BCE Emergis e-Invoicing Electronic Invoice Payment and Presentment
Summary
BCE Emergis offers a managed solution for electronic invoice presentment and payment, either directly or through financial institutions, for enterprises that want to automate the order to cash process.
Table of Contents Overview Analysis Pricing Competitors Strengths Limitations Insight List Of Tables
Corporate Headquarters
BCE Emergis Technologies, Inc. e-Invoicing Solutions
3200 Northline Avenue, Suite 245 Greensboro, NC 27408, U.S.A. Tel: +1 336 315 9336
Fax: +1 336 315 0307
Internet: www.bceemergis.com Overview
Emergis e-Invoicing is an end-to-end, business-to-business (B2B) interactive invoicing and payment solution that addresses the needs of both billers and their trading partners. Key biller features include online trading partner enrollment, invoice data extraction and presentment, payment processing including accounts receivable (AR) updating, along with integrated customer care features. Trading partner functionality includes statement of account and invoice viewing, invoice dispute capability, invoice and payment approval workflow, search and sort capability, multiple invoices included in a single payment instruction, payment scheduling, payment account setup and accounts payable (AP) integration capabilities. Emergis e-Invoicing is hosted and managed within an Emergis data center.
Table 1: Features and Functions: Emergis e-Invoicing
Online Enrollment Biller designates an individual within the trading partner organization as the system administrator for that trading partner relationship.
System administrator is assigned a user ID and a password (or may be system-generated) to access enrollment. If password is forgotten, a new password is assigned.
System administrator defines individual users and levels of access to accounts and functionality.
View only, dispute and approve invoices, initiate payment, approve payments and release payment functionality.
Bulk enrollment process allows the biller to perform an initial mass enrollment, as well as add or change trading partners, accounts and invoice bursting criteria on an ongoing basis.
Administrator assigns currency limits for payments and defines payment accounts for financial settlement.
E-mail is sent to the trading partner activating it, once enrollment is complete. Demo Mode allows the newly enrolled trading partner to become familiar with the application navigation capabilities prior to going into production mode.
Invoice Data Capture/Invoice Presentment
Legacy invoice data file, which may be Extensible Markup Language (XML) electronic data interchange (EDI), or proprietary format is provided.
The application parses the file into XML and then loads the invoice data into the database.
Table 1: Features and Functions: Emergis e-Invoicing
e-Invoicing provides a library of invoice templates for the biller; however, most billers elect for customized templates for invoice, as well as banner advertisements, e-mail and marketing messages.
During the billing process, e-mail is generated notifying the partner of a new statement of account or invoice amount due, and date due. Embedded in the e-mail notification is a uniform resource locator (URL) that will take the partner directly to the biller’s Web site.
e-Invoicing can display a Statement of Account that lists all open invoices and any credit memos submitted by the biller.
Displayed summary data may include, but not be limited to, invoice numbers, currency, invoice amounts, dates due, discount terms and payment status. A more detailed view of the invoice is available by clicking on the invoice number link.
View specific line items and dispute down to line-item level. Trading Partner can sort and search invoice information. Disputes Multiple dispute codes per line item and per invoice.
Suppliers can set up desired actions which buyers can then select as their preferred means for resolving the disputes (that is, short shipment dispute code list of desired actions could be ship additional items, amend invoice).
At the time of dispute creation, notes are added to a dispute notes queue as notification to the supplier.
Buyers and suppliers can send messages to each other relating to disputes on a particular invoice and can view all correspondence on a separate page.
Dispute data is available in history when invoices close. A menu link is provided to “export disputes.”
International Support Languages supported include English, French Canadian, German, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Billers can define countries supported for payment processing. This function is dependent upon the biller’s financial institution having some type of payment gateway into the country in which the trading partner’s settlement account is located.
Currencies supported: any standard International Standards Organization (ISO) currency.
All currencies are identified using the ISO 4217 standard for three-digit currency codes. All countries are identified using the ISO 3166 standard for two-character country codes. The application maintains Business Holiday Tables by country. Trading Partner
Invoice Interaction
Ability to recompute payment amounts based on invoice disputes.
Ability to establish and use invoice and payment approval workflow. Ability to modify the payment date, source and amount.
Ability to pay net of available discounts. Ability to schedule a payment for a future date. Ability to make multiple payments on a single invoice.
Ability to select one or more invoices to be included in a single currency payment instruction.
Table 1: Features and Functions: Emergis e-Invoicing
Ability to pay via automated clearinghouse (ACH) or Canadian Payment Association (CPA) 005 debit or credit card.
Ability to download payment data in tab-delimited or comma-delimited formats. Ability to download compressed data files when exporting invoice detail/summary or payment information. Compressed files will be self-decompressing.
Send e-mails to the biller. Payments and
Accounts Receivable Processing
Ability to process the payment instructions and create the appropriate payment files.
Ability to create standard EDI 820 or ACH (either Cash Concentration and Disbursement [CCD] or corporate trade exchange [CTX]) format files, or CPA 005 debit files and credit card files to be submitted to the financial institution designated by the biller for overnight financial settlement.
Ability to send out e-mail confirmation of payment.
Ability to send out e-mail notification of payment exceptions.
Ability to send e-mail notification of invoices due and past due and discounts about to expire.
Ability to produce an AR update file for payment activity initiated through the Emergis e-Invoicing application.
Multiple Settlement/Matrix Payment Cutoff Functions allow the biller to define payment cutoff times for the various currencies supported by the financial institution. It is dependent upon the biller’s financial institution having a payment gateway. Required information includes definition of settlement system to use, country, currency, number of settlement days and Payment Cutoff Time (GMT). Functionality for including a zero dollar transaction in an AR record.
If an invoice is disputed in its entirety and no payment function is activated, the transaction should not be in the remittance file (AR) update record.
If an invoice is disputed in its entirety and a zero dollar payment is made through the payment function, then the invoice would be included in the remittance file. The invoice would then be closed and moved to history. The processing of this transaction is then considered a “true” zero dollar payment.
Zero dollar payment information will be mapped to all remittance types: 820 domestic and international Bank Administration Institute version 2 (BAI v.2). Cost Center
Approval Functions (Invoice Bursting)
Approvals menu option, Cost Center Approvals, enables approval of invoices at the individual cost center level.
Display of each cost center status for one invoice provided by “cost center” page. The new cost center approver role can be applied via the “modify user page.” Cost center information can be retrieved in the “pay invoice page.”
Relationship Management Interface
This application provides tools for communication and problem resolution between business partners.
Ability to view Customer Profiles online.
Ability to read, record and route invoice e-mail to biller-defined destinations such as AR, Relationship Management, Invoice Dispute and General Questions.
Table 1: Features and Functions: Emergis e-Invoicing
Ability to track all inbound and outbound e-mail and detailed notes taken in conversations with trading partners. Emergis tracks all interactions with trading partners regarding invoicing and payment issues.
Ability for trading partner and biller to electronically view comments, disputes and transactions on an invoice.
Ability for customer service representatives (CSRs) to log in as the trading partner and view what the trading partner is viewing. Also, the CSR may act on behalf of the trading partner to perform all activities the trading partner authorizes.
From the Customer Service screen, an individual buying organization can be selected to manually close an invoice and move to History.
Marketing Billers can add banner advertisements or splash pages for when the trading partner logs in to the system. In addition, information central is a Web page that includes messages or hyperlinks from the biller.
Platform Unix based.
Java Server Pages (JSP) with Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and servlets. Oracle database.
BEA WebLogic Application Server. HTML and JavaScript.
XML, Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) and XSL Transformations (XSLT). Java Mail API.
Model View Controller (MVC) Design Pattern.
Analysis
The application can be broken down into two main logical subsystems: • Trading Partner interface
• Biller interface Invoicer
The Invoicer subsystem is the trading partner interface that provides invoice and payment processing, as well as user enrollment maintenance and payment account maintenance. Invoicer allows the trading partner to view invoices, dispute invoices and make payments. The main functionality provided by the Invoicer subsystem is as follows:
• View and print statements of account. • Search and sort on invoice information. • View and print invoices.
• Dispute an invoice or invoice line items.
• Establish and use invoice and payment approval workflow procedures. • Make payment on an invoice or on a group of invoices.
• Download invoice and payment information into accounts payable. • View invoice and payment history.
• Access marketing messages, such as splash pages and an information center that provides important news for trading partners.
• Enter or change trading partner user information. • Establish and add payment source.
• Add users and assign data access limits and authorized security roles. Invoicer Administration
This subsystem allows administrators in the biller organization to process invoice feeds, generate the payment file and perform administrative and maintenance functions. This subsystem provides the following functionality to the biller:
• Invoice Processing • Payment processing • Change Account options • Invoice inserts configuration • Splash page configuration
• E-mail and notes queue processing • General application administration • Trading partner administration • Customer Service
• Dispute Resolution
System Inputs and Outputs
The current system has the following inputs and outputs (excluding data presented via HTML). Inputs
• Invoice Feed File
• Statement of Accounts File (optional) • Closed Invoices File (optional) • Control Totals File (optional) Outputs
• Payments file (to be processed by the biller’s financial institution) • AR system update file
• Dispute Data
• Payment summary (for trading partner) • Invoice summary (for trading partner)
• Invoice Detail (for trading partner)
Architecture
Starting with release 3.0, all e-Invoicing products are Java-based. The Presentation layer follows the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Model View Controller (MVC) specification.
Model View Controller
The main idea behind design patterns is to extract the high-level interactions between objects and reuse their behaviors from application to application. Each pattern describes a problem, which occurs over and over again, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem. The MVC pattern forces one to think of the application in terms of these three modules:
• Model—The model maintains the state and data that the application represents. When significant changes occur in the model, it updates all of its views.
• Controller—The controller is the user interface presented to the user to manipulate the application. • View—The view is the user interface that displays information about the model to the user. Any
object that needs information about the model needs to be a registered view with the model.
The separation of the Presentation layer is ensured by using the MVC specification. The MVC separates the presentation, data validation, execution process and succession of pages. The architecture consists of five tiers:
• Client Tier (application clients, applets, applications and other graphical user interfaces [GUIs]; user interface [UI] presentation and devices).
• Presentation Tier (JSP, servlets and other UI elements; Single sign-on, session management, content creation, format and delivery).
• Business Tier (EJBs and other business objects; business logic, transactions, data services).
• Integration Tier (Java Messaging Service [JMS]< Java Database Connectivity [JDBC], connectors and legacy systems; rules engines, resource adapters, workflow).
• Resource Tier (databases external systems, legacy resources, data and external services). Client Tier
This tier represents the user interface. The e-Invoicing application uses HTML as well as Java Script for Web browsers as the GUI.
Presentation Tier
The MVC pattern insures a clear separation between the presentation, processing and logic. In this pattern, a Controller receives the request and then calls a parameter validation process. The controller then calls the main process (model) before forwarding the request to a page that displays the results. By having the models prepare the data for the page (view) in advance, the JSP code only contains presentation logic.
XSL is used for those areas of the product where heavy user interface customization is expected. An XSL Translator combines these style sheets with XML content from the database. The resulting output is HTML. Suppliers or implementers may edit the XSL style sheet with any text editor and customize the
content, boilerplate, layout and graphics. Additionally, each page uses a standard cascading style sheet, which may be edited in order to customize fonts and spacing.
Changes configurable by users such as currency format, date format and language preference are stored in an attribute/properties table and keyed by user. The same attribute names will be used to query the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server.
Business Tier
The business tier represents an area of functionality that crosses the barrier between client-side classes and EJB. Business-specific factory controllers are used to access one or more EJBs that comprise the business logic being modeled. For example, a Payment controller class provides all methods necessary for the payment component. It may access many different EJBs or even other factories as needed to implement all business activities needed by the payment user interface.
Integration Tier
The primary use of the integration tier is for database access. The integration tier provides a standard architectural approach and encourages reuse of data.
Resource Tier
This tier includes the application database that acts as the persistent data store. It also includes resource files for managing internationalized text.
Security
The e-Invoicing database service is placed behind three levels of redundant firewalls. Requests to the database server from the Internet/intranet must pass through a redundant router and intrusion detection before entering a semi-trusted zone where the Web servers exist. File transfers to external sources, such as client Accounts Receivable systems, are also secure traveling over an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) leased line or back out through each of the firewalls.
The application uses Message-Digest Algorithm 5 (MD5) hashing algorithm to ensure the security of the username and password. The application stores the hashed passwords in the database; during username/password authentication, the entered username/password is hashed and then compared to the information in the database.
The application allows billers to configure the number of days of inactivity prior to user deactivation, number of days a password is valid and number of days prior to password expiration for an alert. New users can be forced to supply a new password during the first login attempt.
Employees of the biller also can be assigned to a certain security group. Each of these groups can then be assigned certain privileges to access particular functions or pages within the application.
The use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is required for the entry of sensitive financial data. SSL encrypts and secures the connection between the trading partner’s browser and server. Currently, SSL is utilized during the enrollment process when sensitive financial information is entered.
The actual Web pages are secured through the use of session variables. These session variables are known only to the application and must be set to appropriate values to access any page within the BCE Emergis system. If the session variables are not properly set, the user is directed back to the login page where he or she must authenticate again.
The installation process involves working with the Emergis implementation team through a well-defined process that includes identifying integration points, configuring base software, software installation and verification of application operations. The most significant part of the software implementation process is the identification and configuration or customization of the integration points.
Biller Operations Support
Emergis provides the following support options:
• e-Invoicing Training packages for customer service/billing representatives and application administration.
• Online help for all end users of e-Invoicing.
• Customer Application Support hot line, which is available 24×7.
• Customer Relationship Consultants as a primary point of contact for issue escalation and resolution. • User groups, which meet once or twice a year.
Pricing
Managed Service Activation Fees range from $150K to $400K, plus monthly minimums of $10K to $40K or transaction charges from $0.70 to $1.00 per transaction.
GSA Pricing
No.
Competitors
Bottomline Technologies
Bottomline’s Nettransact and Invoice Receipt Management (IRM) products are components of a broader Bottomline Corporate Financial Resource Management strategy. Bottomline believes that every enterprise must manage financial resources; this encompasses invoicing, and receiving payments, managing cash and making disbursements. Bottomline’s suite of Financial Resource Management offerings enables businesses and financial institutions to manage their critical financial transactions, cash decisions and trading partner financial relationships, leveraging the Web. Bottomline Applications include Bottomline Payments and Cash Management, Electronic Invoice Presentment, Invoice Receipt Management, Electronic Banking and Information Reporting. Nettransact is focused on biller functionality and competes directly with BCE Emergis. Invoice Receipt Management is focused on payers.
Billingzone
Billingzone started as a partnership between Perot Systems and PNC bank. Billingzone aggregates bills for corporate payers at a single site. As a consolidator, Billingzone tries to group as many billers and payers under one network as it can. Billingzone is an application service provider (ASP), using the Web to give partner companies access to one another’s invoices using Billingzone.com. Billers and payers must go to the Billingzone site to use the services. Unlike BCE Emergis, Billingzone provides separate products for the biller (arConnect) and payer (apConnect). Like BCE Emergis, Billingzone has relationships with large banks, including ABN Amro, PNC, National City, KeyCorp and Wachovia.
Avolent offers a Bizcast, a fully J2EE-enabled, packaged application targeted toward billers that want to operate electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP) systems internally. Avolent stores data in relational databases and extracts it if needed for various purposes such as dispute resolution. Avolent supports a range of application servers. Avolent targets the electronics, consumer package goods and wholesale distribution industries. Like BCE Emergis, Avolent also markets internationally. Unlike BCE Emergis, Avolent focuses exclusively on the EIPP market and does not have additional revenue streams.
Xign
Unlike BCE Emergis, Xign focuses exclusively on the B2B electronic invoice and payment market and is funded largely by venture capital funds. Xign’s largest customers include Sprint, Bristol-Myers Squibb, T-Mobile and Charles Schwab & Company. In addition, Xign has signed a partnership agreement with MasterCard to deliver an eB2B payment and transaction settlement service. The first release of Xign’s original solution, the Xign Payment Services Network, provided electronic payment capabilities. In April 2002 Xign expanded its offering with additional invoice-related functionality that includes three options: PPO-populated invoice (pre-matched), e-invoice Web form entry and e-file mapping and capture. The Xign service features a shared supplier network where suppliers can enroll over the Web to activate an account. Once activated, that supplier can be paid by any buyer on the Xign ePayables network, which offers functionality such as automated invoice and payment approval, real-time invoice and payment status, payer workflow, collaborative dispute management, enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration, full audit and archival and supplier activation services.
edocs eaSuite
edocs provides similar functionality to CheckFree i-Series with marketing, payment, distribution and customer care modules. Unlike BCE Emergis, edocs does not host any billers, process payments or maintain a network of distribution endpoints. edocs also provides business-to-business functionality with adjudication, line-item disputes and multiple invoice consolidation; however, it does not have the depth of functionality that BCE Emergis offers in the business-to-business area.
Checkfree iSeries
Checkfree iSeries is a software package focused largely on the business-to-consumer (B2C) market; however, it also provides business-to-business functionality. It does not, however, have the level of depth of business-to-business functionality of BCE Emergis and is utilized by different industries. The B2B components include a Business Process Rules Support (BPRS) module as well as several B2B features. Billers can make line-item adjustments and utilize pre-defined dispute codes. Disputes can be recorded for line item, invoice level or field level. Exchanges with ERP systems are limited to flat-file exchanges. Roles-based workflow allows personnel to review, dispute and adjust charges at line-item level. The business-to-business module is designed for cyclical bills and does not include more advanced features such as three-way matching and links to shipping and financing systems.
The Business Process Rules Support module provides account structure views with details such as customer’s service plan and rates. Interactive software allows customers to adjust charge, provide dispute codes and enter free-form text to resolve errors with CSR staff. Customers can determine where bills are in the cycle.
Pitney Bowes Docsense D3
Pitney Bowes offers the Docsense D3 Electronic invoice payment and presentment solution, which is based on the J2EE architecture. Pitney Bowes has strong technology but has less customers than other EIPP vendors. Docsense offers a broad range of workflow options.
Enterprise Resource Planning Packages
Enterprise Resource Planning packages from PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP and J.D. Edwards also offer some of the same functionality as BCE Emergis; however, most often they are focused on only offering the functionality to their own customers. This is, however, slowly starting to change. ERP packages offer tight integration within their own accounting packages for functions such as reconciliation. PeopleSoft currently has the most advanced EIPP functionality out of all of the ERP vendors.
Strengths
International Support
Release 3.5 includes robust support for international capabilities. The biller can define countries supported for payment processing, as long as the biller’s financial institution has a payment gateway into the country in which the trading partner’s settlement financial institution is located. Billers can also define up to six different languages that the application is capable of displaying.
Biller-Side Functionality
e-Invoicing provides a robust set of biller functionality that helps to alleviate such issues as customer service questions. CSRs can perform such timesaving functions as going in and moving invoices to history and logging in as the trading partner and act on behalf of the trading partner to perform all activities the trading partner authorizes.
Number of Customers
BCE Emergis has a large number of billers, with roughly 14 different billers in production and an additional 12 billers in the process of implementation.
Banking Relationships
BCE Emergis has large cash management banks such as J.P. Morgan/Chase, Bank of America and Bank One, among its customer set. These financial institutions integrate the BCE Emergis solution with various other cash management services.
Technical Architecture
e-Invoicing is based on a fully compliant J2EE architecture. Common objects are shared across the application, reducing the amount of effort required to perform routing functions and making changes to the application easier.
Limitations
Buyer-Side Functionality
BCE Emergis has not yet developed a separate buyer-side product. Functions such as entering invoice data manually from a Web-based data input screen and three-way matching are not yet available. BCE Emergis relies on the export to the payer’s ERP system to perform the reconciliation, depending on the ERP-enabled applications.
Lack of Packaged Application Customers
BCE Emergis can offer the e-Invoicing product as a packaged application, and it has one customer that has implemented e-Invoicing as a packaged application.
Insight
BCE Emergis has strong relationships with several major financial institutions that can act as consolidators between billers and their trading partners. Billers who have existing relationships with one of the BCE Emergis financial institutions will find it easy to take advantage of added cash management integration functions for little upfront investment. In addition, BCE Emergis provides robust international capabilities for billers who have relationships outside of the United States market. Although BCE Emergis is currently developing additional payer features, the product is still lacking some major payer functionality.
