Workflow Sample

"Monthly settlement confirmation, oh, bother..."

Trouble concerning settlement would never end. Even though 'Online banking' has become convenient, still it takes some sort of effort.

Furthermore, work of "dunning" occurs if "unpaid" occurred. This is not just 'laborious'(increase of steps), it will be a burden to mental health for both the debtor and the creditor. Why can't it be "electronic settlement" furthermore?

The following Business Process Definition is a Workflow of credit card settlement on "monthly tuition for piano lesson".

In this example, 'fee according to the number of lessons' (instead of 'fixed monthly tuition') will be charged at the end of months. It is like, for example, 2000JPY for the month in which two lessons have given, 5000 JPY for five lessons. (We use "Stripe" for online settlement.)

When you realize electronic settlement for lesson fees with this Workflow, you will no longer have to hand-deliver the "invoice" to your students. For the parents of the student, they will not need to go to the bank to make a remittance of the lesson fee every month.

By the way, "Questetra BPM Suite", a Cloud-based Workflow, is free of charge for a use by 'less than ten staffs'. However, you should be careful that the service will be stopped if an interval of logins exceeds 15 days. But that won't be a problem, as long as you login after each lesson to write "date of lesson" (information for charging).

[Lesson Fee Credit Charge]

"What a cumbersome it is to submit documents to the audit firm!"

Even though staff of a business company may think so, it is tough for auditors as well. They are worrying endlessly that if there is any way to ease this 'battle against a mountain of documents'...

"Necessary documents are missing" or,
"Unnecessary documents are mixed"

If such situations occur frequently, it will crack their minds...

In the Workflow below, quotations that resulted in a contract will be shared in real time. It's nothing so special, just a scheme that digital file to be uploaded successively to a folder in Dropbox which is managed by the audit firm. This is so-called "Unmanning".

In addition, there won't be mistakes, since no human being to select "necessary documents" to put into copying machine. And searching for files is also easy.

Therefore, it increases matters that they can invest in advance, and occasions of visiting auditees would be reduced.

Isn't it wonderful?

* This example is almost the same as "Episode 499: Why am I Unsure about General Situation of Submitted Quotations?". (Just one auto-step has been added)
* To add this Step to existing Process Model, you obtain [Add-on XML], and import it into a Model as function addition file (Process Model file) in advance.

[Quotation Creation flow-Dropbox]

"Want to manage the Customer Master in kintone!"

"kintone" is a Cloud-based Database that is popular in Japan. Comparing to the "Google Spreadsheet" which is likewise a simple Cloud-based database, it is easy to use for beginners of the Cloud computing even though it has some functional limitation.

And "Customer management" is one of the most common kintone use applications.

The following Workflow is a synchronization process for updating "Customer Master on the Workflow platform" in referencing "Customer Master on kintone". It is exactly the same flow of the previous article "Episode 502: "Master Reference" is for Eliminating the Fluctuation!". Automatically runs at five o'clock in every morning.

The only difference is that it refers to "the Master on kintone", instead of "the Master on Google SpreadSheet".

[Customer Master Synchronization-kintone]

"Fluctuation" occurs frequently to corporate name!

Destination data in a Quotation or an Invoice differs like "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation" or "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp." or "NTT Corporation" ... Yet, the SELECT method must be adopted for an input form in Quote creation flow or Billing flow (instead of TEXT form). Otherwise, data that are not worthy to be aggregated would be accumulated, on and on.

Even though we manage so-called "Customer Master" in a Spreadsheet...

In the following Workflow, it is devised that a "Customer Master for Workflow platform" to be updated automatically with data in a Google Spreadsheet. The "Customer Master" will be maintained to be always up-to-date.

* The Auto-step (Service Task) referred to [Sheet reference] which is utilized here, will become available by feature expansion with [Addon XML] beforehand. (v11.1: 2016-09-05)

[Customer Master Synchronization]

"How much money did we spend on Entertainment expense, this period?"

Serving as a Sales Manager, one should precisely know "Current total amount of external expenses that have approved". If possible, a Manager should recognize "Spending that not needed to be approved" as well. (In plain words, to keep tracking on "pocket money book" of Sales Department diligently... Formally speaking, it is "Budget management".)

In the following Workflow, "Total expenditure until then" will be indicated on the side at the time Approval request coming around. Specifically, spendings recorded in "Budget consumption logs", which is a Google Sheet (commonly called Pocket Money book), will be summed automatically. Moreover, at the moment of approving newly on a spending, the approved expenditure will be appended automatically to "Budget consumption log".

If you want the Budget consumption log to be more accurate, you will be required operational devising such as,

to remove the approval log that has not been consumed actually
to append manually for irregular small expenses

or improvement of Business Process such as

to create a mechanism of automatic appending from "Advertising flow" which approval is not required
to create a mechanism of automatic appending the items of expenditure corresponding to the budget consumption from Expense reimbursement flow

However, it is a great progress that knowing just the approximation of the total amount.

Incidentally, you will be able to build "dedicated Cloud-approval" in half a day, using this sample. You may use that system at your own home, assigning the husband as the applicant and the wife as the approver.

[Approval Request flow]

A Wave of Cloud computing is surging over Accounting systems, last few years.

In Japan, the start out of "Cloud service" by a long-established software company was a major impact. Specifically, "Yayoi online" entered into a marketplace formed by "MF Cloud" and "freee" in July, 2015. In these systems, functions that are oriented to medium or large enterprises have been enhanced, and these are tools not only for "Startup companies" or for "Sole proprietorship".

The most advantage of these systems is their capability of retrieving "detail data" of "bank statement" and "credit card" collectively. That is, All of the detail records are automatically fetched as sales slip and payment slip. Moreover, accounting titles that should have been entered manually by accounting staffs have been set beforehand by "automatic journal entry function". (Improvement on performance of automatic Journal entry is discernibly.)

However, it will not be so easy for such Cloud accounting systems to automate generating slips which according to human judgment.

* Indeed, regarding "not allocate to sales deeming as advance received" or "allocate to sales as account receivable", who made the judgment and when should be recorded precisely. (Deterrence of accounting fraud, internal control)

The following Business Process is an accounting Workflow related to advance received. It is a mechanism that automatically generates twelve "transfer slip data", for example, upon receiving "service fee of twelve months" in advance.

It is a flow of;

Accounting staff determines as "advance received"
Supervisor approves on it
Bookkeeping staff registers "transfer slip data"

[Advance-received Registration]

"How much is the total of Quotations that have been submitted currently?"

Sales budget, which all the Sales managers care about. Even not being a Sales manager, there are many people who care about company's sales progress.

How many Quotations have been submitted?
How much is the total of those Quotations?
How many Orders will be reported among them?

As a matter of course, if you would like to forecast the "Sales", "Quotation tracking" is essential.

"How many of what Issues in which Step?" will be obvious if the progress of series of Quoting operations, such as "Drafting", "Approval" and "Win-loss Report", have been managed (in a Workflow). Even "Order rate" can be calculated easily by aggregating of past Issues that flowed through the Workflow. (Or rather, "Productivity of the Sales Department" should be questioned if they don't know the total price of submitted Quotations...)

The following Workflow is a "Quotation Creation flow" that begins with "1. Drafting Quotation" and ends at "4. Win-loss Report". (Want to connect to "Billing Process" in the future...)

Once a Quotation operation has started, things that must be done at the moment ("to approve on a draft of Quotation", "to submit the Quotation to the customer", etc.) will be clarified for both of Sales manager and salesperson. There will never be "Useless waiting time". And of course, never be omissions or oversights.

And the directors on board would make check for "Quotations that have been submitted and waiting for Win-loss report" (Quotations that staying at the 4th Step) in every quarterly results.

[Quotation Creation flow]