Delivery note processing: For some, it is purely routine; for others, it is an administrative pain and disruption to any workflow. But what are the differences? On the one hand, certainly in terms of know-how, for example due to the industry, but also in terms of technological progress and the approach. While the big players have interfaces among themselves, this is not yet the case at many other companies. However, clean delivery note processing is absolutely essential, especially with regard to the subsequent invoicing processes. If this is messed up, the entire invoice workflow comes to a standstill and is delayed unnecessarily. In order to prevent this, special attention should be paid to delivery note processing, because possibilities for simple and therefore efficient processing are available today.
Especially administrative work such as delivery note processing not only requires a lot of time, but also concentrated and undisturbed work, which may work perfectly in theory, but sometimes looks different in practice. Let’s take a medium-sized kiosk as an example: Even before the kiosk saleswoman starts work, the daily newspapers and latest magazines are delivered. The saleswoman comes to work in the morning and compares the order with the delivery bill and the goods. At the same time, however, she also has to provide the news signs and open the kiosk, as the first customers are already waiting in five minutes. The next order, this time for beverage, comes in promptly. She was barely able to process the delivery bill for the newspapers and magazines correctly. In the meantime, customers are queuing up, the delivery note processing of the drinks has to wait and can then also only be processed bit by bit, as it is distracted by customers from time to time. The manual comparison of orders with goods and delivery bill plus simultaneously stressed sales assistants often make this work a messy affair. So why not relieve the employees of tedious and error-prone work and simplify the processing of delivery notes?
Thanks to software, so-called OCR software, delivery note processing is made much easier in one fell swoop. Instead of manually comparing and posting everything, the kiosk saleswoman now only has to take a photo of the delivery bill with her smartphone camera. The software extracts all relevant data from the delivery bill, i.e. what exactly was delivered, and passes this data on so that everything can be booked automatically in the system. Manual processing is thus eliminated. The system then automatically inquires, for example, whether the delivery bill states that the goods x, y and z have been delivered and a quantity x of each, and whether this is correct. The kiosk saleswoman then only has to confirm the delivery. She is thus relieved of a tedious and administrative part of her work, which allows her to focus better and more concentrated on her main work in sales with customers, which most employees will more than welcome. But not only that. The clean and error-free processing of delivery notes provides a valuable and solid basis for all subsequent invoicing processes.
Invoices for goods are received and compared with the delivery notes to determine whether the invoices can be approved and the invoice workflow triggered at all. If there is a discrepancy, the invoice pops up in the system. It is possible that the supplier has charged too much or that an administrative error occurred during the previous delivery note processing. With the clean processing of delivery notes, such errors are not only eliminated but through the extraction supported by the OCR solution, all relevant data flows into the system at the same time with an excellent quality, which leads to fewer problems in the subsequent processes. Now the invoicing process can be automatically linked to dossiers, for example, invoice x had these ten delivery notes, these ten delivery notes were based on these twenty orders and so on and so forth. The link to dossiers is particularly interesting for collective invoices when suppliers only send an invoice once a month and suddenly charge all orders.
In order to realize an efficient invoice workflow from A to Z, a solid starting point must be created with delivery note processing using powerful OCR.
