AP INVOICE PROCESSING
CTI provides a service option for Accounts Payable Departments to remove the burdensome task of receiving paper and emailed invoices from vendors. By using CTI as a service to convert paper to images and extract all the relevant data from the invoice, your manual invoices are turned into electronic invoices which integrate directly into your AP automation solution or your financial system.
INVOICE RECEIVING OPTIONS
CTI provides for receiving invoices from vendors in the following methods
- Paper sent to a PO Box by vendor
- Email of invoice image by vendor
- Electronic receipt of scanned images
Paper Invoice Collection
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Paper Invoice Preparation
CTI provides each customer a United States PO Box address. The customer provides their assigned PO Box address to their vendors for them to mail their invoices to. Daily, from Monday to Friday, CTI visits the post office to collect all the mail received by the PO boxes. Each PO Box has an assigned CTI mail bin per each customer to ensure that the collected mails from all the different PO boxes are not co-mingled.
Scanning Process
After prepping each customer’s physical batch of invoices is transmitted to the CTI Scanning Team. Once scanning has been completed, a 100% visual check is performed on all scanned images to ensure that any double-feeds, skewed, folded or light scans are corrected. A page check is also performed to ensure that all physical invoice pages have been scanned.
Email Receiving
CTI can receive invoices emailed directly from vendors. Each emailed invoice file is registered into CTI’s AP processing system and assigned a document ID to enable an electronic audit trail for tracking purposes.
Electronic Receipt of Scanned Images
CTI can receive via secure FTP electronic images (PDF, DOC or TIF) of the invoices the customer has received from their vendors. CTI’s AP processing system includes an automated FTP polling utility that will check pre-defined FTP server directories at pre-defined times for new invoice files to download. Each downloaded invoice file is registered into CTI’s AP processing system and assigned a document ID to enable an electronic audit trail for tracking purposes.
Invoice Indexing
CTI provides for invoice data capture as required by the customer from both
1. Header Fields
2. Line Item Fields
Indexing Process
CTI can receive via secure FTP electronic images (PDF, DOC or TIF) of the invoices the customer has received from their vendors. CTI’s AP processing system includes an automated FTP polling utility that will check pre-defined FTP server directories at pre-defined times for new invoice files to download. Each downloaded invoice file is registered into CTI’s AP processing system and assigned a document ID to enable an electronic audit trail for tracking purposes.
Invoice Fields
Customers determine the fields to be captured from the invoice at both the header and line item level.
Some of the common header index fields requested are Vendor Name, Invoice Date, Invoice Number, Billing Point-of-Contact, PO Number, Sales Tax, Shipping & Handling and Total Invoice Amount.
Some of the common line item information index fields requested are Item Number, Description, Quantity, Unit Price, Unit of Measure and Extended Line Price.
Data Validation
Customers may supply a data file, iterated daily or weekly, for CTI to be able to correlate information such as the customer’s assigned Vendor IDs or Vendor Numbers for their vendors or PO numbers for their purchases.
Quality Control
CTI’s data capture process yields a minimum 99.95% accuracy on a per character basis for machine printed invoices.
Turnaround Time
CTI typically turns around complete processing for the indexing cycle of a batch of invoices (pickup- to-upload or download-to-upload) within 24 hours and offers a guaranteed turnaround service level of 48 hours.
Image File and Indexing Transmission to ERP or AP Financial System
CTI transmits the indexed data files (CSV, TXT or XML) containing the invoice information and their corresponding electronic invoice images to pre-defined directories on the customers’ servers via secure FTP. This is an automated process done within CTI’s AP processing system. An email notification is sent to the customer for every completed upload. The transmission process can be scheduled per customer requirements.
Invoice Exception Routing
If required, invoices with exceptions (i.e. missing Vendor ID or Vendor Name, missing Total Invoice Amount, etc.), can be uploaded to specific exception directories in customers’ servers via secure FTP for routing to their exception processing staff.