Over 500,000 organizations rushed to get solutions in place by the January 1, 2014 electronic invoicing deadlines in Mexico. Now after the first 3 months, the problems we were expecting companies to experience who chose the lowest cost local solutions are starting to show up. (FYI – Our customers are doing great.) For this blog, I wanted to point out the complexity of Addenda management. Make sure you understand these customizations demanded by your customers and how they will affect your operations.
Addenda Key Points:
- They are evolving into process issues. For example, both Soriana (one of the largest Retailers in Mexico) and Pepsi are forcing the inclusion of a Goods Receipt number. This means that the end customer must generate this number, send it to you, then you need to update the information after the fact, and resend it with the GR number in the Addenda before you can get paid. I have spoken to companies that are managing over 1,000 manual updates a month and this is just for one customer. This can all be automated within the ERP system if you have the right end to end solution.
- Addenda’s need to be maintained – customers will change like Soriana and Pepsi, so you need to ensure you have a change management process in place with your vendor. Some vendors will time and material you to death, some will tell you it will take them 8 weeks to develop, and others will include the maintenance and changes as part of the managed service fees.
- The XML and the corresponding PDF can be different. For example, one of our customers does pricing configuration and discounting on the line item level in the ERP system. As there is one field for discount, the data is aggregated for the XML Comprobante, but the PDF has this information. Don’t forget about all the PDF development.
- Addenda can also be combined with a communication channel. For example, with WalMart – you have to include an edifact message within the addenda and then send it over AS2 communication channels.
- You shouldn’t have to use multiple vendors, your e-invoicing provider should include
- Addendas are a data extraction issue for the ERP systems – the mapping is the easy part. Your vendor should do the extraction directly from SAP so that SAP is the system of record, not the vendor’s system. Isn’t that why you bought SAP in the first place.
