AP life hacks - Valentine's edition
Blair, a Marketing Communications Manager who works closely with the Customer Success team here at Medius, is sharing the love with a brief overview of the 3 gadgets we will be covering in this quarter’s AP life hacks.
AP Hack #1: Supplier match settings
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Sophie works as an AP Clerk for a greeting card company and has discovered that many vendors send invoices in a different "Unit of Measure" than what is on the PO. The PO always states the exact number of ink cartridges, but the vendor invoices in PACKS of cartridges. This causes the invoice to stop in the “Analyze” step in Medius with a deviation. Sophie has tried asking the vendor to change their process, but they say it is not possible with the current system.
Current state before the hack
Ignoring supplier fine-tuning might lead to more manual handling of invoices because of increased manual connection, or that Medius incorrectly identifies deviations.
Life Hacks Solution
In Medius APA it is possible to configure which connection types should be used on each vendor. By default, all vendors will follow the company configuration, but in some cases this is not ideal. Supplier specific match settings will override the company configuration, making it possible to fine-tune which levels of automatic connection are used on suppliers.
Benefits
- Gain more control of the order-based invoice workflow
- Increase automation and touchless processing
1. Turn off the "line detail" level matching on the specific vendor. This allows matching to happen on the line total amount
2. Invoices should now flow through the system if there are no deviations
Time estimate: Less than 3 minutes. If you get stuck, search for the "Supplier Order Based Matching" section in our Success Portal or view our FAQ's.
AP Hack #2: Connection tolerances
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Katie works as an AP Manager for a large balloon manufacturing company. They have set up Medius to connect PO-based invoices on either part number, line total amount, or head total amount. She has noticed that many invoices stop in the connect step because the invoice is missing the part number, and the line amounts are different by a few cents.
Current state before the hack
Invoices stop for manual connection due to missing item numbers and amounts that do not match up, causing frustration for users when it seems obvious how the invoice should connect to the POs.
Life Hacks Solution
Connection tolerances are a useful way to remove frustrations in the connection process.
An admin or AP user can specify an acceptable range (tolerance) in amount or percentage, for which automatic connection should happen on header- or line-level when the amounts are not an exact match. This can be done on the company and supplier levels.
Benefits
- Increased automatic connection
1. Go to the company or supplier settings
2. Under the tab “Order based”, go to “Tolerances”
3. Set up a connection tolerance on the head or line level to the desired amount (“X amount” or “X percent”). You can set separate limits for positive and negative deviations if needed.
4. This change will allow automatic connection between invoice and purchase orders or goods receipts as long as the amounts are within “X amount” or “X percent” of each other.
Time estimate: Less than 3 minutes. If you get stuck, search for the "automatic and manual connection" section in our Success Portal or view our FAQ's.
AP Hack #3: Integrating Medius APA with a contract
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Ken is an AP Manager working with his Contract Manager colleague, Elizabeth, on a commercial agreement for a chocolate vendor. This will be a monthly payment plan that would benefit from creating a payment schedule. However, Ken is unable to view both the contract document and create a payment schedule on the same screen, causing inaccuracies that do not meet the contract's terms.
Current state before the hack
Medius APA users who need to create and manage recurring payment plans, such as rent and bills, have no visibility of commercial agreements in one place. Lack of insight into contractual terms when creating regular payment plans.
Life Hacks Solution
Enhance visibility of contract terms against recurring invoicing plans with Medius' inbuilt integration between APA and Contract Management. Once a contract enters Medius Recurring, users will have complete visibility of the invoicing and contract data in one place.
AP users can access invoicing information without having to leave their primary APA module. Medius Contracts will remain the place where contract information, milestones, and documentation are managed. When sending a record to Medius Recurring, Contract Managers can select a primary agreement to be shown within the image viewer. AP users can then view the document in Medius Recurring when creating an invoicing plan.
Benefits
- Streamline operations
- Visibility of contracts and recurring payment plans in one place
- Validate a payment schedule against commercial terms for Medius APA users
- Ensure that payment plans are created in line with contractual terms
- Automatic processing of invoices received for a contract with an invoicing plan
1. This functionality is only available to clients using both Medius AP Automation and Medius Contracts (you must have the Cairo release)
2. Once your system has been upgraded to the Cairo release, please contact your Account Manager to discuss the process of integrating these modules
Time estimate: A couple of hours. If you get stuck, reach out to your account manager.
Have a few extra minutes?
View the second half of our Valentine's Life Hacks story below.