Scanning, imaging and archiving.
Outgoing invoices.
Most countries in W-Europe allow companies to maintain copies of sales invoices only in an electronic format. No paper copies must be maintained and that will result in savings in filing both labor and filing space. The tax authorities however require that a paper copy can be generated at all times. When the image of the document can be linked to the transaction posting in the financial system, then more important savings can be realized later in the time required to look for a copy of the document.
Incoming invoices.
Most countries in W-Europe do not allow companies to maintain only electronic copies of invoices. There are however benefits in scanning all incoming invoices such as reduced time in later consultation and more importantly for invoice approval purposes.
When the image is linked to the transaction in the financial system, then later with a click of the mouse the image of the invoice can be brought on screen. I know a company that scans all incoming invoices because their tax department is located in another city and in some instances when making a VAT return, a copy of the invoice is required to decide upon its proper reporting lin in the VAT return. The image of the invoice can be linked to the financial transaction after the posting (late archiving) or during the posting process (early archiving).
Early archiving can be combined with workflow. In a simple one step workflow system, the image of the invoice (or better the anchor to its image) does create a workflow item in the inbox of the accountant. If several accountants are posting invoices then of course some coding is required prior to scanning in order to put the item in the correct inbox.. The accountant will then post invoices starting from its inbox. If the invoice does need approval prior to posting, the accountant can send an e-mail to the authorized approver. This message will then contain an anchor to the image. The approval itself is text that is added to the image and archived with it in space that is foreseen for it.
Posting of incoming invoices is in most cases however a simple matching process of invoice, order and goods receipt note. When there is a perfect match between these 3 documents, then the invoice is posted and no further approval is required. When there is however no match because of price or quantity differences, then the question is how to resolve this issue. In my last project, we configured SAP such that all such invoices were posted but blocked. Blocked invoices could not be paid. The purchasing department was informed about blocked invoices and they could adjust the purchase order or the goods receipt note or directly unblock the invoice. A daily routine was checking for each invoice if the blocking reason was still valid. The purchasing department when investigating the blocked invoices, could view the image of the invoice.