Overview
Self-Service Finance Solutions

A "Win-Win" for Finance Departments & Business Units

Self-service is ubiquitous in our culture -- drive-through ATMs, 24x7 online banking and shopping, and flight check-in kiosks at the airport are familiar examples -- and all part of the trend of individuals completing transactions by themselves, faster and with greater satisfaction. Implementing accessible self-service enterprise solutions lowers a business' costs while providing a better end-user experience, creating a "win-win" for all involved. Finance managers, too, have the opportunity to extend self-service capabilities to their organizations and reap the many benefits - increased service levels to line-of-business managers, auditors and suppliers and lower costs to process each transaction.

Self-Service: Direct Route to Reducing Costs, Improving Service Levels and More

Finance managers are constantly working to provide better service to the business units and corporate functions they support, and many have found self-service capabilities to be the most attractive solution. By deploying self-service capabilities, finance departments give line-of-business managers quick access to all of the information and functions required to complete their tasks. The benefits accrued to both Finance and the lines-of-business include:

  • Cost Savings - A significant proportion of the savings associated with business process automation are driven by self-service. Reducing inquiries to Finance drives cost savings in Finance and in the lines of business while increasing Finance staff morale because resources can be redeployed to higher value-added activities.
  • Improved Service Levels - When business units and suppliers are able to make inquiries, access, and complete ERP transactions on-demand, their service levels are optimized. The resultant reduction in finance workload increases their transaction processing capacity, further increasing service levels.
  • Strengthened Internal Controls - Optimized financial business processes minimize the number of key controls. Fully automated processes and a self-service environment ensure adherence to key controls, and capture a complete audit trail of each step in the process. Auditors with self-service access can review audit queues and select items for on-demand review, achieving a dramatic reduction in the cost of internal and external audit.
  • Reduced Cycle Times - By reducing cycle times, self-service solutions can enable companies to capture prompt payment discounts and avoid late payment penalties. It also positions the company to introduce innovative payment terms that can provide the opportunity for additional prompt pay discounts.
  • Increased Accuracy - Because self-service capabilities extend the process to the manager or end-user with the subject-matter expertise such as first-hand knowledge of distribution codes and other data, transactions are often processed correctly the first time, reducing errors.

Key Requirements for Successful Self-Service Financial Solutions

Self-service solutions have to be well designed and well implemented to be successfully deployed and adopted. To meet these criteria, self-service finance solutions must:

    Be Fully Integrated with the ERP - Along with being part of the transactional flow, managers often need access to system information -- for example, to check the status of a payment for a key supplier. The best practice is to provide line-of-business managers with a user interface that is fully integrated with the ERP, but is intuitive and browser-based, enabling the manager to participate in the process as efficiently and productively as possible, and with no training required. It is very important that the data the line-of-business manager interacts with is the actual ERP data and not a replicated database. Duplication of data, systems, and workflows results in weak controls, inaccurate reporting, and decision-making based on outdated or inaccessible information.

    Not Require a Separate Client for Every End-User - From an IT perspective, it is unrealistic for every participant in a financial process to have a dedicated end-user client installed on their desktop for accessing the ERP system. A browser-based approach is best for line-of-business managers. And, even for those users who do have access to the ERP, the complexity and depth of the ERP's interface typically exceeds the user's knowledge of or comfort with the system, providing much more information than is needed.

170 MarkView® Financial Suite: Successfully Enabling Self-Service Financial Solution
170 MarkView Express and advanced ERP Integration are key elements of the 170 MarkView Financial Suite that give organizations the ability to deploy self-service solutions to meet the needs of the many end-users. 170 MarkView Express presents the line-of-business manager with an easy-to-use interface to financial transaction processes for timely, informed decisions on pending transactions. 170 MarkView Express can display any information that Finance believes would help the line-of-business manager in reaching a decision on the transaction. The end-user is not forced to grapple with the complexity of the ERP systems and can simply focus on the task(s) they need to accomplish. 170 MarkView Express increases service levels provided to line-of-business managers, auditors, and suppliers, while lowering a company's cost of processing financial transactions.

170 MarkView Express

In addition to giving end-users access to financial applications via a web browser, 170 MarkView also makes the information that users work with more accessible. Because the page provides a more familiar interface than the lines of data typical of an electronic transaction, 170 MarkView renders electronic documents so that they appear to the user as a page, giving Finance and line-of-business managers an easy-to-read format to find important information such as supplier address, quantity ordered, etc. The user then interacts with the page using markups, which function as stamps would for paper documents.

In order to mitigate risks and reduce errors, organizations need to apply the same, consistent process to all types of documents, regardless of originating source or format (e.g., paper or electronic). Participants in financial transaction workflows should not have to follow one process for paper and a different process for electronic documents. The 170 MarkView Financial Suite provides a single workflow and user interface for each process, and its self-service capabilities addresses paper-based and electronic documents.

170 MarkView Self-Service Invoice - 170 MarkView Self-Service Invoice, combined with 170 MarkView for Accounts Payable, enables those outside of Accounts Payable to initiate an invoice from within a browser. The 170 MarkView Self-Service Invoice interface guides the line-of-business manager step-by-step through the process of entering the invoice and lets the user attach any backup documents that they feel are needed: a letter from the vendor, a spreadsheet, etc.

170 MarkView for Expense Management - The 170 MarkView for Expense Management solution eliminates the need to send paper receipts around the organization by internal or external mail. Receipts are brought online and associated with the corresponding expense report, enabling a streamlined expense solution that eliminates delays inherent with a paper-based process. The employee simply faxes a copy of their receipts with a barcode cover page from their online expense report submission that associates the receipts with the expense report record in the ERP. The employee receives confirmation of the submission of receipts and can access the images of the receipts at any time from within the ERP system, as is often needed when credit card bills arrive. While this is a relatively small productivity improvement for an individual employee, the larger employee population can drive significant cost savings, as well as strengthen internal controls and mitigate fraud associated with the reimbursement process. Other benefits include:

  • Ensuring receipt submission and availability for approvals
  • Reducing liabilities (no lost or missing receipts)
  • Viewing expenses by management hierarchy, expense category, or violation types and drill-down to line details and receipts
  • Improving employee productivity and satisfaction
  • Reducing reimbursement cycle times; repaying employees faster
  • Re-billing customers more efficiently and accurately

Once self-service solutions are deployed within an organization, end-users readily adopt and embrace them and will not consider going back to "the old way of doing things." This is as true for line-of-business managers participating in financial transactions as it is for travelers using flight check-in kiosks. In addition to increased end-user satisfaction, the organizational dividends accrued by deploying these solutions (reduced Finance costs, strengthened internal controls, shorter cycle times and more) transform self-service from a "nice-to-have" to an essential component of a world-class financial organization.

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