Service integrating workflow with accounting system


Integration service is a Windows Service providing data exchange between workflow and accounting systems of the consulting company Ekoconsultant.

It was launched in December 2011 and provides integration of the software that services the project Business Connect - internet platform for document exchange and customer relationship management.

The platform contains: software for scanning documents (by Kofax), workflow (by VDoc) and financial-accounting programs - Comarch Optima and Microsoft Dynamics Nav. With the proper integration, all of the software performs complex process of exchange and processing of data and documents.

Documents originating from customers (eg. invoices) are scanned, passed through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and then directed to workflow program. In workflow process documents are verified and accepted by authorized users and then passed to the accounting stage. At this point, workflow generates XML files that contain a full set of data from scanned documents. Output files are automatically processed by the integration service, which performs a series of actions:

  • validate data in the documents,
  • recognize contractors in accounting system,
  • import data from documents to the relevant registers in the accounting programs, including: register of contractors, tax register, register of additional costs / revenues, register of payments, register of reconciliation of payments.

Data in accounting program are ready to review and final accounting. Information about completed accounting processes is recorded in workflow program, where appropriate notifications are sent to customers (eg. need of paying social security contributions, VAT, etc.).

The implementation of the platform has brought measurable benefits to our customer:

  • reduced costs of paper correspondence,
  • increased efficiency by eliminating errors in manual data entry,
  • increased quality of services through inspection of exchanged documents and associated processes.

A key feature of our integration service is high performance of data processing, necessary because of the large number of exchanged documents (about 15 000 documents a month).

Service operation is fully automatic and transparent to users of the platform. The service works in background on the application server and requires no special handling by users.

The service is written in Microsoft. NET 4.0 as a Windows service. The mechanism of integration is based on XML files and API at the level of SQL database.