Digital signature management and archiving of billing & invoicing documents

Digital signature management and archiving
of billing & invoicing documents

CONTEXT

An international food conglomerate needed to comply with customer demands and governmental business standards. They decided to implement digital signature management and archiving of its billing & invoicing documents so that the documents would be digitally signed and sealed. This would eliminate the use of printed and manually signed (aka wet) signatures for internal & customer approvals that created inefficiencies and non-compliances on regulatory requirements.

The solutions & services provider had to fulfil the following criteria:

  • Handle about 200 thousand invoices per year.
  • The ability to digitally sign billing documents but to automatically archive them across all their sales organizations.
  • The solution had to handle the following billing documents.
    • Domestic tax invoice
    • Credit memo
    • Debit memo
    • Export invoice
    • Credit for Returns
    • Custom invoice
    • Bill of supply
    • Tax Invoice GST Inter-state (from stock transport order outbound

Industry Outlook

The growth of the digital signature management solutions market is driven by the high acceptance of digital signatures in internal processes or communication in enterprises leading to enhanced operational efficiency and reduction in costs. The growing need for data security and authentication necessitated by the increase in cyber-attacks also drives the market’s growth. However, factors such as resistance to variation of existing applications or systems and the high cost of investment are affecting the market’s growth. Opportunities for market growth come from innovation in technology, an increase in the adoption of cloud-based solutions, and new legislation encouraging the use of digital signatures.

The global digital signature market was valued at $3.56 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $61.91 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 33.2% from 2021 to 2030.

Solutions and Services

ResolveTech is a solution implementation partner for DocuSign digital signature solution and the customer worked with ResolveTech to implement the solution in its SAP-TC1 landscape. RTS provided DocuSign as the solution platform for the billing and revenue management processes. ResolveTech also helped implement an archiving solution for the documents listed in the scope of this project – tax/custom invoices, credit/debit memos, delivery challan, credit for returns, bill of supply, etc.

The solution included the following capabilities:

  • Integrated DocuSign interface in SAP for single transaction screen workflow execution
  • DocuSign-enabled signature management workflows for invoice/billing approvals
  • Automated document movement and archival of the signed document in SAP interface

RESULTS

The new digital signature management implementation powered by DocuSign enabled the client to streamline and simplify their invoice and billing operations. Additionally, they were able to reduce significant costs by eliminating the dependency on physical documents for any document approvals. The solution also allowed:

  • Reduced dependency on the physical signatures of authorized personnel on invoices esp. outside office hours
  • Minimal time spent in preparation and physical transportation of the billing documents due to removal of dependency to manual signatures
  • Full compliance to customer requirements centered on digitally signed billing documents
  • Comprehensive readiness for digital signature implementation requirement for any prospective customers
  • Reduced carbon footprint with elimination of printed hard copies for signatures
  • Environmentally friendly. Reduction in printing hard copy of billing documents
  • Meet current and future demands from customers who ask for digitally signed billing documents
  • Improved and faster the reconciliation process
  • Processed 200,000 invoices/year
  • Ensured end-to-end digital transformation