Using Folders to manage AP Invoice workloads

Remember the old days when AP functions and workloads were split between AP Invoice Officers using the first letter of the supplier name (we called this the alphabet split), or using the invoice date, or the invoice receipt date.

In today's world, with ERP systems and scanning solutions, the processing of AP invoices is mostly automated. Invoices are often automatically created or imported into the AP Invoice workbench using interface tables or a scanning solution. With these systems in place the majority of invoices do not require any human intervention, while others do. For this last group, the workload distribution can be achieved in different ways, alphabetically, by invoice date (invoice receipt date), or by evenly distributing the workload to the AP Officers using the count of invoices.

I have replicated the alphabet split approach using form folders with embedded queries, sorting unprocessed invoices by first letter of the supplier name, this worked nicely, but this approach had a few disadvantages:
- the workload was often not evenly distributed,
- all invoices from the same supplier were processed by the same AP officer, employee morale was low as the work was monotonous,
- suppliers often called the AP officer directly to find out when their invoices were going to be paid, instead of calling the designated hotline,
- other AP officers did not know how to process these invoices, if there were any particularities related tho this supplier,
- some suppliers would request special attention or request the AP officer to process their invoices in a particular way, instead of applying the standardized process.

The second approach defined above, by distributing the workload using dates, also does not split the workload evenly between the AP Officers, affecting employee morale as well.

The evenly distributed workload approach seems like the best option and can easily be implemented by using the same Form Folders with embedded queries. How did we achieve this you may ask, here's how we did it. We grouped the last 2 digits of the INVOICE_ID (numeric value) into ranges of values, e.g. we created 5 folders with the following ranges: 00-19, 20-39, 40-59, 60-79, and finally 80-99.
So when invoices are migrated from the interface or from the invoice scanning software, the unprocessed AP invoices are allocated evenly between all 5 AP Officers.

I put a smile on the face of the AP manager when this solution was implemented. The team immediately felt more engaged and valued.