OpenText VIM: more than just invoice processing
OpenText's Vendor Invoice Management (VIM), also known as SAP Invoice Management (SIM), has been streamlining the processing of incoming invoices at many organisations for many years. With recent updates in licensing and the software, companies can now use VIM to create fully automated digital processes that go beyond the traditional finance function. In fact, OpenText has transformed VIM into a powerful document automation platform they call VIM Beyond Finance. It is now a flexible solution that is able to process not only invoices but also order confirmations, delivery notes, sales orders, remittance advices, HR documents, and more in SAP.
Previously, non-invoice processing was bundled in a separately licensed solution called OpenText Business Center.
VIM Beyond Finance
Starting with VIM 7.6 (ECC) or VIM 20.4 (S/4HANA), OpenText's Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) includes all components of OpenText Business Center. This convergence of applications enables organizations to deploy fully automated, digital processes that go beyond the traditional financial focus of VIM.
The bottom line is that existing VIM customers can expand the scope of the existing solution to build on their already deployed platform, and new customers implementing VIM for the first time can use it for a much wider range of document types.
In both cases, the VIM platform is used to automate the processing of incoming documents via paper, fax, e-mail, EDI, or more advanced portals or corporate networks such as SAP Ariba or Coupa. This allows a company to flexibly use each source channel without having to implement additional solutions.
Features VIM beyond Finance
OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions (VIM) is an ABAP Add-on for SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA. VIM automates the processing of incoming documents in SAP. Document-centric business processes such as the processing of incoming invoices or incoming sales orders are typical use cases for VIM.
After capture, document data is enriched and validated against predefined business rules. If none of the business rules fail, the document is posted in SAP without human intervention.
Although a direct, no-touch process is the ultimate goal, VIM also supports the fast and efficient handling and resolution of exceptions. Exceptions are routed via workflow to the relevant user or user group based on the role assigned to the exception.
VIM also provides a comprehensive set of operational and analytical reports. In addition, VIM provides the tools to identify common exceptions that need to be addressed to reach an even higher level of automation.
VIM includes the following solutions:
Invoice processing
Procure to Pay solutions
Order confirmations
Delivery notes
Offers
Order to Cash solutions
Sales orders
Payment advice
Each solution consists of a best practice implementation for a specific document scenario. It includes pre-configured mapping, enrichment rules, business rules, processing logic, user roles and user actions. The enrichment functions include easy-to-configure machine learning that automates input based on previous user input.
Since VIM resides in SAP, enrichments and business rules have direct access to SAP master and transactional data, eliminating the need for complex interfaces and the replication and duplication of data.
Each solution provides a Workplace that users use to manage and monitor outstanding and completed work items. Each solution includes a pre-configured set of analytical reports tailored to the specific document scenario. The solutions can be extended to support company-specific business needs.
VIM Solutions use functions provided by the powerful platform. The platform consists of the following components:
Inbound
Process
Workplace
Analytics
VIM also supports the development of company-specific scenarios when no standard configured solution is available.
VIM offers a simple user interface for end users, managers and administrators. Users can choose between the classic SAP GUI or the modern SAP Fiori interface. SAP Fiori offers a responsive web-based user interface that supports desktop and mobile devices.
VIM supports various input channels, including scans, faxes, e-mails and web services. It also supports various input formats, including paper, PDF, TIFF, IDoc and XML.
VIM requires a SAP ArchiveLink-certified content repository for storing incoming documents. The licence-free SAP Content Server can be used for this purpose. OpenText recommends OpenText Archiving and Document Access for SAP Solutions.
VIM integrates seamlessly through its Inbound component with OpenText Intelligent Capture for SAP Solutions and OpenText Core Capture for SAP Solutions, which uses advanced machine learning algorithms to extract metadata from documents such as PDF and TIFF.
Architecture overview
The following figure gives an overview of the architecture of the platform. It shows how the main components of VIM are integrated into SAP and which additional OpenText components such as Document Pipeline, Document Storage and Information Extraction Service complete the solution.
Summary
1. Starting with VIM 7.6 (ECC) or VIM 20.4 (S/4HANA), OpenText's Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) includes all components of OpenText Business Center. This expanded scope is also referred to as VIM beyond Finance.
2. VIM licences not only apply to invoice processing, but also to the processing of order confirmations, delivery notes, quotations, sales orders, payment advice and other document types to be set up.
More information
For further questions or information on this topic or for other questions regarding SAP Workflow, Fiori or SAP Master Data Governance, please contact Martijn Wever. More information on Vendor Invoice Management and VIM Beyond Finance can be found here.
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