming post, therefore maximising security of investment.

Additional information on invoice processing for SAP can be found at http://www.abbyy.com/en/sap-input-management.