Limitless accounting efficiency

Streamlined processes and more transparency across multiple areas: ContiTech has introduced tangro software to automate accounting processes. The consistent automation of processes for entering, checking and booking incoming invoices on to SAP has reduced document turnaround time while significantly improving transparency and traceability. "tangro automatically recognises invoice content so that data no longer needs to be input manually but only briefly checked," Frank Sündermann explains, Director of IT Business Systems at ContiTech. "At the same time, we have an overview of all invoices. This means that we know where the documents are for their approval and we can follow the entire process."

A particular advantage is the fact that tangro is SAP-embedded and therefore offers complete consistency with the SAP system - without interface problems. This integrated approach is advantageous for both IT and the user: "technologically speaking, tangro embedded itself completely into our system environment. We didn't have to exchange any data with upstream systems, which we would have had to do with other systems," Sündermann says. "From an IT perspective, tangro stands out because of its incredibly simple handling. We have a good overview over what is needed from a technological point of view and we can maintain and manage tangro with minimum effort." The complete embedding in SAP is also advantageous from a user perspective. "Because tangro is SAP-embedded," Sündermann continues, "during invoice processing, users experience the same interfaces as those they had already become used to in their day-to-day work with the SAP system.

The SAP GUI makes the tangro solution, from a user point of view, particularly easily manageable." It is with this convincing concept that tangro has established itself at ContiTech as the software for incoming invoice processing. It is already being used at 20 locations in Europe and Central America, with others soon to follow. "With tangro, we have been able to successfully achieve the introduction of a product with a uniform, standardised solution approach across many business areas and all make use of a joint infrastructure" Sündermann states.

ContiTech processes all kinds of invoices with tangro - invoices from direct and indirect purchasing as well as documents with and without order references. The volume of documents processed each year currently stands at around 300,000, all of which arrive either by post or by e-mail as a PDF file. In both cases, tangro automatically recognises the relevant invoice content. This includes creditor data such as the supplier's address and the bank details as well as all of the header data like the invoice number, invoice date and gross invoice amount. In the case of purchase order-related invoices, the order is also connected to the delivery note and sent to goods in.

A complete overview of all incoming invoices and their status is provided by the tangro invoice receipt journal. This allows the person responsible to manage which invoices can be booked directly, which ones require post-processing and which ones can be found in the workflow for approval. This ensures more clarity across the entire processing chain. And what's even more impressive is that is a company-wide solution, as invoice journals can be accessed from all accounting areas, regardless of physical location. "With tangro we have been able to achieve a very high degree of transparency," Sündermann says "and that's across all areas." For this one single reason there is already a shorter processing time per document. In addition to this, the processing time has also been reduced as manual entry is no longer necessary.

"ContiTech saves, on average, 30 seconds per document thanks to automated invoice processing. This has meant that processing time is now down to three minutes," Sündermann says in substantiation of the success. A further important factor for increased efficiency in invoice processing is the electronic management of the approval process. Paper documents are no longer circulated, there are no more awkward telephone conversations trying to track down missing approval requests. The complete process is now digitalised and automated in accordance with the company-specific, site-specific requirements. tangro is thus able to fully create all approval levels as required by ContiTech for the factual and technical checking of invoices.