Automation Suited to a Modern-day Sterling Cooper


Our client, a leading professional services organization, has been in business for over 20 years providing consulting and professional services to a range of Fortune 500 and technology startup clients. Their mission is to provide premier business, management and technology consulting to clients with world-class skill and the personal touch of a local firm.
Professional services firm invoicing can be surprisingly complex – clients often negotiate unique terms, projects sometimes involve one-off rates and practice partners typically review every issued invoice. Our client was spending an increasingly large amount of time each month preparing, proofing and issuing invoices. While a reduction in time was the primary driver, our client needed to maintain their central tenets to be fair to their clients and always present clear, accurate and uniform invoices to all clients. Any new system needed to utilize highly accurate enterprise data but also provide mechanisms for management and partner review.
Our client engaged MercuryWorks to automate and streamline their monthly invoice creation and review process. The resulting solution was centered upon Microsoft 365, the client’s enterprise collaboration suite, along with SQL Server and QuickBooks Online for enterprise data access and storage. Notifications and real-time communication in Teams enables all stakeholders in each client account to clarify and refine accurate invoices.
The new invoice automation process minimizes professional staff time spent performing invoicing functions and simultaneously reduced the firm’s Days Sales Outstanding. Invoicing is now performed uniformly across all teams and clients while enabling firm partners to employ facts, data and automation to make invoicing decisions. Having clear areas of responsibility at each step keeps all players involved aligned, reduces ramp-up time for new firm professionals and provides a clear view of cycle status at all times.
features
Model and Automate

Construct the Model
Before any technical implementation, Mercury professionals analyzed existing business processes, rationalized overlap, bridged the differences between lines of businesses and formulated an updated business process. The new uniform invoice cycle is composed of six specific phases: Fiduciary Review, Budget Watch, Invoice Creation, Invoice Review and Distribute & Collect.

Implement Automation
With the new six-phase invoice cycle and associated business rules ironed out, Mercury commenced automation utilizing the Microsoft Power Platform. Mercury utilized Microsoft Lists for business data storage and a combination of Power Automate and Power Apps for business flow automation and to power all messaging, enforce order of operations and apply business logic.

Surface the Process for Collaboration
Our client utilizes Microsoft Teams to streamline their internal collaboration and knit together their professionals, line staff and partners, making it a natural fit for new process notifications and communication. Power Automate connectors power targeted notifications to all stakeholders who can also punch into the communication thread to cover special topics without the need for synchronous meetings.

Execute Integration
Firm consultants track their client service work in a time entry system backed by SQL Server; those details form the basis of each invoice. Mercury implemented Power Automate connectors to SQL Server and QuickBooks Online to marshal each client’s consumption data, apply business rules and push the resulting invoice content and data to the firm’s financial management system.
results
final product








Built Using

Microsoft 365 provides the strength of modernized content publication, robust document libraries and data lists. Modern Microsoft Lists were used in this solution to provide business data storage while Planner provided a solid base for assignment tracking and notification.

Surfaces data from myriad potential connected sources to provide a low-code application user interface. Power Apps was used as part of this solution to provide form rendering and user input screens.

Provides logic, process flow and “behind the scenes” operations for cloud-based business solutions. Largely a no-/low-code solution, Power Automate puts the power of connected applications into knowledge workers’ hands.

The collaboration glue of Microsoft 365, Teams was used as the collaborative space for business operations, data views and player communication during each automation cycle.

The premier mid-sized business financial accounting system, utilized as the general ledger system and storage of firm financial information. Process automation integration via REST API enables the solution to register invoicing data in the client’s financial system of record.

Built Using

For iPhone app construction using native Swift and Cocoa coding. Full native Xcode development provides a higher level of fidelity and code tuning that hybrid solutions like Cordova cannot match. Proximity notification and mapping are two key capabilities the Shine app needed to optimize.

For native Android development in Google’s Android Studio IDE. Again full native and bypassing development options such as Cordova was the right route to provide Coca-Cola Beverages Florida field staff with the app experience they were looking for.

AngularJS was coupled with .NET for admin and reporting single page app (SPA) suite. The rich SPA enabled rapid addition, editing and sunsetting of Shine route surveys as well as reporting (with Excel download) of real-time data as it came in from the field.

Provides database storage, web app, authentication and web services. Azure provides an ideal solution for back end mobile applications with a multi-data center Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud solution that requires extremely little oversight.

Efficiency
35% reduction in professional time spent on monthly invoicing
Speed
2-day reduction in time to close the books – invoicing now starts and finishes in one day
Clarity
30% reduction in the volume of post-invoice client questions
Accuracy
15% reduction in the number of post-issuance invoice changes