Adds order management capabilities to online payments network
Pleasanton, CA — March 8, 2004 — Payments solution provider Xign has rolled out its Order to Pay offering, which it is positioning as the first "on-demand" service that fully automates the order-to-payment cycle.
Xign said that the Order to Pay service will beef up the company's current electronic invoicing and payment service, the Xign Payment Services Network, by adding order management capabilities.
Available now, Order to Pay holds the promise of helping large buying organizations slash processing costs, compress cycle times and monetize early payment discounts across corporate spend, according to Xign.
The enterprise order to pay (EOP) cycle includes all of the activities associated with the settlement of a business transaction. The process starts with the delivery of a purchase order and management of related documents such as advance shipping notices. It continues with the receipt of an invoice for processing, and concludes with the payment and delivery of remittance, the information that suppliers must have to apply payments and reconcile banks accounts.
According to Xign, its Order to Pay service automates all these core business functions, and as a Web-based "on-demand" service that supports existing finance and procurement infrastructure, the new service can be deployed more quickly and at a lower cost than traditional enterprise software, Xign asserted.
The solution provider said the new service is designed to help organizations overcome key obstacles as they strive for operational excellence and enhanced return on investment. Those obstacles include the need to reengineer cumbersome accounts payable processes, managing EOP collaboration across a diverse supplier base, and activating and collaborating with thousands of suppliers with different operational capabilities and strategic value.
Additional challenges include accommodating the full spectrum of spend, and managing and monetizing early payment discounts across the supplier base.
Xign's Order to Pay provides a suite of software and services designed to streamline the EOP cycle and manage and monetize early payment discounts across corporate spend. The solution supports popular document types and different levels of automation, including the processing of Web forms, purchase order flips and popular electronic file formats and delivery through multiple transmission channels.
Buyer-defined business rules automatically identify invoice errors upon submission and immediately return them to suppliers for correction and resubmission. Once invoices have been validated and approved, electronic payments may be scheduled via the bank-supported Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and the MasterCard Corporate Purchasing Card network.
Xign said that Order to Pay is not limited to a single procurement and sourcing application, giving it broad supplier leverage across the market. "This application-independent approach extends the value of existing investments in popular financial, [enterprise resource planning (ERP)] and procurement systems such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, JD Edwards and Ariba, as well as other widely used sourcing and contract management solutions," Xign said in a statement.
In addition, Xign offers best practice expertise gained through deployments at such organizations as Sprint, Payless ShoeSource and Pacific Gas & Electric. This experience ranges from supplier activation and discount optimization programs to master vendor spend analysis and business process reengineering.
"Consolidating electronic document processing via the Xign Payment Services Network is saving us an incredible amount of time and effort," said Vic Nation, manager of accounts payable/receivable at Payless ShoeSource. "In addition, Xign's scalable, standards-based architecture has contributed to the development of valuable new business applications."
