Solutions

Remittance Processing

Remittance Processing is defined as the payment of a bill or invoice by check, where a portion of the bill or invoice, the “stub” is generally submitted along with the check.

Remittance processing is similar to Check Processing but with a few added complexities.

Remittances can be processed in one of two ways, “conventionally” entering data from the documents themselves, or image based, using the latest tools and techniques of intelligent character recognition software to read handwritten data from the items.

The Aperta Active Payments System (APS) comprises a suite of application components that are fully integrated, Windows®-based and bring the advantages of imaging technology to organizations that process machine readable documents such as checks, payments, utility bills and merchant drafts. With the adoption of imaging technology, workflows can be streamlined, operational efficiency can be improved, and customer service levels can be dramatically increased.

Imaging is the most current development in payment processing, possibly revolutionizing the industry as much as the development of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technologies. It is a process by which electronic images (digitized pictures) of documents are captured on a document transport and stored on electronic media. Images can be rapidly retrieved for tasks such as data-entry, customer inquiry and research, transmission, fax, exchange, and printing.

Digitized images may also be accessed by automatic character recognition equipment reducing the labor-intensive entry of information by an operator. Image Character Recognition (ICR) can interpret hand-printed and machine printed alphanumeric characters such as courtesy amounts, legal amounts, dates, names, account numbers, and special symbols.

Images also provide the opportunity to significantly improve fraud prevention by integrating with automated signature verification packages.

Unlike microfilm or paper, once an image is stored it is accessible by multiple users in diverse locations simultaneously, changing sequential into concurrent tasks and eliminating bottlenecks in your operations. On-line inquiry, retrieval, dispatch and printing of images can be performed swiftly enough to provide an almost immediate response to most customer inquiries.

The main functions of ADPS are to encode and balance debit and credit transactions, to capture data for account posting, and to endorse and sort documents for subsequent distribution. ADPS can microfilm documents for archive and research or capture electronic images of documents and store them for research or use by one or more of the image-enhanced distribution applications such as Active-image Statements.

Documents can also be imaged post-processing for further sorting or distribution.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

“ScanXtra Rubber-Banding”
Payments that cover a large number of deliveries, or are consolidations of a number of smaller invoices for example, can be time consuming to check and input into the finance system.

Take for example a three-page remittance with over 40 items per page, settled by a single check. By scanning in the document and check(s), Aperta’s software will balance the transaction and batches, and inform other applications, speeding the administration of the payment process. Also, any scanned document then becomes available for input into other applications, such as workflow management and electronic document management.

The software reconciles the values against the remittance totals, and the batches are balanced against the check(s) that have been submitted. It will even reconcile transactions where multiple lists are settled by multiple checks, something that can be a real headache when done manually.

TRANSACTION WAREHOUSE
Checks arriving with no associated stub present no problem. By comparing the data on the check with a list of outstanding transactions, the system can associate the check with the payment to be made. The software searches to identify outstanding accounts for the same monetary value, and then looks for patterns between the previous payment and the payment outstanding, such as check account numbers. In this way the system can quickly match “check only” remittances with the outstanding account.

HOST ACCESS
Stubs arriving with handwritten amendments such as change of address can be identified and the host updated with the information contained, to allow seamless service to the customer.

ARC
Aperta’s Remittance Processing Applications allow Account Receivable Conversion ARC, to speed up the processing of payments and minimise the physical transportation of paper documents.

CORRECTION
Misread or unreadable characters can be manually corrected. Imaged documents gives the most flexible capability to correct, as this can be done remotely from the track and at any time without compromising the functioning and performance of the track.

BALANCING – EXPERT BALANCER
Out of balance items in a batch are identified by Expert Balancer and “suggested” to the operator for amendment. This dramatically reduces the time taken to balance transactions and batches.

REPORTS
The Active Reports Module can produce a wide range of operational and management reports to allow accurate monitoring and management of day-to-day activity and provides information to assist with longer-term decision-making.

ANTI-FRAUD MEASURES – SIGNATURE VERIFICATION, CHECK AUTHENTICITY
When check images are being captured at the teller position (see Capture) there is the opportunity to determine the authenticity of the check signature with samples held on a database. See Security for more information

DATA EXPORT
Active Data Extraction (ADE) extracts selected item data from the database and reformats the data to your specifications. A file is created which can then be transferred by any Windows® NT qualified method. Data can be transmitted via modem, exported via LAN, or output to a variety of industry standard media such as removable disk, DAT tape, optical disk, and recordable CD/DVD.