ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices is our first project to utilize artificial intelligence (AI), and there is no better place to start than processing invoices. Now, invoices are automatically entered and processed within a couple of minutes!
Introduction
We had the honor of interviewing Jerod Anderson, Director of Enterprise Solutions, with the City of Coppell, TX, about their accounts payable business process to learn more about how the ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices solution impacted their organization.
About the City of Coppell, TX
Coppell is a city with a population of 42,000 located in the suburb of Dallas and a community in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The City of Coppell has 400 full-time employees, 100 seasonal and part-time staff.
What cost savings impacted your organization by adopting ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices?
We are decentralized and plan to remain that way. We have staff members working on processing AP in every department. In Engineering, there are three staff members that spend three days a week processing invoices. With ABBYY FlexiCapture, when PO entries are in the system from the beginning, we can receive an invoice and get it to payment within minutes instead of it taking days to process! Therefore, Engineering can reduce the number of employees processing invoices from three to one, and the total time to complete weekly invoices will go from days to hours.
The Problem
What issues were you looking to solve?
We knew that we were buying a leading-edge ERP system, but we were still entering invoices manually. None of the data was automatically getting imported into the system, even with workarounds. Errors occurred, and the time it took to process needed improvement. We wanted to combat the user error and increase the speed of processing the payments.
Ultimately, why did you choose ABBYY FlexiCapture as your solution?
We looked at other intelligent capture tools, but they were not robust enough for what we needed. They would require too much time for design and configuration. ABBYY FlexiCapture captures that information automatically with artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML).
I first saw ABBYY FlexiCapture about two years ago from Gareth, MCCi’s VP of Technology Innovations (Chief Technology Evangelist). At the time, we had just decided to go with an ERP system called MUNIS. The processes were too manual, and we wanted to find a solution that streamlined our AP process. We believed that ABBYY FlexiCapture was the answer.
MCCi jumped on a call with us to show a live demo with 12 of our standard invoices, and we watched the system come back with 99% accuracy. We were impressed.
We had to work with our ERP vendor to provide the application programming interface (API) to get the ball rolling with ABBYY. Once we had that, we got it working with MUNIS in six weeks. We now have our AP process automated.
The Solution
What is the most positive change you anticipate from the implementation?
There is a ton of excitement from the AP team. They have seen it work, and they know that it is going to make their job easier!
What lessons have you learned that could help others when adopting ABBYY FlexiCapture as their AP processing solution, integrated with their AP ERP systems?
- ABBYY’s FlexiCapture platform could be used for any standard form where advanced OCR is needed. The fact that it can remember a document type is very useful.
- It could perhaps capture information related to W9s or W4 forms.
- And we use Energov to process hundreds of code enforcement tickets – we are considering the possibility of digital tickets rather than paper. ABBYY FlexiCapture could be used to capture those citations to import into our Energov system.
The Future
Is there additional information you would like to provide in the way you use our solutions, and how it will improve your work processes?
- We will continue to use TCM (Tyler Content Manager) for the finance side of MUNIS because of its deep integration that is built into our system.
- We are looking to get a Laserfiche integration to work with NeoGov for the HCM or Human Resources portion of MUNIS.
- The NEOGOV Onboard integration will send documents straight to the Laserfiche HR repository where employee records are kept.
Customer Service Feedback
How is your experience working with our team?
MCCi’s team has been great. There are always great ideas that come from our collaboration, and there are plenty of staff members that provide resources. Everything was positive! The delays were never on MCCi or ABBYY.
What other options would you like to see in your solution for the future?
I would like for ABBYY to do a better job of handling handwriting and text that has is highlighted or marked up.
Specifically related to our process, I would like to eliminate the need for human validation. That will come as ABBYY learns more and more of our invoices.
When sharing with others about your solution, what would you say?
“ABBYY FCi is our first stab into artificial intelligence (AI), so we can quickly process invoices. We can have them automatically entered and processed within a couple of minutes!”
