Although Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPS) promise to do it all, they can fall short when it comes to incorporating documents into workflows or archiving them for quick retrieval. After all, ERPS were not purpose-built to handle document processes. Many ERP systems seek to digitalize every process in an organization. This can create complexity that negatively affects the user experience, introduces enormous complexity, and takes detours rather than following a direct path.
In contrast, the functionality of an Enterprise Content Management System (ECM) is to capture, classify, store, and easily retrieve documents. Its feature set focuses on organization, accessibility, data extraction and exchange, workflow, records management functions, and safe archiving. The ECM solutions to consider are those that can be embedded into any ERP environment, such as Laserfiche.
Workflows Can Now be Designed without Demanding IT Resources
Making changes to workflows in an ERP frequently requires significant IT resources. It takes hard work and a lot of time at a substantial cost. A document management system delivers the same results with a more straightforward design and many powerful yet user-friendly features. For example, Laserfiche’s Workflow Builder’s simple, intuitive interface enables users to create or update workflows without programming knowledge. Laserfiche’s content repository enables data synchronization, minimizing the risk of human error caused by duplicate data entry.
In addition to easy-to-manage workflows, Laserfiche allows organizations to leverage auto-capture features to get documents into the system. An OCR engine, powered by machine learning, can index the documents and link them to transactions in the ERP. This action can be batched to process many documents simultaneously and link a single document to as many transactions as you’d like. In contrast, storing documents in most ERPs requires users to upload documents as a hard link to one transaction at a time.
ERP + Laserfiche = AP
Here are two processes that excel when integrated between Laserfiche and ERP.
Accounts payable – Processing purchase order-based invoices
It compares incoming shipping paperwork to the purchase order data from the ERP, allowing for complete automation of 3-way matching. This frees up knowledge workers to handle exceptions and other value-added tasks.
Accounts payable – Processing expense invoices
Leverages Laserfiche’s auto-capture, routing, and workflow before parking/posting invoice data into ERP.
Even the most comprehensive ERP can’t meet every business need. We’ve provided an example of how integrating Laserfiche and ERP enables automated capture, seamless data exchange, automated workflow, and real-time data synchronization. Our described approach can be applied to the interrelationship between any full-featured ECM system and an ERP. This type of integration eliminates error-prone, manual data entry and ends reliance on scattered and often conflicting data. It reduces wasted time and delayed decision-making and increases productivity –- integrated systems are frequently the best way forward!
If you want to view an ERP/Laserfiche integration, check out this webinar with our partner, Velosimo.
