SEEBURGER Unites MFT and Integration Suites

Published: September 20, 2011

by Alex Woodie The German software company SEEBURGER AG last week unveiled a new release of its managed file transfer (MFT) solution. The company says it's made SEE MFT an integrated component of its Business Integration Suite, thereby giving customers a single product for sharing supply chain data, such as EDI and AS2 files, alongside file types not used to transmit supply chain data, such as PDF or PowerPoint. SEEBURGER has a long history in the EDI field, having launched its first EDI offering for the automotive industry in 1986. Over the years, the company developed a close relationship with German ERP powerhouse SAP, and has served the needs of more than 7,800 customers in a variety of industries, including Mercedes Benz, Audi, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Pilgrim's Pride, and Wyeth. SEEBURGER's file transfer solutions supports all major file transfer protocols and platforms, including IBM i. Customers can access SEE MFT via a Web browser or Outlook e-mail, while integrated business process management (BPM) capabilities drive automation into system-to-system transfers. The big benefit of uniting SEE MFT with the SEEBURGER Business Integration Server (BIS), the vendor says, is the capability to control the secure flow of files for all types of business uses (including EDI and non supply chain data), and to do so from a single GUI console. Whether it's a CAD file, a large PowerPoint, or smaller files containing regulated data, such as medical or credit card data, the company's BIS offering can handle it.

SEEBURGER Unveils Invoice Processing System

Published: April 21, 2009

by Alex Woodie SEEBURGER's automated invoice processing system, 4invoice, has become unhooked from the company's overarching EDI/B2B platform, and is now available as a standalone product. By pre-processing the paper-based invoices before sending them off to ERP systems, customers can slash the amount of manual work involved with invoices by up to 40 percent, the company claims. 4invoice was previously available as part of SEEBURGER's expansive Business Integration Server (BIS), which offers a wide range of integration capabilities, from business process management and EDI to RFID and ERP application adapters. (SEEBURGER also sells an iSeries-specific version of BIS, but that's another story.) The Atlanta, Georgia, software company decided 4invoice could get enough traction on its own (perhaps because tomorrow is Earth Day, which always seems to put a heightened focus on eliminating paper-based processes), so it decided to offer customers a standalone edition. 4invoice is designed to be used by accounting departments that are struggling to keep up with paper-based forms and faxes. With 4invoice doing the grunt work of scanning, classifying, and routing incoming invoices, workers can focus on more value-added activities, such as dealing with exceptions (and arranging Earth Day office parties). SEEBURGER is offering a range of features with 4invoice. The product offers optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities to read incoming invoices that have been scanned or faxed; it can also read PDF documents. The company also boasts of the product's artificial intelligence capabilities, which it says allows 4invoice to "remember" how it dealt with the paperwork of specific suppliers in the past so it doesn't have to hand the paperwork over to humans as an exception. It also has built-in workflow routing features to comply with an organization's approval processes. The software plugs into major ERP systems from SAP, Oracle (EBS, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft),Microsoft (Navision), and Infor (Baan). A special version of 4invoice designed specifically for SAP is also available. The company also sells connectors for a range of other systems, includingLawson M3 (formerly Intentia) and JBA's System 21 (now owned by Infor). Bill Metallo, vice president of sales for SEEBURGER, says companies can drive out a lot of manual processes and save a lot of money with products like 4invoice. "Over 80 percent of invoices are still received by paper or fax and require manual data entry, with associated costs, errors, lost invoices, and processing delays," Metallo says in a press release. "4invoice eliminates these inefficiencies by capturing the data electronically and automating all of the validation and approval processes that must be completed before it goes into the organization's ERP system.

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