Process Flow suggestions for Financials

I've posted this question to the Technology Community but thought it might help to ask the Finance functional side as well. We are looking for some opinions on what business processes other customers have had success augmenting with Process Flow in their Finance department. Thanks for any suggestions.

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Infor Lawson Financials Group - Discussion

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unknown

Hello,

Our oganization has implemented a few process flows on the Finance side. In Accounts Payable, a 3-way match (invoice, receiver, po) is required for all invoices. Since our service invoices cannot be received, we have a flow that routes them to the appropriate manager. The manager approves, which releases the invoices.

We also have one in GL for journal entries over $100k. Any entry > $100k goes to the manager of Financial Reporting for review and approval.

We are in the process of creating another for credits on our service purchase orders. We found that service purchase orders are closing before they should be because invoices are applied and matched against the extended amounts, but any credits associated with the purchase orders are not matched. They are service po's so there is no returns or associated receipts. What we are thinking is to have a flow that picks up credits and puts the dollars back to the appropriate purchase order lines on a nightly basis.

0712131256598360.doc

unknown

We are using ProcessFlow for routing and approving journal entries. We have defined some source codes as standard that would bypass ProcessFlow if the journal meets certain criteria. We have created an escalation process, for moving items along to the next level, in the event of absences. Our Supply Chain team is using ProcessFlow for routing requisitions coming out of RQC for approval before forwarding to a buyer to create the purchase order. Our HR team is using to manage many processes around employee types of notifications, such as: employee certifications, employee name changes, dependent changes, education, job/position changes, personnel actions, supervisor changes, removing termed employees from systems and employee trip requests.

unknown

Thanks for the reponses. Can you provide a little detail to "what" these flows do when for instance a JE is made over 100k or a dependent is added? Are these just notifications or is a form update initiated from within the flow? If the situation requires some form of approval, does the pflow send a link to the approver in an email for them to click and does it take them directly to the S3 form to complete the action?

unknown

Yes, good questions.

For the AP service invoice process flow, the AP clerks enter a hold code of SVC on AP20 when they key an invoice that needs approval. Process flow queries all released invoices with a SVC hold code from AP40 and routes them for approval. Process Flow updates any invoice that met the criteria in AP40 from a hold code of SVC to APPV, indicating that they are awaiting approval. It uses the accounting unit to route them based on a hierarchy established for each accounting unit. It sends to the manager first, if no action is taken after 96 hours, it moves to the director, if no action is taken after 96 hours, it goes to the VP and stays there until action is taken. Each time an individual gets an item routed to them, they receive an email with the link to the inbasket, along with some basic info about the invoice. Upon approval or rejection, process flow updates AP40, removing the hold code all together if approval, and placing them in a REJ code (rejected). If they are rejected, it also writes the comments left by the approver in the comments section of the invoice so the AP clerks know why to contact the vendor.

For the journal entry flow, the workflow has to be enabled on GL10. When an entry is released, process flow queries the user-entered criteria (over $100k) and picks it up for routing. It updates GL41.4 approved flag to N. The approver can approve or reject. If approved, the GL41.4 flag is updated to Y, if rejected it is updated to D (disallowed). The entry is released but would not post until in a Y status.

In both cases, emails are sent with links. The links take them to Lawson, but not directly to the inbasket to complete the action.

0712131256598360.doc

unknown

It works as Adam outlined. We have rules around the JE approval, but it only looks at GL and RJ system code entries. Needs approval if over $50K and non-standard source code. Our standard or pre-approved journals have a source code of S1 to S9, depending on the type and when an "S" source code is used, it means the journal is pre-approved and by-passes ProcessFlow. We have additional flows that send information message when over $1M and require secondary approval when over $20M. We have a custom table that identifies the Controller and Asst Controller for each of our companies for this additional approval. With RJ, if using a non-standard source code and the amounts do not change from month to month (non-auto-zero), then the journal only goes through ProcessFlow the first time. For all subsequent months, the recurring journal will bypass ProcessFlow. If the amount changes from period to period, then will flow through ProcessFlow every period. Our normal JE ProcessFlow escalation during the month is 24 hours, but when in month-end close mode, we change the escalation to 3 hours. Our custom job run hourly to mark the journal flows and when 3 "hours" has passed and the journal has not been approved, it moves up the chain in the Supervisor Org Structure. It goes from Supervisor, to GL Manager, to Controller to Assistant Controller, where it will stay until approved. We have a proxy process but require approving person to be gone at least 14 days before we will will allow them to submit a proxy, otherwise the escalation process handles it. The emails always provide a link to the inbasket item, where the approver has two options: approve or deny. If denied, the questions are: is there an activity on any one transaction in the journal? Is it an intercompany journal? In both of these cases, the journal cannot be unreleased so our Finance support team will override or manually change the GL41.4 flag but add a comment to the journal header indicating that they manually changed the flag but the originator will perform a copy/reverse of the original entry and then enter a new journal with the correct information in it.

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