Order to Cash is a difficult process to manage since it often spans several functional areas of the company and often includes external providers such as credit card processors. The integration of these underlying systems and the hand-offs from operational unit to operational unit are therefore prone to the risk of fraud, mismanagement and revenue leakage. Again, the challenges apply to both the customer and the company. Customers need optimal order fulfillment along with shipment accuracy and timeliness. The company needs financial optimization including consistent pricing, lower receivables and days of sales outstanding, efficient billing and effective revenue accounting.

The challenges within O2C represent revenue and profit leakage for the company. Pricing discrepancies, for instance, are often written off and are a direct profit leak. Pricing reconciliation issues can mean delayed payments, higher administration costs and product returns. When product margins are razor thin and competition from all quarters is in play, capturing even a 2% discount or discrepancy could mean the difference between profit and loss, especially in retail operations.

Other aspects of the O2C process can also cut in the revenue recognized from operations. Excessive returns caused by overly aggressive sales practices, return policies not being enforced and simple errors in the shipping process or quantity/unit of measure discrepancies all slowly but surely eat into the revenue stream.

These issues are a source of frustration for management in their efforts to gain full visibility into the O2C process and final revenue recognition. They want effective controls to maximize revenue return and just as importantly the ability to easily adapt to changing market conditions all the while ensuring that the customer experience is the best it can be.

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring solutions provide an organization with an independent point of observation over its O2C business processes. It enables the identification of control breaches, fraud and money leakage, while ensuring data quality and providing feedback on key performance metrics across the entire process.

An independent point of observation is important in continuous monitoring. Solutions that are embedded in an ERP or an add-on to an existing application, for instance, only provide the ability to identify issues within the system they are tied to, SymSure however enables all aspects of the O2C process to be monitored holistically and provides assurance that the hand-offs between systems and operations are working correctly.

The continuous monitoring system should be accessible by all users in the organization. Since an effective monitoring solution can touch multiple business processes, it is important that stakeholders can access and monitor the results regardless of their location, technical ability or business role. This is important in processes such as O2C where many types of operational users will be using the system.

A key feature on an effective solution is the deployment to all relevant stakeholders; assigning them fraud mitigation tasks and ensuring that they are addressed in a timely manner.  

SymSure Order to Cash

SymSure enables all of the O2C stages within the process to be monitored, regardless of the underlying systems, data sources, platforms or locations. Results from these disparate sources are consolidated and results presented in SymSure for use by any authorized users, regardless of location.

Using SymSure, all aspects of the O2C cycle from order fulfillment through to invoicing and billing can be monitored to provide insight into specific issues as well as the overall health of the O2C. Notifications and workflow management are built into the SymSure framework ensuring that issues receive proper attention and their resolution can be managed.

SymSure’s suite of tests is comprehensive and covers the full lifecycle of O2C. The suite includes tests and reports for Segregation of Duties, Master Data Monitoring, Exception Reporting and Metrics & Performance Monitoring.