Procountor’s purchase invoice scanning service provides a convenient way to convert incoming paper invoices and email invoices into electronic format and achieve more efficient invoice processing. Paper or email invoices are directed to an invoicing address provided by OpusCapita, where they are preprocessed and digitised. The invoice images and data captured from the invoices are available for the customer in electronic format on the next weekday after the arrival date.
Implementation
The scanning service can be ordered from Procountor sales myynti@finago.com or through company's own contact person. The customer can select mail scanning or mail and email scanning. Procountor sales will gladly help to select the right package for the company's operating purposes.
The scanning service is ready for production start about two weeks after the order has been handled. Procountor notifies the customer about the PO box address and the scanning email address when the scanning service is ready to use. After this, the customer can notify its invoice senders of the change and start receiving its paper invoices through the scanning service.
Receiving invoices
Paper invoices are directed from OpusCapita’s distribution network to the Procountor’s customer at the address PL XXXXX, large customer post code 00021 Laskutus or 00063 Laskunet or 00062 Laskutus. The PO box numbers are used to differentiate between the different companies and units.
Emailed invoices are directed from OpusCapita to Procountor’s customer by an email address containing the company name, country code, and service and identification code; example of the email address customer.FI.P.101231-1@docinbound.com.
Procountor notifies the customer of the company-specific email and PO address after processing the scanning service order.
Invoice processing, paper invoices
OpusCapita receives the mailed purchase invoices. The envelopes are opened by a machine and the content is picked out manually. The envelopes are disposed of. The content is sorted. The invoices are straightened and possible staples and paper clips are removed before scanning. Documents other than invoices and invoices that cannot be read optically are forwarded to the address agreed with the customer.
By default, all attachments to the invoices are scanned. Advertising material, customer magazines, price lists, catalogues and invoice copies are deleted without scanning. Payment reminders are processed in the same way as normal invoices.
Invoice processing, email invoices
OpusCapita receives the emailed purchase invoices by using the following criteria:
- Purchase invoices that are attached in PDF format.
- One PDF attachment is scanned as one invoice.
- An email can have 10 attachments at the maximum, and the maximum size of an attachment is 10 MB.
- No other address entries are allowed in the address field. If you want to email a copy of the invoice to the customer you must enter this email address in the cc field, for example.
- Attachments in a format other than PDF are not processed.
- The invoices or receipts sent to the email scanning service should be scanned with an actual scanner. They can’t be for example photos taken with a mobile phone of an invoice or receipt which are then converted to a PDF file. The scanner can’t unfortunately read these kind of invoices/receipts.
Optical interpretation of invoices
The following information is read from the invoices:
- The PO box or email address (identifies the receiving company, the information is used for addressing the invoice to the right company)
- Invoice number
- Invoice date
- Due date
- Currency
- Sum
- Reference no.
- IBAN
- BIC
- Sender’s name
- Sender’s Business ID (Finnish)
- Invoice type (debit/credit)
Row information
- Product name
- VAT percentage
- Row sum including VAT
Optically interpreted information is targeted at corresponding fields of the purchase invoice in Procountor. In addition, an image of the invoice in PDF format is created and added as an attachment to the purchase invoice.
The interpretation of information covers invoices written in Finnish, Swedish and English. For invoices written in other languages, only the invoice image is supplied and the missing information is forwarded as empty fields. The missing sum is filled with the value of zero. The invoice image must have the text Invoice (or Lasku / Faktura) in order for the scanning service to be able to read it's information. For example the Order confirmation -title isn't a suitable title for scanning.
Commission fees, VAT summaries etc. are not interpreted if they are not put into the row information of the invoice.
The mandatory information on the invoice is the receiver’s invoicing address (customer name, PO box and post office). Without this information the invoice cannot be delivered to the customer’s Procountor environment. If the invoicing address is missing, it will be copied from the envelope to the invoice, which is charged as a separate item for that invoice.
Scanning service processing time
Paper and email invoices have the same processing time starting form the moment when the invoice arrives to the scanning service. In practice the scanning of email invoices is faster because the invoice is immediately in the scanning service when the email is sent. In contrast sending the invoice by regular mail the mail distribution time is a lot longer compared to email.
OpusCapita has 24 hours service promise, if the quality of the invoice is standard and it can be handled normally. Counting of the 24h time frame will start from weekday mornings 10 am and will end to next weekday morning 10 am. If the invoice arrives 8 am Monday morning, the counting of the service promise will start at 10 am and the invoice can be expected to be in Procountor by Tuesday morning 10 am. Also, if the invoice arrives to the scanning service on Friday afternoon at 4 pm, counting of the service promise will start from next weeks Monday morning at 10 am and the invoice can be expected to be in Procountor by Tuesday at 10 am. Invoices are not scanned during weekends and holidays.
Post-processing of the scanned paper material
After scanning, the paper invoices are kept in an information-protected space for 2 months. After that period, they are disposed of by chipping to class 3 (10 x 10 mm) in accordance with DIN 32 757 protection classification. All chips are submitted for recycling in accordance with the Waste Management Act.