What does workflow have to do with invoicing?
It is almost impossible to imagine someone simply deciding to issue an invoice without any prior activity.
Invoicing is always preceded by activities whose outcomes lead to the creation of an invoice. Invoicing is therefore always part of a business process—in other words, it operates as a workflow.
Invoicing typically becomes a task when selling a product or service, or during a more complex project. Almost invariably, however, it is preceded—and followed—by several process-driven activities. These may include:
- Sending quotations
- Contracting
- Ordering
- Procurement activities
- Approvals
- Document creation
- Email correspondence
- Archiving
These are followed by follow-up activities, such as financial checks (e.g. whether payment has been received), payment reminders, checking whether the invoice has been returned, whether it needs to be forwarded to the accountant, whether project records need to be updated to reflect what has been invoiced so far, whether billing limits need to be managed to determine when to invoice again, or whether any balance remains available under the framework agreement for future invoicing.
A workflow system can provide significant support in carrying out these activities, making both incoming invoice processing and invoice issuance an automated sequence of tasks that works in conjunction with other systems, such as invoicing applications.
Why automate with a workflow system?
Of course, automated invoicing can also be implemented using other systems. In the xFLOWer workflow system, for example, every activity follows predefined, structured business processes. Accordingly, even before an invoice is issued, processes such as quotations, contracting and fulfillment can be managed and automated in the system, providing comprehensive administrative support for financial transactions. The system can automatically populate invoice details and can even initiate invoicing processes—and generate invoices—at specified intervals. For example, if you sell a product or service with a monthly fee, you only need to enter the customer details and specify the billing frequency. The system takes care of the rest, always at the same time and with a consistent turnaround.
Sending the invoice electronically to the customer is, of course, also automated. Once the invoice has been created, either the invoicing application or xFLOWer forwards it to the customer according to the settings.
What else can happen to invoices?
In a typical invoicing process, the following activities also take place in the system, in addition to automatically issuing and sending invoices:
Outgoing invoice approval
Checkpoints can be built into the system to verify invoice details, line items and totals automatically or manually before the invoice is issued.
In most cases, supporting documents need to be attached to invoices. These must be retrieved or generated—preferably automatically—from the relevant sources. Examples include contracts, purchase orders, completion certificates and settlement statements.
Data-driven invoice creation
If the quotation and contract associated with an invoice were also created in xFLOWer, the system can automatically generate the invoice using their data. Otherwise, the customer's billing details need to be entered, but only once. For subsequent recurring and one-off invoices alike, the system uses the existing data to automatically issue and send invoices.
Outgoing invoice archiving
Every outgoing invoice is archived, and thanks to xFLOWer's advanced document management capabilities, its data can be reused later.
Linking invoices and related documents
Documents associated with each customer are linked in the system, even if not all of them were created in xFLOWer. This means that all customer-related documents and data can be found in one place, and reports can also be generated from them.
Reporting
xFLOWer offers advanced, customized reporting functionality. Data can be analyzed in any context to meet specific business requirements. This may include customer master data, process-related data or document data, all of which can be used flexibly to create analyses and reports. Through additional integrations, the data can even be forwarded as input to a BI system.
Invoice follow-up
A workflow solution can also track whether the customer has paid, whether an invoice has been returned for any reason, or whether the amounts committed under a framework agreement have already been used.
A versatile system
The xFLOWer workflow system is not just software for managing and automating invoicing processes. It is a versatile application that can model, manage and largely automate any business process. Beyond invoicing, it can therefore handle processes such as quotations, contracting, fulfillment, fault reporting, project execution, maintenance and even receivables management.
With xFLOWer's robust document management functionality, every document needed to complete each business process is always available. The system saves all data and logs every activity, eliminating lost documents and “forgotten” or “missing” data and information. It also supports collaborative document editing with version control, so your colleagues can always be confident that they are editing the correct document version. It also eliminates the need to circulate internal documents by email.
Számlázz.hu / Billingo / Libra / SAP / etc.
A good process management system—including xFLOWer—can be connected to any invoicing system that has an API. Since every modern invoicing application or enterprise-grade ERP system provides APIs, the extent of integration and automation is entirely up to you.
Summary
At Click On, we go beyond providing a software solution: we also support implementation and long-term operation, drawing on decades of experience. Our goal is to ensure that our customers receive not just software, but efficient, well-designed business processes that genuinely deliver increased efficiency.
