Functional Overview

The functional diagram below illustrates docuflow AP at a high level followed by a brief summary of each step.

For more detail on each step and their configuration and options, please refer to the additional sections in this document:

docuflow allows you to choose your method of capturing/scanning and ingesting your invoices. Once the invoice is in your content repository, docuflow is configured to recognize they are ready to be sent to docuflow in SAP to start the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow.



It is ideal that your Invoice Capture process is able to recognize original invoice metadata at the time of comital to your content repository. Any metadata captured can be sent to SAP to assist the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow and drives Step 1 Initial Invoice Processing, drastically improving efficiencies in the overall processing of an invoice.

This step is done automatically in the background by docuflow.

This is the first step of the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow within SAP. This step can be configured for:

As mentioned above in the Invoice Capture Stage, any original invoice metadata that is available can be leveraged in the above configuration docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow options.

Users work from the docuflow TrackLink queue which can be filtered and sorted and customized to be the most effective for your AP processing team. In addition to processing the invoice work-item, it also has a host of additional functionality for note taking, raising exceptions, reprocessing, and much more.

In addition to flexible docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow agent / role resolution setup, AP processing team can also configure docuflow TrackLink to load balance work-items across a group.

It is in the Initial Invoice Processing stage that once an invoice is created (parked, held, posted), docuflow automatically creates a link to this invoice in your content management system.

After Initial Invoice Processing is an optional Review stage. Reviewers are determined by the docuflow Core Agent table, or can selected manually by the AP Clerk if configured. If manually selected by the AP Clerk, there can be only 1 potential Reviewer chosen.

The review step can be configured to be skipped for PO based invoices as well as skip invoices up to a maximum amount.

Rejections (based on configurable rejection codes), note taking, raising exceptions, display original attachments as well as adding optional additional document to your invoice and content repository are all standard functionality. Rejections return the invoice to the Initial AP stage.

After Initial Invoice Processing and optional Review, and after any exceptions are triaged, is the approval stage. docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow comes with up to 5 levels of approval. Approvers are determined by the docuflow Agent Approver table (with dollar value thresholds), or can selected manually by the AP Clerk or Reviewer. If manually selected by the AP Clerk or Reviewer, there can be only 1 potential approver chosen.

Approver determination is also fully customizable if you would like to implement your own role resolution.

The approval step can be configured to be skipped for PO based invoices as well as skip invoices up to a maximum amount.

Rejections (based on configurable rejection codes), note taking, raising exceptions, display original attachments as well as adding optional additional document to your invoice and content repository are all standard functionality. Rejections return the invoice to the Initial AP stage.

In addition, external / outside of SAP approvals are available based on docuflow's integration with your content repository or any non-SAP workflow runtime workflow engine, included mobile applications.

The last step in the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow is final Invoice Processing.

This step can be configured for:

This step is optional, and is often a different agent or group of agents than initial AP, as the last step in the workflow it is also the last chance to manipulate/check the invoice before posting and thus submitted to your standard SAP payment run.

Exception Management is a big part and strength of the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow. Each dialogue step (ie: a work-item that is delivered to a user or group of users) has the option to "manually" raise an exception.

We say "manual", as each step whether it be a dialogue step or a background step (a step in the workflow that is behind the scenes/automatic), can also be configured for pre delivered auto-exceptions as well as custom auto-exceptions. Auto Exceptions are those that occur before and Initial AP Clerk, Reviewer, Approver, or Final AP Agent receive a work-item.

For exceptions of either variety, a work-item is generated to an agent/set of agents via configuration who in turn process / resolve the exception. When resolved, the work-item returns to the stage in which the exception originated.

Exceptions can also be configured to allow termination of the workflow (duplicates, etc) as well as customized to trigger a non-docuflow process, as well as optionally select approvers.

Note that you can also choose to configure or customize the auto-completion of an exception as well (regardless whether it was raised automatically or manually).

An example of raising an auto-exception would be for a PO based invoice in which the goods have not yet been received. The invoice (whether parked or not created) work-item can be automatically routed to an "Goods Not Received" exception.

An example of auto-completion of an exception would be in the same scenario - you may choose to have a nightly job run that determine whether any work-items in the "Goods Not Received" exception have now been fully received. If they have been received, the exception is automatically set to resolved and the work-item returns to the next stage in the workflow.

You can optionally configure any SAP metadata to be sent "back" to your content management system throughout the lifecycle of the invoice in the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow.

This sending of metadata from SAP to your content management system before and after each every stage in the workflow, ensuring your content management system (CMS) is in sync.

Some potential reasons to do this are:

This step is done automatically in the background by docuflow.

docuflow TrackLink is your home base for almost all elements related to the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow.

Leveraging an SAP ALV "report" approach, the TrackLink toolset provides the following functionality:

For more detail please refer to the section "Working with TrackLink" located in this document.

Each dialogue step of the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow can be configured with deadline monitoring. Deadline monitoring is a feature of the SAP workflow runtime engine of which the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow is built upon.

Each rule configured can be assigned a number of days in which a work-item must be processed within. If this does not occur, the work-item is automatically escalated. Escalation agents (or deadline agents) can be configured per rule or according to your needs such as based on your HR organizational structure.

Each dialogue step of the docuflow Accounts Payable Workflow can be configured for basic and customized notifications.

Basic notifications send an email based on the agents SAP profile. This can be optionally customized to send notifications based on your preferred corporate communication platform.