Overview
ERP System Integration

Essential to World-Class Finance Operations

ERP systems are the backbone of enterprise financial information, managing all of the data associated with financial transactions. Many companies have made significant investments in sophisticated ERP implementations, achieving positive returns on their investments. Additional significant cost reduction opportunities still exist for those who have not yet invested in the transformation of the business processes that interact with those ERP systems.

Traditional Finance Process: Not Optimized for Success

Many financial processes are based upon manual and paper-based systems. They are costly, slow, error-prone, and present myriad problems for the management of internal controls. The by-products of the manual process are easily visualized: Finance employees' desks piled high with paper, file cabinets overflowing, ever increasing copying and document transportation costs, etc. Partially automated solutions typically get the paper out of the process but present a new set of challenges: cross-indexing results in the duplication of effort at data entry, errors result in lost documents, line-of-business managers require training in two different and complex systems environments, workflows are rudimentary, and internal controls are weak.

The root cause of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the existing processes is not that the ERP system is flawed but that critical pieces of information are not online and integrated. Although ERP systems serve as the data repository and the system of record, ERP systems are not easily extended to the rest of the enterprise or to users outside of the enterprise.

The result is a highly inefficient communication and collaboration with a back and forth flow of email, faxes, copies, interoffice mail, express mail, etc. These inefficient business processes can be dramatically improved by:

  • Capturing all information online
  • Integrating that information with the ERP transaction record
  • Enabling Finance and line-of-business managers to interact with all information relative to that transaction through an intuitive browser-based interface

170 MarkView: Increasing Finance Professionals' Productivity

The 170 MarkView® Financial Suite provides best practice business processes that increase the productivity of the Oracle, Peoplesoft or SAP ERP power user -- the Finance professional working on accounts payable, accounts receivable, procurement, etc. For example, an Assets professional enters transaction information through the ERP Assets module. Important associated information, such as the purchase order, the received goods order, the bill and its payment information, warranty and support contract information are not readily available from within the ERP system. 170 MarkView for Asset Management permanently associates all related information with the asset transaction record, providing Finance and line-of-business managers one-click access to backup information at any time during the life of the asset. While traditional document management systems serve as electronic file cabinets for this information, they require dual indexing, which is prone to errors, and their accessibility is limited. The 170 MarkView Financial Suite reduces the cost of asset transaction management by reducing the administrative overhead required to create the transaction, to index and file the related information, to respond to inquiries, and to audit asset transactions.

170 MarkView: Intuitive, Rapid Access for Line-of-Business Managers

Line-of-business managers are not power users of ERP systems, yet they play a key role in financial business processes. In the Accounts Payable (AP) process, the AP professional enters the invoice in the ERP system and initiates the process for payment authorization. The line-of-business manager's role includes ordering and receiving products and services, reviewing invoices, resolving questions or discrepancies, coding GL distributions, and authorizing invoices for payment.

Paper-based processes require copying, filing, sending, signing, handwritten coding, sending, receiving, and final data entry. Traditional document management systems require cross-indexing, have proprietary, custom developed workflows that are not integrated with and do not leverage the ERP system, and use proprietary software for viewing and interacting with the document. With 170 MarkView, non-ERP users are able to access financial transactions through a browser and to interact with them in much the same way as they currently interact with paper documents. 170 MarkView renders electronic documents to appear in the browser as images of paper documents, a format familiar to line-of-business managers, who then interact with the image as they would a paper document using 170 MarkView markups such as Forward, Approve, etc. The intuitive browser-based user interface eliminates the need for training.

The 170 MarkView Financial Suite's best practice workflows are fully integrated with the ERP system. For example, the line-of-business approver is identified from the ERP hierarchy tables. An email notifies them that a transaction requires their review. The line-of-business manager then views the document in a browser, rather than using the ERP system itself. Distributions are coded using the ERP system's list of values, and are validated against the ERP system in real-time. Approval is recorded and all information generated by the line-of-business manager is automatically captured by the ERP system. 170 MarkView's workflow then forwards the completed transaction to the final approver in AP, again consulting the ERP system's hierarchy. The "one-touch" process enables the line-of-business employee to consult all relevant information before making the approval decision.

170 MarkView: Embracing All External Information

The enterprise receives information in many different formats: paper, fax, EDI, XML, emails, spreadsheets, etc., but ERP systems are not built to receive, process, and store these multiple types of information. The enterprise typically establishes separate, distinct processes for the receipt and processing of these different types of information. The duplication of effort required to manage the receipt and processing of different information formats is inefficient. Perhaps more importantly, these disparate processes weaken the enterprise controls infrastructure, increasing the enterprise's exposure to fraud. The 170 MarkView Financial Suite accepts all information sources, extracts the relevant information, enters it into the ERP transaction record, renders an image of the information as submitted, and attaches it to the ERP transaction record, ensuring that all data types are handled with a consistent process and that only one copy of the data is maintained.

170 MarkView: Product Offers Cost-Effectiveness, Reliability and Proven Migration Path

Custom-built solutions may provide some features and benefits similar to those of the 170 MarkView Financial Suite, but they consistently present challenges such as the availability of resources and the cost of support and upgrades. Because the resources and software are unique to the enterprise, the cost of acquisition and the total cost of ownership are considerably higher and the upgrade path is unknown.

170 Systems' solutions are fully supported, fully tested, deployment-proven products that are certified with ERP system releases. Enterprises can have confidence that these mission-critical solutions that interact with the ERP system will be reliable and that any support issues are quickly resolved. Further, the 170 MarkView Financial Suite is ready to upgrade when it is time to upgrade the ERP system.

Tight ERP System Integration Delivers Tangible Value

World-class financial transaction processing is best achieved by a solution that is tightly integrated with the ERP system. This ensures the lowest cost per transaction, improves service levels, delivers the strongest internal controls, and optimizes cash management. The 170 MarkView Financial Suite provides a compelling return on investment with a rapid payback and has dramatically improved the financial business processes of the world's leading organizations.

170 Systems® leverages the full power of Oracle, Peoplesoft and SAP ERP investments by redesigning, streamlining and automating the business processes that interact with these powerful systems. Existing business processes that require 10, 20 or more steps can be reduced to fewer than 5. Best practice workflows eliminate unnecessary steps and optimize the remaining steps for all participants, from ERP power users to line-of-business managers. Our customers benefit from a 3-year return on investment greater than 300%, a payback period of 7.4 months, and achieve significant improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of their finance operations . Contact us now for a copy of the ROI white paper.

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