Financial-chain-management

Financial processes are often treated as a typical secondary process. As a result, substantial optimization potential remains unexploited. Based on an empirical study, in this paper a generic financial chain is developed and used to identify areas for improvement. Especially the invoicing subprocess offers great potential for integration. 28% of all invoices are incorrect, mostly (83%) due to faulty prices. Thus, an internal integration of the systems used for pricing and invoicing customers can substantially cut down the associated costs of claim management. But integrating the invoicing systems with external partners is also important. German SMEs send 86% of all invoices to customers by mail. In Fortune 1000 enterprises the figure is 67%. Here, overall average costs per invoice are € 15,50 in contrast to € 2,00 for electronic invoices.