OpenText VIM: Streamlining Vendor Invoice Management In 2023

Enterprise resource planning requires OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) to optimize vendor bill management in SAP ERP. The OpenText system streamlines invoice routing, verification, and communication, improving accounts payable. This blog will examine OpenText VIM’s features, benefits, and implementation options. Operators seeking skill improvement or organizations trying to streamline invoice administration must comprehend OpenText VIM.

OpenText VIM (Vendor Invoice Management for SAP) is a solution that optimizes and simplifies the process of receiving, managing, routing, and monitoring invoices and related documentation. It allows stakeholders to quickly and efficiently access invoice information, such as relevant PO number and status of invoice payments. The package solution includes workflow approval functionalities and integration of standard SAP functionalities such as invoice verification and financial processing.

Table of Contents

What is OpenText vim?

OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) is a comprehensive solution developed by OpenText and seamlessly integrated into the core SAP ERP system. This software simplifies and improves the process of receiving, handling, verifying, directing, and tracking vendor bills. It also enables effortless cooperation with stakeholders in the Procure to Pay system.VIM is specifically engineered to streamline and simplify the invoice management process for businesses, guaranteeing precision and reducing the time required for invoice processing.

The basic process of OpenText VIM for SAP covers two types of end-to-end flows: automated paper to post invoice management (with OCR) process and e-invoicing process. The OCR component of OpenText VIM facilitates the scanning of documents, interprets generated images, and converts them to system text. This process occurs outside of SAP, specifically in the Invoice Capture Center (ICC), which serves as the OCR component.

OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) is a highly complete software system for managing bills. The demand for swift invoice processing is growing in parallel with the volume of vendor invoices. OpenText VIM offers several capabilities that automate and improve the invoice lifecycle.

SAP Invoice Management with OpenText

Imagine a future when the processing time for an invoice, from receipt to posting, is reduced to zero. The connection of SAP ERP and S/4HANA enables the realization of this ideal through the implementation of SAP Invoice Management with OpenText. The system provides functions for capturing invoices, validating them, forwarding them, and automating the approval process.

Invoice management is essential for organizations with multiple departments involved in processing one invoice, as it can be copied and stored multiple times. Without a proper invoice management system, the overall cycle takes too long and requires a large amount of manual activity. Manual activities may not necessarily reduce or prevent duplicate payments, postings, and lost invoices. To ensure accuracy and minimize manual errors, OpenText VIM aims to establish more efficient, proper, and simpler invoice management processes.

SAP Central Invoice Management

With SAP Central Invoice Management, customers who prefer cloud storage will find all they need. This platform consolidates invoice management across many platforms, automates invoice processing, and generates critical reports.

Invoice Matching

Automated SAP Invoice Matching can significantly improve operational efficiency, reduce errors, and save time and cost by accurately aligning invoices, receipts, and purchase orders.

The 3-way matching principle is a process used in accounts payable, specifically for vendor invoices, to control, check, and verify that the purchase order (PO), Goods Receipt (GR), and Invoice (INV) all match in terms of price, item, and quantity. This is crucial to ensure accurate payment and prevent double payments or fraudulent transactions.

The 3-way match principle is particularly useful in the Accounts Payable process, where the purpose is to avoid incorrect payments and transactions with fraudulent invoices. Transaction codes like /n/OPT/VIM_7AX8 can be used to monitor the status of invoices. Processed data can be seen in standard VIM tables such as “/OPT/VIM_1HEAD” and “/OPT/VIM_1ITEM”. Replication of data can be done through “/n/OPT/VIM_7AX2” for OCR scenario or “/n/OPT/VIM_7AX1” for the non-OCR scenario.

Third-Party integration :

SAP offers third-party solutions to manage vendor invoicing, enhancing flexibility and opportunities for businesses beyond its own products.

Benefits of OpenText VIM

Increased Efficiency: Automates manual activities, reducing errors and time wastage in invoice administration.
Reduced Processing and Approval Times: Uses approval routing tools and automated workflows to streamline invoice approval.
Increased Precision and Compliance: Verifies invoices based on precise criteria, ensuring data correctness and financial regulator compliance.
Savings on Costs: Automates manual operations, reducing operating expenses and physical storage space.
Improved Visibility and Control: Enables real-time monitoring of invoice management process, facilitating proactive decision-making, optimizing operations, and enhancing cash flow management.

Key Features of OpenText VIM

Automating Invoice Receipt

Invest in automation to reduce AP costs and speed up invoice processing. Digitalization, intelligent capturing, EDI, electronic invoicing, and interactive procedures make invoice automation interesting. To reduce expenses and processing time, invoice receipt digitization is crucial. Billing over business networks or email is faster than paper.

Image by OpenText | SAP

Enriching Invoice Data with Machine Learning

In SAP Invoice Management, data enrichment is an important part of the incoming processing loop. This means that numbers from the source invoice are used to fill in fields that are specific to SAP. The process can be as simple or complex as needed, and it uses a flexible structure that makes setting up and assigning to common invoice types easier.

Checking Invoices with Business Rules

Utilizing automated invoice management technologies can effectively reduce both time and financial costs associated with accounts payable. Existing business rules are in place to validate invoice data. The rules encompass validations for constant values, database columns, and dynamic function modules. Configure SAP Invoice Management by OpenText to manage errors for optimal efficiency.

Giving Out Tasks Based On Business Roles

In the context of SAP Invoice Management by OpenText, the blog talks about how important it is to assign the right users to each job when automating a process. It shows how to use business roles to give tasks and talks about both pre-configured roles and making new roles. The blog also talks about how touchless handling needs to be done slowly and with the help of experts in accounts payable. It talks about how important it is to include the right people, like super users, in the design process and make sure they know their roles in the system.

Posting and Parking Invoices

SAP Invoice Management’s accounts payable department aims to improve efficiency by implementing a straight-through-processing (STP) model, eliminating invoice exceptions and requiring minimal human intervention. However, achieving 100% STP is challenging due to complex invoice and business exceptions, and workflow blocks in the standard SAP Business Application Programming Interface.

Approving Invoices without Purchase Orders

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText handles non-PO invoices, which require additional scrutiny and approvals. Manual processes can be error-prone and time-consuming. SAP Invoice Management provides visibility into processing status, next approver, vacationing approvers, and fail-safes for departed employees. It allows control over authorization, approval levels, and overall approval strategy, ensuring accurate cost allocation and efficient processing.

Reporting and Compliance

This about the reporting features of SAP Invoice Management by OpenText, which let you see the status of invoices, resource usage, and process growth data in real time. It talks about tools for visualizing data and how they can help you meet legal needs. This chapter talks about how to use data, standard reports, KPIs, and analysis tools to make things easier, learn more, make improvements seem more reasonable, and make sure you’re following the rules.

Deployment Options

SAP Invoice Management Application Deployment Options

SAP Invoice Management is an add-on to SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA, available for deployment in various ways.
It requires a secure content repository for invoice storage and an information extraction service for document conversion.
Deployment options include on-premise, private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid deployment.
Factors to consider include existing licenses, information security, network latency, and server load.
SAP S/4HANA is often run in a private cloud environment for new customers.
Supporting services like the content repository and information capture solution are available through the OpenText Cloud Platform.
All components can be installed separately on-premise or in a hyperscaler-managed environment.
Stateless services like capture can be hosted in a multi-tenant cloud solution, while critical content repositories might be kept on-premise.
Communication with the capture service is different in on-premise and multi-tenant cloud services.
End users can work through the SAP GUI or SAP Fiori UX, or specific Windows-based installations.

What is the process type in Opentext VIM?

A process type is a predefined configuration in OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) that controls how the system handles invoices. It lays down the steps used by the workflow for processing invoices, including the rules, validations, and procedures. To ensure consistency and speed in processing, VIM’s process type offers a defined method for handling invoices in accordance with individual business needs.

What is VIM workplace in sap?

The VIM Workplace in SAP Vendor Invoice Management provides a streamlined and intuitive interface for managing invoice processing, tracking, exception handling, and reporting. In addition to streamlining the invoice administration process, it boosts efficiency by making invoice-related actions inside the organization more visible and controllable.

Conclusion:

E-invoicing, on the other hand, involves sending invoices electronically to SAP through EDI or Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). IDocs or Intermediate Documents are used to send invoice details to SAP, triggering the usual process of processing data and checking for duplicates. The general transaction code for IDocs is “WE10” in the process, which helps search for a specific IDoc. OpenText VIM for SAP is a packaged business solution for vendor invoice management provided by OpenText. The primary goal is to establish more efficient, proper, and simpler invoice management processes to ensure accuracy and minimize manual errors. The basic process includes automated paper to post invoice management (with OCR) and eInvoicing Process.

In summary, OpenText VIM for SAP simplifies the invoice management process, ensuring accuracy and minimizing manual errors.

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OpenText VIM: Streamlining Vendor Invoice Management in 2023