When a food company, that deals with Retails and Food services, wished to have an automated Lockbox System in place that could handle literally any type of receivable, Ephlux set up a platter of EDI solution with JD Edwards the company could not resist!
Background Check:
A renowned company providing food service for over a 100 years, has established itself as the world’s best food company of its kind. Leading the way with the best in service, quality, category knowledge, and product development, this food company has strived to provide a customer experience that is unforgettable.
One of the ways in which this company aimed to provide awesome customer experience, and smooth transactions is by setting up a lockbox account. Because the company receives a large amount of payments, receivables and forms each month, it wished to have an automated system of processing these transactions to ensure speed and accuracy of the process.
Predicaments:
The data transmission formats used in lockbox payment processing follow a standard overall format. Data transmission formats handle the actual payment processing functions, as well as reconciling accounts that show payment due. While companies use banks to set up lockbox accounts, this ‘non-compromising’ food company wished to have an experienced company set up and manage the lockbox account activities – and to eventually automate the process for perfection in the process.
Files are downloaded from the bank portal on a daily basis, and then these were imported and brought into the AS400. Later, these would be moved into a staging area, where the lockbox received the batched. The cycle would be completed after batch processing is done and the cash application screen shows consistency between the customer’s payments and cash receipts.
The Hurdles:
Ephlux developed a multitude of variations along with the Functional consultant to help them understand the exact logical placement used by the R47111. This meant multiple iterations as the Electronic Data Interchange system uses a different code for each transaction type, and the complete automated system should be well-designed, error-free and run smoothly.
The Winning Stance:
Ephlux took upon this challenge like a charm, and worked very closely with the Functional consultant to analyze the issues associated with the modification of standard R47111 UBE in a way that helps in bringing the new batch in the system without interfering with the standard R47111 logic. A custom version of R47111 was constructed that would modify the logic at the appropriate locations and let the standard UBE code to take over and import the records.
Lockbox solution provided by Ephlux automated the capture, management, archival and delivery of the receivables, processing payments and translating customer information into valuable marketing data. The carefully designed system is capable of capturing data from virtually any document that comes with the receivables including invoices, payments, correspondence, donations, orders, customer service requests, promotional campaign documents, surveys, subscriptions, coupons, rebates and more. Ephlux successfully presented a delectable solution, as always, and kept its record for providing great customer experience.