Win the approvals race without a paper chase
Modern, mobile, and hybrid are all terms you hear a lot these days. Especially when it comes to extending your financial software. You need to be sure any add-on solution you choose lets you work the way you want, does not give your IT team a headache to manage and helps extend access to ERP applications like Microsoft Dynamics NAV…all the time keeping you safe and secure.
Approving invoices on screen
We designed the newest member of the Zetadocs for NAV product family to handle financial approvals while ticking all those boxes. Zetadocs Payables Approval is our managed cloud service that takes paperwork off the desk and puts the entire financial approval process on screen. Some customers are new to cloud solutions, so I thought it would be good to share why we chose a cloud-based platform and how it delivers these benefits.
Better the cloud you know
Firstly we needed an on-demand scalable and reliable cloud platform for our approvals solution that we manage for you. We chose Microsoft’s Windows Azure so we could give you the added benefit of knowing our service is securely hosted on enterprise grade infrastructure with high availability by default. You have no running costs, and IT issues associated with on premise solutions are a thing of the past.
Although attitudes to cloud deployments are changing fast, we recognised that it’s still early days for companies to have finance-related data sitting outside their network. For this reason no detailed supplier information or contact details are stored on the approval site. Just the minimum set of data required for the approval manager to make their approval decision.
Safe and secure
Secondly, we needed to give secure access to your purchase records in NAV whether it’s on premise or in your private cloud, supported by copies of the actual supplier invoices, purchase orders and delivery documentation. We also wanted to do so in a way that meant IT did not have to make changes to your corporate firewall, as we know how tricky that can be.
The Windows Azure Service Bus provides an encrypted data link to your NAV system to achieve this. Communication in this hybrid setup between your NAV web services and the Zetadocs Approvals site is all handled over your existing HTTPS port using 256-bit SSL certificates. In non-technical terms, that just means it’s highly secure, yet quick and simple to set up!
Greater expectations
Finally, in a world of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device to work), many staff are asking to do work they do in the office when they’re mobile or working from home. We chose a very modern and intuitive browser-based interface to ensure it is really easy to use on any device, wherever they are. The right information is available to approve or reject, all without your needing to give out direct access to NAV.
Our online life is too full of different login IDs and passwords. Rather than add yet another, we wanted something familiar for users, so we chose Microsoft Accounts (Hotmail/Outlook.com) that can now be used to log into Windows 8, too. With a simple logon, no software for users to install or manage and with email reminders, it just works the way users expect.
I’ll write more about Zetadocs Payables Approval in another post. Next time I’m going to focus on another member of the Zetadocs for NAV family, Delivery Essentials, and talk in more detail about its ability to secure the PDF files it sends via email.