Posted by Mark Brousseau
A number of recent announcements in the world of electronic data interchange (EDI) are likely to have an impact on enterprise document management and payment processing in the near future. These announcements foretell a trend in which businesses are increasingly sending electronic documents and electronic business data to each other through “business networks.” Pete Dinham, Global Solutions Director, BancTec (www.banctec.com), explains:
Consider the following announcements:
... SAP (a large ERP vendor) announced they will offer their own "business ready network" for supporting EDI and other B2B e-commerce exchanges titled the SAP Information Interchange. The vision of this solution is to connect all SAP users and their trading partners together in a large business network to simplify data exchanges.
... GXS (the world's largest EDI provider) announced their intent to acquire Inovis (another of the world's largest - top five EDI providers). Both of these companies have been investing heavily into developing business networks and SaaS (software as a service) solutions to be operated in a cloud computing environment.
... IBM announced their intent to acquire Sterling Commerce (the world's 2nd largest EDI provider). Sterling Commerce has also been heavily investing in the business network concept of supporting EDI/B2B in a SaaS business model using a cloud computing environment.
What is motivating all of these acquisitions and activities in an IT sector that has been around for decades and is considered mature?
GXS, Inovis and Sterling Commerce are all legacy EDI companies that are rapidly innovating and setting up “business networks.” They recognize the power and impact that the social networking revolution is having on businesses and their networks of suppliers and customers. They realize that it will change the way businesses have traditionally operated and exchanged data.
Business networks are EDI/B2B e-commerce hubs that enable companies to efficiently exchange electronic business documents and data in a relatively low cost and simple manner. Business networks are similar in many ways to the popular Linkedin and Facebook sites. Companies can join and set up a profile, and then search for their customers, suppliers and service providers and easily connect with them and begin exchanging electronic documents and messages using electronic data interchanges. How is this different than in the past? In the past, if company A wanted to exchange EDI messages with company B, they would have to call company B and negotiate data requirements and data formats. It was often a complex and time consuming effort each time they wanted to connect with a new partner. Business networks let you join the network and simply ask permission to connect with others on it. The data formats and data requirements are all handled by the business network (Hub) in a cloud computing environment.
What does business networks have to do with document management and transactional content management? EDI and B2B data exchanges are part of the transactional content management's chain of custody. Chain of custody refers to the ability to track and trace each movement that an electronic document takes in a business process. Electronic documents/messages/data can originate at a customer or supplier and travel through the business network (EDI/B2B hub) into a company's internal transactional content management system. Invoices are an example of a business document that originates at a supplier and must be received, processed, approved and paid. The efficient flow of external business data between businesses, and then internally using document management or transactional content management solutions enables near real-time processing and end-to-end visibility of transactional data. In these environments many areas of latency and costs are removed from the business process.
Business networks offer simplicity. They remove complexity and the need for expensive investments in legacy EDI and B2B systems and dedicated resources. They make it easy for many more companies to participate. They extend enterprise document management, payment processing and transactional content management visibility all the way from one end of the process to the other. The impact of business networks and social networking on large enterprises is just starting to be understood. The implications are enormous and will be interesting to watch.
For related information on transactional content management, go to http://transactionalcontentmanagement.blogspot.com/.
Showing posts with label EDI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDI. Show all posts
Monday, June 7, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Best Practices for Gateway EDI
Posted by Mark Brousseau
For Gateway EDI, EHNAC accreditation shows the way to best practices. EHNAC Executive Director Lee Barrett explains:
As one of the fastest-growing providers of healthcare electronic data interchange, Gateway EDI processes transactions for more than 10,000 medical offices representing 50,000 providers in all 50 states. Gateway EDI also connects to more than 3,000 payers and offers services ranging from standard claims processing and status reports to more advanced capabilities such as technology for flagging rejected claims.
Founded in 1983, Gateway EDI has continuously pursued innovations, business practices and opportunities to improve its services. In 2006, just such an opportunity arose through a relationship with the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC).
“Our initial interest in EHNAC was prompted by a state of Maryland requirement,” recalls Dave Cheli, chief information officer, at Gateway EDI. “But the accreditation process proved to be a real eye-opener for us.”
An industry veteran, Cheli was already familiar with EHNAC’s work, which dates to the early 1990s. Though the Gateway EDI team knew generally what to expect, they were pleasantly surprised with the advantages of achieving full accreditation in March 2006.
“It provided a great framework for bringing together a wide range of security, privacy and operational aspects,” says Cheli. “Seeing it all from EHNAC’s perspective in a comprehensive overview was an interesting experience. It shined some light on some aspects of our business where there had been missing pieces.”
Taking a closer look
Transaction auditing serves as a case in point. Gateway EDI manages more than 15 million transactions a month, and the EHNAC criteria require that electronic health networks demonstrate the ability to produce detailed audit trails for all of them.
“Most clearinghouses handle millions of transactions on a monthly basis,” says Cheli. “You might think you can account for every transaction, but EHNAC forces you to show that you can. When you start looking at reports and doing the research, you learn more about your business. For us, the process highlighted some areas where we were able to shore up our capability to reconcile every single transaction.”
In addition to these operational enhancements, EHNAC accreditation has impacted the customer service side. “As a result of our original accreditation in 2006, we added some processes that have benefitted our clients, such as closer monitoring of customer service status,” says Cheli.
In response to marketplace trends, Gateway EDI has grown its business on the strength of value-added services and strong support. And in the years since it began working with EHNAC, Gateway EDI has further built on that advantage. In May 2008, Gateway EDI was included in the “Ambulatory EDI Claims Clearinghouse” report published by KLAS, the Orem, Utah-based research firm (www.KLASresearch.com) specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors.
Gateway EDI’s results included 100 percent positive commentary regarding the vendor relationship, and perfect scores, 100 percent, for Would Recommend to a Friend or Peer, and Services Delivered within Budget/Cost. With most Gateway EDI customers “feeling well taken care of”, Gateway EDI earned an 89 overall rating score, a functional strength rating of 4.5 out of 5.0., and first-place for practice management integration. It also captured the top rating in several categories, including “Quality of Services Staff” and “Real Problem Resolution.”
Standards as best practices
As a self-governing non-profit, EHNAC maintains a comprehensive set of publicly-available standards criteria covering privacy and confidentiality; technical performance; business practices; physical, human and administrative resources; and security.
The EHNAC standards development process is fully open and transparent. Based on years of research, it’s the result of continuous input from electronic health networks, payers, hospitals, physicians, consumer groups, financial services firms, security organizations and vendors.
“Because it’s built on years of studying the industry and it’s so broad based, the EHNAC criteria have essentially become a collection of best practices,” says Cheli.
A credible process
EHNAC’s accreditation process, which is based on these established standards, begins with a candidate organization’s submission of an in-depth self-assessment. Later, an EHNAC site reviewer visits to evaluate the accreditation candidate more closely. This hands-on approach helps companies identify issues as well as opportunities.
“In 2006 and again, with our re-accreditation in 2008, the EHNAC assessor spent time understanding our processes. They’ve asked a lot of insightful questions and shared some wonderful tips with us,” says Cheli. “For example, this year we got some very valuable advice on improving our disaster recovery and business continuity measures.”
An operational catalyst
Cheli believes that EHNAC has served as a sort of catalyst, helping Gateway EDI expand privacy and security measures, make decisions about business practices and set meaningful operational objectives. “We now have a lot of people setting departmental goals and monitoring performance metrics that are built around EHNAC criteria,” he says. “Getting a set percentage of claims out in a certain time frame, for example, is now crystallized for us as a monthly goal. And we’re more meticulous about monitoring against those goals.”
“Would we have gotten there without EHNAC driving a lot of this?” Cheli asks. “Probably. But not as quickly. EHNAC is the only organization that provides a comprehensive accreditation service for clearinghouses. HIPAA-related issues are just a part of the overall criteria. They look at it from a total operational perspective.”
Truth in advertising
One also can see the results of Gateway EDI’s efforts with a quick visit to its website. Gateway EDI customers have an average overall error rate of only seven percent. Ninety-eight percent of customer service calls are answered directly by a real person. Gateway EDI solves 92 percent of customer questions on the first call.
And prospects can rest assured that these claims about claims are real. In addition to performance standards and policies and procedures, EHNAC accreditation encompasses “truth-in-advertising” criteria. So statements like these are verifiable.
What began as a requirement has become a resource for Gateway EDI — and relationship, too. “The people behind EHNAC are experienced, smart and very passionate about what they do,” says Cheli. “They’ve been extremely supportive of us, and our relationship has been wonderful.”
For Gateway EDI, EHNAC accreditation shows the way to best practices. EHNAC Executive Director Lee Barrett explains:
As one of the fastest-growing providers of healthcare electronic data interchange, Gateway EDI processes transactions for more than 10,000 medical offices representing 50,000 providers in all 50 states. Gateway EDI also connects to more than 3,000 payers and offers services ranging from standard claims processing and status reports to more advanced capabilities such as technology for flagging rejected claims.
Founded in 1983, Gateway EDI has continuously pursued innovations, business practices and opportunities to improve its services. In 2006, just such an opportunity arose through a relationship with the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC).
“Our initial interest in EHNAC was prompted by a state of Maryland requirement,” recalls Dave Cheli, chief information officer, at Gateway EDI. “But the accreditation process proved to be a real eye-opener for us.”
An industry veteran, Cheli was already familiar with EHNAC’s work, which dates to the early 1990s. Though the Gateway EDI team knew generally what to expect, they were pleasantly surprised with the advantages of achieving full accreditation in March 2006.
“It provided a great framework for bringing together a wide range of security, privacy and operational aspects,” says Cheli. “Seeing it all from EHNAC’s perspective in a comprehensive overview was an interesting experience. It shined some light on some aspects of our business where there had been missing pieces.”
Taking a closer look
Transaction auditing serves as a case in point. Gateway EDI manages more than 15 million transactions a month, and the EHNAC criteria require that electronic health networks demonstrate the ability to produce detailed audit trails for all of them.
“Most clearinghouses handle millions of transactions on a monthly basis,” says Cheli. “You might think you can account for every transaction, but EHNAC forces you to show that you can. When you start looking at reports and doing the research, you learn more about your business. For us, the process highlighted some areas where we were able to shore up our capability to reconcile every single transaction.”
In addition to these operational enhancements, EHNAC accreditation has impacted the customer service side. “As a result of our original accreditation in 2006, we added some processes that have benefitted our clients, such as closer monitoring of customer service status,” says Cheli.
In response to marketplace trends, Gateway EDI has grown its business on the strength of value-added services and strong support. And in the years since it began working with EHNAC, Gateway EDI has further built on that advantage. In May 2008, Gateway EDI was included in the “Ambulatory EDI Claims Clearinghouse” report published by KLAS, the Orem, Utah-based research firm (www.KLASresearch.com) specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors.
Gateway EDI’s results included 100 percent positive commentary regarding the vendor relationship, and perfect scores, 100 percent, for Would Recommend to a Friend or Peer, and Services Delivered within Budget/Cost. With most Gateway EDI customers “feeling well taken care of”, Gateway EDI earned an 89 overall rating score, a functional strength rating of 4.5 out of 5.0., and first-place for practice management integration. It also captured the top rating in several categories, including “Quality of Services Staff” and “Real Problem Resolution.”
Standards as best practices
As a self-governing non-profit, EHNAC maintains a comprehensive set of publicly-available standards criteria covering privacy and confidentiality; technical performance; business practices; physical, human and administrative resources; and security.
The EHNAC standards development process is fully open and transparent. Based on years of research, it’s the result of continuous input from electronic health networks, payers, hospitals, physicians, consumer groups, financial services firms, security organizations and vendors.
“Because it’s built on years of studying the industry and it’s so broad based, the EHNAC criteria have essentially become a collection of best practices,” says Cheli.
A credible process
EHNAC’s accreditation process, which is based on these established standards, begins with a candidate organization’s submission of an in-depth self-assessment. Later, an EHNAC site reviewer visits to evaluate the accreditation candidate more closely. This hands-on approach helps companies identify issues as well as opportunities.
“In 2006 and again, with our re-accreditation in 2008, the EHNAC assessor spent time understanding our processes. They’ve asked a lot of insightful questions and shared some wonderful tips with us,” says Cheli. “For example, this year we got some very valuable advice on improving our disaster recovery and business continuity measures.”
An operational catalyst
Cheli believes that EHNAC has served as a sort of catalyst, helping Gateway EDI expand privacy and security measures, make decisions about business practices and set meaningful operational objectives. “We now have a lot of people setting departmental goals and monitoring performance metrics that are built around EHNAC criteria,” he says. “Getting a set percentage of claims out in a certain time frame, for example, is now crystallized for us as a monthly goal. And we’re more meticulous about monitoring against those goals.”
“Would we have gotten there without EHNAC driving a lot of this?” Cheli asks. “Probably. But not as quickly. EHNAC is the only organization that provides a comprehensive accreditation service for clearinghouses. HIPAA-related issues are just a part of the overall criteria. They look at it from a total operational perspective.”
Truth in advertising
One also can see the results of Gateway EDI’s efforts with a quick visit to its website. Gateway EDI customers have an average overall error rate of only seven percent. Ninety-eight percent of customer service calls are answered directly by a real person. Gateway EDI solves 92 percent of customer questions on the first call.
And prospects can rest assured that these claims about claims are real. In addition to performance standards and policies and procedures, EHNAC accreditation encompasses “truth-in-advertising” criteria. So statements like these are verifiable.
What began as a requirement has become a resource for Gateway EDI — and relationship, too. “The people behind EHNAC are experienced, smart and very passionate about what they do,” says Cheli. “They’ve been extremely supportive of us, and our relationship has been wonderful.”
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
California Fast-Tracks Healthcare EDI
Posted by Mark Brousseau
California regulations for electronic workers' compensation billing slated for publication before end of this year are likely to see fast-tracked implementation, according to Jopari Solutions, a supplier of medical EDI connectivity and transmission for the property and casualty industry.
EBilling is a key initiative the California Insurance Commissioner and Division of Workers' Compensation officials say is essential, along with other benchmark recommendations, to streamline the state's workers' compensation system, rein in medical costs and keep employer costs down. This past week, the Commissioner rejected any recommended increase in California's workers' compensation pure premium rate.
California's eBill regulations will specify an 18-month phase-in period for workers' compensation payers to acquire the ability to process eBill transactions, after regulations get signed into law. n addition, California is adopting uniform electronic claim and remittance standards similar to those mandated in Texas and Minnesota, which are supported by national standards organizations.
Facilitating rapid transition by carriers is the fact that national and regional health care provider networks are eager to expand electronic bill submissions with payers into their California markets. A large percentage of local health care practices today also exchange electronic health insurance claims, payments and remittance, or have medical transaction ready EDI billing software. Compressed timely payment deadline for clean electronic bills under California eBill rules - fifteen days as opposed to forty-five days for uncontested paper bills - is another factor expected to put early pressure on carriers by their medical services trading partners.
As Jopari CEO JR "Steve" Stevens and veteran industry observer Peter Rousmaniere point out in a new whitepaper, The E-billing Transformation, the community of beneficiaries from the switch to electronic transmission of bills and supporting documentation, or attachments, goes beyond state agencies pushing for administrative simplification, better data and more stakeholder accountability. Stevens and Rousmaniere indicate, "Conventional transmission methods, heavily dependent on mail, faxing and scanning, impose delays and error rates which leading medical bill review firms estimate as upwards of 20 percent or more. Electronic submission largely sweeps away these defects." They explain that, "Claims payers should therefore approach e-billing not simply as a way of shaving the burdens of managing paper flow -- they should use e-billing to sweep away obstacles to improving the management of medical care."
Stevens and Rousmaniere conclude that payers undertaking early compliance initiatives will strengthen themselves competitively, both in California and nationally. Carriers slow to adopt electronic transmission methods, however, will remain burdened by antiquated workflow; unable to reduce delays and errors in the handling of medical information; and be handicapped in their attempts to control spiraling medical costs, they say.
What do you think?
California regulations for electronic workers' compensation billing slated for publication before end of this year are likely to see fast-tracked implementation, according to Jopari Solutions, a supplier of medical EDI connectivity and transmission for the property and casualty industry.
EBilling is a key initiative the California Insurance Commissioner and Division of Workers' Compensation officials say is essential, along with other benchmark recommendations, to streamline the state's workers' compensation system, rein in medical costs and keep employer costs down. This past week, the Commissioner rejected any recommended increase in California's workers' compensation pure premium rate.
California's eBill regulations will specify an 18-month phase-in period for workers' compensation payers to acquire the ability to process eBill transactions, after regulations get signed into law. n addition, California is adopting uniform electronic claim and remittance standards similar to those mandated in Texas and Minnesota, which are supported by national standards organizations.
Facilitating rapid transition by carriers is the fact that national and regional health care provider networks are eager to expand electronic bill submissions with payers into their California markets. A large percentage of local health care practices today also exchange electronic health insurance claims, payments and remittance, or have medical transaction ready EDI billing software. Compressed timely payment deadline for clean electronic bills under California eBill rules - fifteen days as opposed to forty-five days for uncontested paper bills - is another factor expected to put early pressure on carriers by their medical services trading partners.
As Jopari CEO JR "Steve" Stevens and veteran industry observer Peter Rousmaniere point out in a new whitepaper, The E-billing Transformation, the community of beneficiaries from the switch to electronic transmission of bills and supporting documentation, or attachments, goes beyond state agencies pushing for administrative simplification, better data and more stakeholder accountability. Stevens and Rousmaniere indicate, "Conventional transmission methods, heavily dependent on mail, faxing and scanning, impose delays and error rates which leading medical bill review firms estimate as upwards of 20 percent or more. Electronic submission largely sweeps away these defects." They explain that, "Claims payers should therefore approach e-billing not simply as a way of shaving the burdens of managing paper flow -- they should use e-billing to sweep away obstacles to improving the management of medical care."
Stevens and Rousmaniere conclude that payers undertaking early compliance initiatives will strengthen themselves competitively, both in California and nationally. Carriers slow to adopt electronic transmission methods, however, will remain burdened by antiquated workflow; unable to reduce delays and errors in the handling of medical information; and be handicapped in their attempts to control spiraling medical costs, they say.
What do you think?
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Minnesota Mandate: What Does It Mean?
By Mark Brousseau
When HIPAA was passed in 1996 it looked like an electronic future for healthcare was upon us. As it turned out, the lack of enforcement for the new law combined with the ability to “opt-out” of electronic claim and remittance processes altogether allowed payers to delay their adoption of electronic file capabilities.
This was extremely counter-productive to the healthcare industry as a whole, notes Jim Ribelin, CEO, HERAE, LLC (www.herae.com). How could payers take the laws seriously when Medicare has only recently made the move to all electronic remittance data, and there are still US Military hospitals that as of today require paper-based processing as ‘standard procedure?’
It took Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota, to enact a state law requiring all insurance payers that do business in the state of Minnesota to conduct all claim and payment transactions electronically by December 19, 2009. This time there is no ability to “opt-out” of the electronic mandate. Furthermore, there are stiff penalties waiting for any payer that does not comply, Ribelin points out.
“This presents a very different situation than we’ve seen with HIPAA enforcement,” Ribelin says. “There is the law, but now there is enforcement and penalties, and a relatively tight deadline, at a state level.”
Ribelin adds that Minnesota is home to some of the top, internationally-recognized healthcare facilities. “This new law will require quick and decisive action on the part of large and small payers to provide electronic files across the board,” he says. “It will also create a level of ‘fear and uncertainty’ in the provider market, as every one of them is finally confronted with the inescapable requirement to accept and process electronic remittance information.”
The good news is that the healthcare remittance market has matured since HIPAA and there are solutions available that provide flexible online workflow, payer connections and electronic funds transfer (EFT) data re-association with electronic remittance advice (ERA) data, Ribelin says. The bad news is that there are also very limited solutions out there that do the bare minimum, and often create more work and headaches for the healthcare provider in their quest to adopt electronic payment solutions.
“The challenge is to educate the market on what they should look for in a remittance partner,” Ribelin says. “Sending a scanned image of an explanation of benefit (EOB) can be considered an electronic solution – but it’s a far cry from obtaining a fully HIPAA-compliant 835 data file complete with claim, patient and procedure information that can be searched and reported upon.”
The optimum solution deals with the data right at the source, by direct-connecting to payers, Ribelin claims. This provides many advantages, including standardized online presentation of claim information regardless of the payer, the ability to receive the most robust remittance data before it is modified/tainted by clearinghouses or accidently by the providers themselves, he says. There are also longer-term benefits, Ribelin adds, including significant advantages in terms of reporting to improve back-office processes and collections, contract management to monitor and improve accuracy of insurance payer payments and much more.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
When HIPAA was passed in 1996 it looked like an electronic future for healthcare was upon us. As it turned out, the lack of enforcement for the new law combined with the ability to “opt-out” of electronic claim and remittance processes altogether allowed payers to delay their adoption of electronic file capabilities.
This was extremely counter-productive to the healthcare industry as a whole, notes Jim Ribelin, CEO, HERAE, LLC (www.herae.com). How could payers take the laws seriously when Medicare has only recently made the move to all electronic remittance data, and there are still US Military hospitals that as of today require paper-based processing as ‘standard procedure?’
It took Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota, to enact a state law requiring all insurance payers that do business in the state of Minnesota to conduct all claim and payment transactions electronically by December 19, 2009. This time there is no ability to “opt-out” of the electronic mandate. Furthermore, there are stiff penalties waiting for any payer that does not comply, Ribelin points out.
“This presents a very different situation than we’ve seen with HIPAA enforcement,” Ribelin says. “There is the law, but now there is enforcement and penalties, and a relatively tight deadline, at a state level.”
Ribelin adds that Minnesota is home to some of the top, internationally-recognized healthcare facilities. “This new law will require quick and decisive action on the part of large and small payers to provide electronic files across the board,” he says. “It will also create a level of ‘fear and uncertainty’ in the provider market, as every one of them is finally confronted with the inescapable requirement to accept and process electronic remittance information.”
The good news is that the healthcare remittance market has matured since HIPAA and there are solutions available that provide flexible online workflow, payer connections and electronic funds transfer (EFT) data re-association with electronic remittance advice (ERA) data, Ribelin says. The bad news is that there are also very limited solutions out there that do the bare minimum, and often create more work and headaches for the healthcare provider in their quest to adopt electronic payment solutions.
“The challenge is to educate the market on what they should look for in a remittance partner,” Ribelin says. “Sending a scanned image of an explanation of benefit (EOB) can be considered an electronic solution – but it’s a far cry from obtaining a fully HIPAA-compliant 835 data file complete with claim, patient and procedure information that can be searched and reported upon.”
The optimum solution deals with the data right at the source, by direct-connecting to payers, Ribelin claims. This provides many advantages, including standardized online presentation of claim information regardless of the payer, the ability to receive the most robust remittance data before it is modified/tainted by clearinghouses or accidently by the providers themselves, he says. There are also longer-term benefits, Ribelin adds, including significant advantages in terms of reporting to improve back-office processes and collections, contract management to monitor and improve accuracy of insurance payer payments and much more.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Utility Webinar Q & A
By Mark Brousseau
Last week, TAWPI’s Payments Capture & Clearing (PCC) Council and Purepay Receivables Automation hosted a Webinar on the business case for image-based remittance solutions in the utility industry. The Webinar included a case study presentation by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), a Purepay remittance software user. There were so many questions at the end of the Webinar, that there wasn’t enough time to answer them all. So, below are the responses to the Webinar questions.
Are you able to save queries?
Tim Vasquez, Omaha Public Power District: We save our own queries in Access.
How much does the software cost?
Doug Myers, Purepay Receivables Automation: Software is based on the type of transport that it runs on, much like the CPU based pricing for the core product, and this is pretty standard across the industry and then there might be some additional modules that are specially priced based on particular capability rather then on size of transport.
How many hours are your employees spending each day now on processing your items in the utility?
Tim Vasquez: Processing on our peak days in the week takes about 6 hours total for the two processors to complete. About 4-5 hours on off-peak days for one processor.
What forms of electronic presentment and payment does OPPD offer to their customers?
Tim Vasquez: We have a very large base of customers who use our own automatic bill payment that’s about 25 to 30 percent of our customers, we get another 10 percent who use our online system or pay from an online banking system. Many of our companies will pay us by EDI or an ACH transaction. We also offer credit card payment and in-person payments to make up for the rest of that percentage to get us to that 41 percent for mail.
What does EDI stand for?
Tim Vasquez: Electronic Data Interchange; it’s used typically to send extra data (such as account numbers) along with an ACH payment.
What forms of electronic presentment and payment does OPPD offer to their customers?
Tim Vasquez: We offer Web, IVR and the auto debit program. In addition, we have electronic payment links to most major payment groups (Checkfree, Online Resources, etc.)
How long do you hold your paper items prior to destruction?
Tim Vasquez: I believe the bank requires you to hold them for 5 days. I’d check with your bank on those things specifically. We went for as much room as we could hold; most people recommended that to us as we were doing vendor evaluations. We can hold about 5 weeks of data and we destroy it internally ourselves.
Do you have walk in sites that take payments? And does this application interface with those sites?
Tim Vasquez: We have about 20 locations throughout our service territory where anybody can walk in and take a payment with an OPPD logo on it. We have OPPD software running there. Then we get those checks down at our location. If had wanted to make the investment of putting that image piece out of those offices, then we would be able to interface directly. But it seems easier for us to ship the check down to us for processing.
How do you handle keying check only payments regarding quality? - For example, double keying, etc.
Tim Vasquez: We interface with our CIS system for check only payments of that type. If it’s just check only batches that are being deposited, we use the control total to ensure the items haven’t been double keyed. If its for the account number, we return an amount from our CIS showing us what amt is due from that customer, so it gives someone an item to balance against just like it’s a regular transaction, we are assuming that the bill coming was for the amt the customer owed and then if the check does not equal that amt it presents it back to the operator like Amanda showed, showing whether you want to adjust the stub or adjust the check amount. The system can be configured to double key amounts if required.
Did OPPD ever use lockbox? There are several doing this, what would you suggest to those companies?
Tim Vasquez: We use a lockbox for deposit of our high dollar amounts. They receive the mail earlier and deposit earlier. We still process the items afterwards. We have had several people approach us to take over our processing. I think this is part of the challenge we are talking about to make sure we are competitive with that cost.
We feel that we have something to offer to that product, it’s not just a commodity we just want to use payments process. Those are our customers, they are our contacts and that’s our business life blood. We want to own that responsibility for those payments, get them posted and have the control and the ability to research when a customer calls in. We take that stuff seriously and so before you answer to us I really suggest to you that to evaluate this system, no one is going to let me talk about a specific price, but the pricing on this type of system is worth your while to look into.
I have heard companies had issues handling bill-pay payments. How did you address this issue within your organization?
Tim Vasquez: We did our bill pay; we’ve used two different groups for our bill pay. We had a lot of internal interfacing expertise. Certainly all payment processing is all about balancing, are you batching, and are you real time; if your real time, do you have a method of dealing with returns. My preferred method as an accountant, I want to batch, I want to know it’s in balance before I post anything and I want to see it posted in my bank account that same day. A big component of that when I get a chance to put in an interface for a system I ask to batch, I want to see a total and I want to see it in a bank the same day before I post payment. That’s how I would suggest doing it.
Who are you using for your web and phone payments and do they integrate directly to the other accounts receivable file you receive on other payments?
Tim Vasquez: We put Purepay systems through our regular interface for payments. Basically anytime you have a payment interface you’re going to be creating some type of flat file that goes through your interface system. It’s really not complicated. A long time ago when we started developing our interface systems for a RCIS system, we said lets make a standard flat file that’s easy to get your hands around and is simple to explain to a vendor, so that no matter what payment style we go after whether it’s a Check Free, Princeton, or PayMyBills.com; there are so many of those types of organizations that wanted to be send a very simplistic flat file format, this is my flat file format, this is what I need you to be able to create and if they can’t create it, they have the expertise in-house to create that type of simple flat file.
I know this payment type is decreasing, but what percentage of total payments are in-person?
Tim Vasquez: We actually have quite a contingent of walk-in payments. We have 10 percent of our customer base walk into our customer office through the past 10 years; really an un-phased group. Then we have an additionally 4 percent who walk in to our payment agent locations. Certainly we service a pretty good geographical region that covers rural and urban and a pretty good demographic of young to old. Those payment styles, I think Mark had mentioned, just because they are declining doesn’t mean that they are really going away. People are their payments, and they will pay the way that they prefer and we don’t discourage or encourage from any particular site location.
Does the software automatically convert each check to check 21 or does it also convert some checks to ARC?
Amanda Hales, Purepay Receivables Automation: It can do both. If you have purchased both modules it can do the decisioning for you for both. It will automatically decision if its ACH flow or should be Check 21.
Tim Vasquez: We went with the opinion of doing Check 21 just because we have so many banks within such a close geographic location. Once we deposited to 3 banks we were getting a pretty favourable flow schedule without ARC’ing, we felt it was a cost benefit for us to just go all Check 21.
Who were some of the vendors/how many vendors did you consider when you went through the process of choosing Purepay?
Tim Vasquez: I had considered 10 different vendors. Having not cleared who I can say and who I can’t say; I’ll say that I had considered all of the major players, and it was only after looking at what was out there and available that I decide to look at some of the smaller software providers who I didn’t know as well. It really all started with a walk through the TAWPI showroom, just seeing what equipment was available and who were the venders that were in play who I thought would be around for the next 5 years. Then I went to 10 of those people.
Can you explain a little about why you might not want to go with "all electronic" from day 1 if you had it to do over again as you mentioned in your intro?
Tim Vasquez: You really need to work through your banking relationship to figure out what their timeline is for electronic payment deposit. I was surprised afterwards that most banks say you have to be live and then follow this schedule for this number of weeks before we will accept an electronic deposit for you. And because of a very strong good relationship within our own geographic region with our banking group, I set the schedule for one of my banks who then adhered to it are getting a lot of props from me as far as being someone who was on my side during implementation.
Most banks you’ll find though when you start talking, find out what their schedule is for electronic deposit. See what you can do about the schedule and how you can still operate in your own environment while waiting for the electronic deposit piece to come up. Probably now if I had to do it over again I would get my bank to commit to letting me send from a remote site, set up the equipment in that remote site, go through the testing from that remote site, by remote site I would mean my vendor’s location, so that when it comes to I’m ready to electronic deposit when my vendor is ready to send.
Are you using RDC for the walk-in payments?
Tim Vasquez: We do capture walk-in payment checks using RP$ for deposit.
Which is cheaper ARC or Image Exchange?
Tim Vasquez: That’s what you want to check with your bank on, make then commit to what the pricing is going to be for Image Exchange in all types and ARC in all types. Make them commit in writing to you before you go forward on what’s your best solution. We had to run the scenario with the types of transactions we thought we would get from our history and got our banks to commit to what the pricing was. And then our learning afterwards was make sure you go back and make sure you are getting that price, because there is a lot goes into electronic deposit. You want to look at those analysis payments and make sure you are hitting that target price they said they would give you.
Is there a need for scanning letter size documents along with checks?
Tim Vasquez: Purepay has a solution for that. If the company was paying me with a check/stub attached and had data that I wanted to capture. I started using that check/stub as my stub and I would just enter data from there so I can capture that image. I decided not to go with a full length page just because there wasn’t enough volume for us to justify trying to put in that solution. Though, Purepay did offer me a solution for our volume that we had.
How do you handle Image Quality problems?
Tim Vasquez: The bank will notify you with the image that doesn’t pass their quality check. It is not a large volume, most of the time the ones you’re going to have returned are the ones where customers have used the ‘Gel’ pens that don’t show up on the image. We get probably one or two of these that we deal with daily during the peak and probably two for the rest of the week. So I say we get probably a handful every week that we have to deal with. That’s why the bank requires you to keep them for whatever the number of days. I think the bank requires 2 weeks or 5 days. That their time to get back to you and tell you these items didn’t clear your image quality, you go back and pull them out and then you deposit them in a paper form. We have a courier that still delivers office deposits for us, so we utilize that courier at that time.
How do you send the remote deposit file to your bank?
Tim Vasquez: Each bank has different guidelines for sending. We use the secure web site for one and SFTP for another.
Does your software do Remittance Amount Recognition? Meaning if the amount is hand written and not in the scanline.
Amanda Hales: We can use ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) to read a hand written amount on the document. Yes.
In this solution, is there a need for redaction - stripping/removing personal/confidential information before transmitting?
Tim Vasquez: We had to do this a little bit with our credit card payments. We didn’t want the credit card number to be really captured anywhere on our system, almost period. And so during the software configuring you want to store with your payments and whatever it is you want to send from your payments. We also went through with the different banks that we were dealing with the different types of encryption that we would use for the data that would get sent.
What is your item per paid labor hour throughput (IPH)?
Tim Vasquez: Our throughput per machine is around 1,000-1,400 per hour depending on the operator.
Are you sending an X9.37 image file to your banks? Also, how do you determine what bank receives what deposit? Does Purepay allow you to select what bank account to deposit prior to running the deposit?
Tim Vasquez: We are sending tailored x9.37 files to the bank. Each bank has their own customizations required of the x9.37 file. OPPD determines what bank to deposit based upon the ABA number of the check being deposited, but the determination is customizable.
Amanda Hales: The deposit accounts can be setup in the application to be dynamic. You can setup multiple deposit accounts based on criteria in the scanline, etc.
Last week, TAWPI’s Payments Capture & Clearing (PCC) Council and Purepay Receivables Automation hosted a Webinar on the business case for image-based remittance solutions in the utility industry. The Webinar included a case study presentation by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), a Purepay remittance software user. There were so many questions at the end of the Webinar, that there wasn’t enough time to answer them all. So, below are the responses to the Webinar questions.
Are you able to save queries?
Tim Vasquez, Omaha Public Power District: We save our own queries in Access.
How much does the software cost?
Doug Myers, Purepay Receivables Automation: Software is based on the type of transport that it runs on, much like the CPU based pricing for the core product, and this is pretty standard across the industry and then there might be some additional modules that are specially priced based on particular capability rather then on size of transport.
How many hours are your employees spending each day now on processing your items in the utility?
Tim Vasquez: Processing on our peak days in the week takes about 6 hours total for the two processors to complete. About 4-5 hours on off-peak days for one processor.
What forms of electronic presentment and payment does OPPD offer to their customers?
Tim Vasquez: We have a very large base of customers who use our own automatic bill payment that’s about 25 to 30 percent of our customers, we get another 10 percent who use our online system or pay from an online banking system. Many of our companies will pay us by EDI or an ACH transaction. We also offer credit card payment and in-person payments to make up for the rest of that percentage to get us to that 41 percent for mail.
What does EDI stand for?
Tim Vasquez: Electronic Data Interchange; it’s used typically to send extra data (such as account numbers) along with an ACH payment.
What forms of electronic presentment and payment does OPPD offer to their customers?
Tim Vasquez: We offer Web, IVR and the auto debit program. In addition, we have electronic payment links to most major payment groups (Checkfree, Online Resources, etc.)
How long do you hold your paper items prior to destruction?
Tim Vasquez: I believe the bank requires you to hold them for 5 days. I’d check with your bank on those things specifically. We went for as much room as we could hold; most people recommended that to us as we were doing vendor evaluations. We can hold about 5 weeks of data and we destroy it internally ourselves.
Do you have walk in sites that take payments? And does this application interface with those sites?
Tim Vasquez: We have about 20 locations throughout our service territory where anybody can walk in and take a payment with an OPPD logo on it. We have OPPD software running there. Then we get those checks down at our location. If had wanted to make the investment of putting that image piece out of those offices, then we would be able to interface directly. But it seems easier for us to ship the check down to us for processing.
How do you handle keying check only payments regarding quality? - For example, double keying, etc.
Tim Vasquez: We interface with our CIS system for check only payments of that type. If it’s just check only batches that are being deposited, we use the control total to ensure the items haven’t been double keyed. If its for the account number, we return an amount from our CIS showing us what amt is due from that customer, so it gives someone an item to balance against just like it’s a regular transaction, we are assuming that the bill coming was for the amt the customer owed and then if the check does not equal that amt it presents it back to the operator like Amanda showed, showing whether you want to adjust the stub or adjust the check amount. The system can be configured to double key amounts if required.
Did OPPD ever use lockbox? There are several doing this, what would you suggest to those companies?
Tim Vasquez: We use a lockbox for deposit of our high dollar amounts. They receive the mail earlier and deposit earlier. We still process the items afterwards. We have had several people approach us to take over our processing. I think this is part of the challenge we are talking about to make sure we are competitive with that cost.
We feel that we have something to offer to that product, it’s not just a commodity we just want to use payments process. Those are our customers, they are our contacts and that’s our business life blood. We want to own that responsibility for those payments, get them posted and have the control and the ability to research when a customer calls in. We take that stuff seriously and so before you answer to us I really suggest to you that to evaluate this system, no one is going to let me talk about a specific price, but the pricing on this type of system is worth your while to look into.
I have heard companies had issues handling bill-pay payments. How did you address this issue within your organization?
Tim Vasquez: We did our bill pay; we’ve used two different groups for our bill pay. We had a lot of internal interfacing expertise. Certainly all payment processing is all about balancing, are you batching, and are you real time; if your real time, do you have a method of dealing with returns. My preferred method as an accountant, I want to batch, I want to know it’s in balance before I post anything and I want to see it posted in my bank account that same day. A big component of that when I get a chance to put in an interface for a system I ask to batch, I want to see a total and I want to see it in a bank the same day before I post payment. That’s how I would suggest doing it.
Who are you using for your web and phone payments and do they integrate directly to the other accounts receivable file you receive on other payments?
Tim Vasquez: We put Purepay systems through our regular interface for payments. Basically anytime you have a payment interface you’re going to be creating some type of flat file that goes through your interface system. It’s really not complicated. A long time ago when we started developing our interface systems for a RCIS system, we said lets make a standard flat file that’s easy to get your hands around and is simple to explain to a vendor, so that no matter what payment style we go after whether it’s a Check Free, Princeton, or PayMyBills.com; there are so many of those types of organizations that wanted to be send a very simplistic flat file format, this is my flat file format, this is what I need you to be able to create and if they can’t create it, they have the expertise in-house to create that type of simple flat file.
I know this payment type is decreasing, but what percentage of total payments are in-person?
Tim Vasquez: We actually have quite a contingent of walk-in payments. We have 10 percent of our customer base walk into our customer office through the past 10 years; really an un-phased group. Then we have an additionally 4 percent who walk in to our payment agent locations. Certainly we service a pretty good geographical region that covers rural and urban and a pretty good demographic of young to old. Those payment styles, I think Mark had mentioned, just because they are declining doesn’t mean that they are really going away. People are their payments, and they will pay the way that they prefer and we don’t discourage or encourage from any particular site location.
Does the software automatically convert each check to check 21 or does it also convert some checks to ARC?
Amanda Hales, Purepay Receivables Automation: It can do both. If you have purchased both modules it can do the decisioning for you for both. It will automatically decision if its ACH flow or should be Check 21.
Tim Vasquez: We went with the opinion of doing Check 21 just because we have so many banks within such a close geographic location. Once we deposited to 3 banks we were getting a pretty favourable flow schedule without ARC’ing, we felt it was a cost benefit for us to just go all Check 21.
Who were some of the vendors/how many vendors did you consider when you went through the process of choosing Purepay?
Tim Vasquez: I had considered 10 different vendors. Having not cleared who I can say and who I can’t say; I’ll say that I had considered all of the major players, and it was only after looking at what was out there and available that I decide to look at some of the smaller software providers who I didn’t know as well. It really all started with a walk through the TAWPI showroom, just seeing what equipment was available and who were the venders that were in play who I thought would be around for the next 5 years. Then I went to 10 of those people.
Can you explain a little about why you might not want to go with "all electronic" from day 1 if you had it to do over again as you mentioned in your intro?
Tim Vasquez: You really need to work through your banking relationship to figure out what their timeline is for electronic payment deposit. I was surprised afterwards that most banks say you have to be live and then follow this schedule for this number of weeks before we will accept an electronic deposit for you. And because of a very strong good relationship within our own geographic region with our banking group, I set the schedule for one of my banks who then adhered to it are getting a lot of props from me as far as being someone who was on my side during implementation.
Most banks you’ll find though when you start talking, find out what their schedule is for electronic deposit. See what you can do about the schedule and how you can still operate in your own environment while waiting for the electronic deposit piece to come up. Probably now if I had to do it over again I would get my bank to commit to letting me send from a remote site, set up the equipment in that remote site, go through the testing from that remote site, by remote site I would mean my vendor’s location, so that when it comes to I’m ready to electronic deposit when my vendor is ready to send.
Are you using RDC for the walk-in payments?
Tim Vasquez: We do capture walk-in payment checks using RP$ for deposit.
Which is cheaper ARC or Image Exchange?
Tim Vasquez: That’s what you want to check with your bank on, make then commit to what the pricing is going to be for Image Exchange in all types and ARC in all types. Make them commit in writing to you before you go forward on what’s your best solution. We had to run the scenario with the types of transactions we thought we would get from our history and got our banks to commit to what the pricing was. And then our learning afterwards was make sure you go back and make sure you are getting that price, because there is a lot goes into electronic deposit. You want to look at those analysis payments and make sure you are hitting that target price they said they would give you.
Is there a need for scanning letter size documents along with checks?
Tim Vasquez: Purepay has a solution for that. If the company was paying me with a check/stub attached and had data that I wanted to capture. I started using that check/stub as my stub and I would just enter data from there so I can capture that image. I decided not to go with a full length page just because there wasn’t enough volume for us to justify trying to put in that solution. Though, Purepay did offer me a solution for our volume that we had.
How do you handle Image Quality problems?
Tim Vasquez: The bank will notify you with the image that doesn’t pass their quality check. It is not a large volume, most of the time the ones you’re going to have returned are the ones where customers have used the ‘Gel’ pens that don’t show up on the image. We get probably one or two of these that we deal with daily during the peak and probably two for the rest of the week. So I say we get probably a handful every week that we have to deal with. That’s why the bank requires you to keep them for whatever the number of days. I think the bank requires 2 weeks or 5 days. That their time to get back to you and tell you these items didn’t clear your image quality, you go back and pull them out and then you deposit them in a paper form. We have a courier that still delivers office deposits for us, so we utilize that courier at that time.
How do you send the remote deposit file to your bank?
Tim Vasquez: Each bank has different guidelines for sending. We use the secure web site for one and SFTP for another.
Does your software do Remittance Amount Recognition? Meaning if the amount is hand written and not in the scanline.
Amanda Hales: We can use ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) to read a hand written amount on the document. Yes.
In this solution, is there a need for redaction - stripping/removing personal/confidential information before transmitting?
Tim Vasquez: We had to do this a little bit with our credit card payments. We didn’t want the credit card number to be really captured anywhere on our system, almost period. And so during the software configuring you want to store with your payments and whatever it is you want to send from your payments. We also went through with the different banks that we were dealing with the different types of encryption that we would use for the data that would get sent.
What is your item per paid labor hour throughput (IPH)?
Tim Vasquez: Our throughput per machine is around 1,000-1,400 per hour depending on the operator.
Are you sending an X9.37 image file to your banks? Also, how do you determine what bank receives what deposit? Does Purepay allow you to select what bank account to deposit prior to running the deposit?
Tim Vasquez: We are sending tailored x9.37 files to the bank. Each bank has their own customizations required of the x9.37 file. OPPD determines what bank to deposit based upon the ABA number of the check being deposited, but the determination is customizable.
Amanda Hales: The deposit accounts can be setup in the application to be dynamic. You can setup multiple deposit accounts based on criteria in the scanline, etc.
Friday, May 23, 2008
EDI Made Easy
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The ultimate goal of many small business owners is to see their products on the shelves of major retailers. In order to automate the transmission and receipt of any number of business documents—including purchase orders, remittance advice, invoices, advance shipping notices, hang tags, labels, and catalogue updates—many suppliers and retailers use EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange. However, EDI is Greek to most small businesses and very difficult to perform internally without significant expenditures of money and manpower.
In addition, suppliers that fail to submit automated business transactions according to retailer specifications are faced with pricey penalties known as “charge backs.” For the supplier, these chargebacks can result in fines in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, and irrevocably damage business relationships. For the consumer, this botched paperwork could mean those red open-toe Ferragamo pumps won’t be available for summer and Tickle Me Elmo will be AWOL for Christmas.
Fortunately, dedicated EDI providers can help small businesses automate this complex process, solve compliance issues, improve trading partner relationships, and focus on core competencies, all while reducing business expenses.
“While the manual workload required for non-EDI vendors is prone to errors, delays, and steep overhead costs, a dedicated EDI provider can be an invaluable asset for small businesses,” says Thomas J. Stallings, CEO of EasyLink Services International Corporation.
Stallings offers the following recommendations for small businesses thinking about choosing an EDI provider:
… Educate yourself about EDI, what it is, how it functions, and what it means for your business.
… Research the depth of the provider’s retail relationships, and the number of pre-existing EDI templates they have on file. (Retailers use fields in different documents in different ways. These individual templates, called “maps,” are what differentiates automated business documents for Wal-Mart from, say, Sears.)
… Make certain your provider is equipped with redundant backup that achieves 100 percent compliance.
… Ensure your provider keeps abreast of industry changes. (For example, about four years ago, several retail giants gravitated away from VAN-based EDI transmissions in favor of a new, secure protocol called AS2.)
“Electronic Data Interchange helps bring small business products to the shelves of some of the nation’s largest retailers,” Stallings says.
The ultimate goal of many small business owners is to see their products on the shelves of major retailers. In order to automate the transmission and receipt of any number of business documents—including purchase orders, remittance advice, invoices, advance shipping notices, hang tags, labels, and catalogue updates—many suppliers and retailers use EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange. However, EDI is Greek to most small businesses and very difficult to perform internally without significant expenditures of money and manpower.
In addition, suppliers that fail to submit automated business transactions according to retailer specifications are faced with pricey penalties known as “charge backs.” For the supplier, these chargebacks can result in fines in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, and irrevocably damage business relationships. For the consumer, this botched paperwork could mean those red open-toe Ferragamo pumps won’t be available for summer and Tickle Me Elmo will be AWOL for Christmas.
Fortunately, dedicated EDI providers can help small businesses automate this complex process, solve compliance issues, improve trading partner relationships, and focus on core competencies, all while reducing business expenses.
“While the manual workload required for non-EDI vendors is prone to errors, delays, and steep overhead costs, a dedicated EDI provider can be an invaluable asset for small businesses,” says Thomas J. Stallings, CEO of EasyLink Services International Corporation.
Stallings offers the following recommendations for small businesses thinking about choosing an EDI provider:
… Educate yourself about EDI, what it is, how it functions, and what it means for your business.
… Research the depth of the provider’s retail relationships, and the number of pre-existing EDI templates they have on file. (Retailers use fields in different documents in different ways. These individual templates, called “maps,” are what differentiates automated business documents for Wal-Mart from, say, Sears.)
… Make certain your provider is equipped with redundant backup that achieves 100 percent compliance.
… Ensure your provider keeps abreast of industry changes. (For example, about four years ago, several retail giants gravitated away from VAN-based EDI transmissions in favor of a new, secure protocol called AS2.)
“Electronic Data Interchange helps bring small business products to the shelves of some of the nation’s largest retailers,” Stallings says.
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