Liquidity at a glance

As a print title, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung with its nine regional editions and a paid circulation of around 170,000 copies per day is the economic backbone of NOZ Medien with more than 1,100 employees at ten locations.

Several years ago, NOZ set up a workflow system to scan and then digitally process the 25,000 invoices it receives every day.

However, this was only upstream of the SAP system, which meant that invoices could only be posted once they had been released. In addition, the rigid workflow concept made it difficult to make changes to the processes, which are often necessary in practice.

Workflow at the cutting edge

The media company was therefore looking for a holistic, SAP-integrated solution to make its invoice processing faster and more transparent.

"In xFlow Invoice, we found a ready-made software product that is constantly being maintained, is deeply integrated into SAP and offers a wide range of functionality"

explains Sören Gödde, Head of SAP Basis and Head of Project Management Basecom at NOZ.

For Gödde, SAP integration depth means that the SAP interface already contains all the functions that the specialist departments and the finance and accounting departments need for invoice processing.

The SAP certification of the solution guarantees stable operation during release changes of the SAP system.

When introducing the solution, NOZ was guided by the best practice standards delivered with it - approval processes that take place in a similar way in other companies and are already preconfigured in xFlow Invoice. This meant that the system could be quickly put into practice and went live after a project duration of eight weeks.

The incoming invoices are now scanned using the xFlow Capture solution; the WMD interface then controls the SAP master data comparison and the connection to the existing archiving system.

xFlow Invoice is used as a workflow for the checking and approval process. This means that the documents are in SAP immediately after scanning, so that further post-processing, validation and triggering of releases can take place there - much more convenient than with the previous solution, which was only upstream of the ERP.

Thanks to pre-entry, the financial accounting department has an immediate overview of which documents are in circulation and which liabilities are to be expected. They continue to work with the familiar interface of their SAP system, which makes the application convenient and easy to use.

Between ten and 15 percent of the documents are so-called intercompany invoices, which the group companies issue to each other and transmit in an EDI format. They are imported into xFlow Invoice via XML integration.

The approximately 150 freelancers are located in the local editorial offices, e.g. in Papenburg, Meppen or Lingen, as well as in one of the more than 20 companies belonging to NOZ Medien and access the workflow via WebClient.

Overview of liquidity

"With the system, we now have a much better overview of the current receivables portfolio and therefore our liquidity"

says Ruth Schock, Head of NOZ Financial Accounting.

"Working with a fully SAP-certified solution line makes our work much easier because the entire work process is now fast and error-free."

The master data synchronization is partly responsible for this. The SAP certification of the solution guarantees stable operation during release changes of the SAP system. The automated comparison with the SAP master data eliminates sources of error.