Introduction
Our organization operates a comprehensive network of agents, which include Solution Providers, Marketplace Associates, Educational Facilitators, and Official Distributors. These agents have the option to pay for our products within either 30 or 60 days following their purchase, according to their “Pay on Account” status. This arrangement means that such transactions are not automatically recorded in our ERP system, necessitating manual processing by our Accounts Receivable (AR) team—a task that is both repetitive and time-consuming, with about 50 payments processed daily, each requiring about 20 minutes..
To streamline this process, we’ve introduced an advanced automation solution for agent payments.
The AR team typically receives payments through a standard payment portal. Originally, they had to manually segregate payments made by agents, identify the corresponding invoices, and then record these payments in the ERP system. Our automation solution mimics this manual process with two main components: Agent Identification and Payment Application. Each day, the system scans for new tickets in ClickUp, downloads relevant attachments, and identifies agents from our entire customer database. Identified agents are then forwarded to the AR team for verification. Once verified, the AR team attaches a Payment Allocation file, which the bots use to apply payments correctly based on predefined business rules. This automation handles various types of transactions and deals effectively with complications such as short and overpayments, withholding taxes, and payment offsets.
The Impact of Automation
This innovative automation system is set to save approximately 2400 hours per year for our AR team. It processes each agent payment in just 70 seconds and maintains a 98% accuracy rate across all transactions!
Customer Feedback
- “Our operations are more efficient now; we can focus on other tasks while the bot handles the agent payments.”
- “The automation reduces the need for repetitive manual tasks involved in payment application.”
Additionally, to close the communication loop and maintain transparency, the employee who filed the expense is notified via Slack as soon as their request is approved or if further clarification is needed.
Gratitude and Moving Forward
The initial phase brought some challenges, particularly in defining precise requirements, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) took longer than we expected. To mitigate this, we plan to incorporate more frequent customer demonstrations during the development phase. Additionally, we are introducing a new feature that generates payment reports directly from the ERP system, allowing the AR team to quickly and effectively verify transactions facilitated by the bot, without the need for direct ERP access.