Why automate deductions management with Esker?
Esker Deductions Management helps Accounts Receivable (AR) departments efficiently manage their disputes and deductions, and protect margins. Thanks to Al-driven data capture and automated workflow capabilities, Esker manages both customer trade deductions associated to promotions and marketing contributions, and non-trade deductions related to shortages, damaged products or invoice price discrepancies that typically impact food, beverage, and consumer goods manufacturers and distributors.
Accelerate deduction
identification & resolutionEsker Synergy AI facilitates the deduction investigation & approval process by automatically matching extracted data with promotion, invoice or payment.
Challenge invalid deductions
Easily identify deductions that do not correspond to the agreed trade terms & quickly provide customers with the reason for dispute or rejection.
Enhance visibility on receivables & revenue
Benefit from a dedicated dashboard with real-time KPIs to analyze deduction management performance and trends (DDO, deductions by type/customer, etc.).
What our customers say ...
“The automation of deductions within the invoice-to-cash cycle is the most important part of our digital transformation, given its complexity. Esker has provided us with the visibility needed to reduce and anticipate short payments. Esker’s AI-based technology has been fundamental in helping us solve the challenges associated with deductions.”
“Thanks to Esker, every sales rep has their own report of what’s come through, the type of deduction and what’s been approved. We now have the ability to sort, manage, and, if necessary, dispute all deduction claims, which has had a very positive financial impact.”
Dashboard & analytics
When you see everything, you can handle anything
Thanks to intelligent dashboards featuring packaged KPIs and easy-to-read charts and reports, AR managers can track deductions, days deductions outstanding (DDO) and aging claims process trends in real-time, while also analyzing deductions by type, date or customer, and identify bottlenecks in the workflow.
Compliance concerns? Esker’s got you covered. A complete audit trail of every AR deduction touch point is retained so that full transparency and accountability are ensured during the verification and approval process.
Tools to digitally transform the deductions process
Portal fatigue? Bots to the rescue!
Many AR departments are painfully familiar with portal fatigue, as it’s often their job to retrieve supporting deduction documents from a retailer portal or proof of delivery, bill of lading or delivery notes from carrier or transporter portals. Considering the number of different portals used, and the fact that not every user is trained on each one, it’s easy to see why portal fatigue is a real concern for today’s businesses.
Esker leverages RPA bots and available APIs to support integration with your customer's portals to automate the retrieval of deduction-related supporting documents and the dispute of specific deductions.
Say “goodbye” to the pains of manual data entry
To facilitate AR deduction investigation, Esker uses different layers of Al technology that extract data from documents and enrich deductions with reliable information — no more manual data entry! Built on a set of technologies designed to mimic human intelligence, Esker Synergy AI captures data on customer-supporting documents such as payment remittances, debit notes, promotional invoices, credit requests or simple emails.
Esker Synergy identifies key header information (customer reference, name, amount or invoice number) as well as line information (products, quantities, prices or promotion references) and classifies the deduction in the appropriate category (promotional agreement, price discrepancy, shortage, damaged products) based on the document content.
Accuracy is improved along the way thanks to Esker Synergy’s ability to automatically adapt to layout changes by learning from user corrections.
Approve or dispute AR deductions quickly & accurately
Esker embeds a multi-level approval workflow within the solution that’s pre-configured based on the type (typically trade vs non-trade) and amount. This allows users from different departments to investigate and approve/dispute customer claims (sales reps for matters related to sales agreements and promotions, supply chain reps for issues related to delivered products, etc.).
Easily adapted to specific needs, workflow users can enrich the deductions case with additional information and related documents, as well as add other coworkers to the workflow on a case-by-case basis. What’s more, by linking the customer deduction with the associated internal documents (payment, promotion, invoice, delivery note or order), employees have easy access to all the information they need for fast and accurate approval/dispute of deductions.
Enhanced collaboration meets improved communication
An internal chat tool allows users to add participants to a given deduction and informally gather additional information without having to go through the more formal approval workflow. These internal conversations are visible to all contributors directly on the deduction.
Users can also clarify or dispute deductions directly with customers, using external conversations. Predefined templates are available for email communications, which helps ensure consistency while adding a personal touch. When customers reply, their answers are automatically attached to the deduction to make sure that the context is clear and no information is lost.
Increasing visibility into approved deductions
Esker’s solution integrates with any ERP system thanks to a connectivity suite that provides multiple ERP integration options using middleware, APIs or managed file exchange — ultimately easing the pain when setting up a solution in a hybrid ERP environment.
When applied to Esker Deductions Management, the system integration capabilities automatically create deduction claims from short payments, for tracking and further investigation purposes. Once deductions have been settled/approved in Esker’s solution workflow, they can be automatically accounted for in the ERP as a credit note or on a G/L account, also clearing any residual debit if the customer already short paid.
Benefit from an integrated suite to optimize your invoice-to-cash process
Esker offers a comprehensive Accounts Receivable solution suite that automates and connects every step of the invoice-to-cash process. By instantaneously applying additional insights from other Esker solutions, your deductions process benefits from even greater efficiency.
- Get real-time updates when a payment comes in & create deduction claims from short payments with Esker Cash Application
- Accelerate dispute management & ensure that disputed invoices are visible to all departments at all times. Thanks to Collections and Deductions Management solution integration, a collections specialist can assign a task to a deductions analyst to investigate invoice disputes and short payments.
Featured content
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Automating the Management of Customer Deductions
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/12/2018 - 15:37EnglishResource Type:Description:New research on how an automated AR solution can simplify customer deductions.Pinned to Top:NoExternal URL:https://quitpaper.esker.com/white-paper-iofm-deductions-ar-document-library.htmlBusiness Need:Preview Image:Culture Cash Episode:- Log in to post comments
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