The data is already written, and it sits in a file made for the job
An e-invoice arrives as an XML file, and in an XML every piece of information has a declared place of its own. The VAT number sits in the VAT number field, the taxable amount in the taxable amount field, and every detail line is a line of its own with quantity, price and tax rate
In a PDF the amounts have to be found by looking at where they sit on the page, and every supplier lays the page out their own way. In the XML the field has the same name for everyone, and that is why reading it holds up
If someone in your company is retyping by hand numbers that are already written clean inside a file, you are paying for that work twice
What an automation can be made to do
Starting from the XML, Muffin Suite has the computer do the steps the person at the screen does today, and there are more of them than you would think
- posting the invoice in the business software you already use, with the fields taken from the file instead of the keyboard
- the check against the order, line by line, to see whether prices and quantities are the ones you agreed
- the check against the delivery note (DDT), to see whether what you are being invoiced for really did arrive
- the routing, meaning getting the invoice to the right person depending on what is in it or who sent it
- filing it under a sensible name in a sensible folder, instead of the unreadable code it arrives with
The first one on the list is the delicate one. Do not take it for granted that your business software imports the XML properly on its own. Many of them do import it, but they take the bare minimum, the header and little else, and leave out precisely the detail lines you need for the checks
When the import exists on paper and the person still has to reopen the invoice to fill in by hand the fields left empty, the automation works on the screens the way an operator would and completes what the import does not cover, even when the program has no direct integration with the outside world at all
The work that is left is the work that counts
Automating the reading of the XML takes nobody's job away, it takes away the typing, which is the part of the job that calls for knowing nothing
What is left is the real reconciliation. The price that does not match the order, where somebody has to decide whether to dispute it or accept it. The supplier who invoices a partial delivery in a way all of their own. The credit note that attaches to an invoice from three months back. The goods that turned up with no delivery note
On cases like these the automation stops and tells you, it does not try to guess, because an invoice posted wrong in silence costs more than an invoice standing still waiting for an answer
The result is that the person only looks at the invoices that have something worth looking at, and finds the others already posted, with the checks done
If you want to see how the pieces fit together in practice there is the guide on recording supplier invoices automatically, and if you want an idea of what that work weighs today you can go through Work out the savings