Workflow Sample: Episode 532: Recording to External System, More Haste, Less Speed

Season for reviewing Processes

April...

In Japan, it is a month when a new fiscal year starts.

Not only the accounting of the nation, accounting of local governments, new grades at school, etc. start, but also the ceremony for new entrants are conducted simultaneously in April. (About 20% of Japanese companies start their fiscal year in April)

It can be said that in Japan, April is 'the month when motivation for improving business processes increases' or 'perfect month for improving business process'.

Also in Questetra, Inc., which operates this blog, the amount of updating on Business Processes (number of version upgrades of Workflow Apps) will increase in April.

Dare to extend the time required

The business process introducing this time is a slightly strange improvement example that is "extending the time required at all Steps".

As a usual business improvement, it is normal to consider about improvement on "flows" or "data input screens" upon "dissatisfaction" and "challenges" that you are feeling during your daily work.

Automation of Steps
Addition of double-checking Step
Addition of guidance sentences
Implementation of handy button

And, in many cases, we will seek "a direction for a measure to shorten the total duration of work as much as possible".

However, in April, which is a break of the fiscal year, you might become wanting to deal with "inefficiencies you felt throughout the total counting work". In this business process (Workflow-App), it has been revised to stay in the middle of the way. (Addition of Human Process: "x. Retaining Rework")
Business process before improvement: Episode 511: Automatically Generate Transfer Slip File (Excel-CSV)

[Invoice Issuance-Retention]

Measurement of error rate

The invoice issuance process is one of the tasks in which mistakes are not allowed.

"Accounts receivable / sales" is recorded based on accurate billing data, and "savings accounts / accounts receivable" should be recorded upon collection afterword.

However, "redoing" occurs on the actual work site. For example, even in the same human process in Questetra, "Redo" occurred with a 2.8% chance as a result of last year.

Correction on "customer address and name"
Correction on "quantity and amount"
Correction on "issue date and due date"

Of course, the causes are various, including "unavoidable redoing".

Information was changed between order acceptance and billing (change of person in charge of customer)
The sales representative made a mistake in transcribing the contents of the order form
In the first place 'order data' was wrong

However, in any case, if the invoice (billing data) is "redoing the entire process again" when the customer receives it, in addition to the effort of redoing the bill approval processing, the data of the accounting system must also be manually corrected.

I must say such a "Redoing process from scratch" is "big loss".

Reworking and Sending back

In this business process improvement, the retaining Step of "x. Retain Sending back" of the Accounting manager is added, and progress toward the downstream process (data cooperation with the accounting system) is restrained.

That is, it will retain in the state that can be sent back to the most upstream, for a while (e.g. until the end of the month). (Reduce the risk of occurrence of "big loss" rather than increasing overall speed.)

Certainly, data such as 'sales' would like to be incorporated into the accounting system as soon as possible. I agree that it is a wonderful direction as a business management to further "accelerate monthly settlement of accounts" aiming for "daily settlement of accounts."

However, as in this example, "Business process that can absorb some extent of data modification by slowly flowing business Issues" can be another direction of business process improvement.

[Invoice Issuance-Retention:"1. Bill info entry" screen]