Everest Health Center’s Payment Processing Flowchart Essay

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Metric for Measuring the Flowchart Soundness
Areas of Improvement and Proposed Change
Summary and Conclusion
References

Introduction

A workflow diagram is an important tool for displaying the interrelation between different departments and steps to complete an activity cycle. This essay presents a workflow diagram of payment processing in the Everest Health Center. The payment processing flowchart is for the purchase of health equipment by an individual or corporate client. The steps involved are putting the invoice from the stack, verification of the invoice, marching the purchasing order, approval, confirming if the amount in the invoice and purchasing order match, and sending the invoice for processing. The workflow chart was created from the above information to capture the actual payment processing activities at the center (see chart 1 and table 1).

Table 1: Flowchart explanation.

Decision Points	Personnel Responsible	Technology Used	Policies and Rules of how, When and Why, and Where	Information Needed
Putting the invoice from the stack	Accounts secretary	Computer and a manual backup copy	Policies and Rules: The payment policy demands that the isolation of payment invoices should be done using the payment applications installed in the accounting system. The personnel involved are expected to be observant of ethical tenets of financial undertaking such as accurate reporting. How: The process commences with the collection of the invoices followed by isolation of a particular invoice of choice. The isolated invoice is then stamp using the company seal and pushed to the next verification level. When: Putting the invoice from the stack is done at the beginning of the payment process, irrespective of time. Why and Where: Isolation of different invoices is necessary to avoid the instance of confusion and time wastage in processing different payments. As a company policy, all payments should be processed expediently to avoid unnecessary losses. Where: The accounts secretary office.	The name of the client, amount of payment, date, and quantity purchased. The secretary should also verify the authenticity of the invoice through manual confirmation from the purchasing order booklet.
Marching the purchasing order	Accounts clerk	Computer payment system	Policies: The company policy on accuracy and healthy financial practices such as correct disclosure in reporting the information within an invoice. The other policy is personal responsibility in the interest of the company to avoid losses from assumptions and inaccurate verification. When: The process commences from the point of receiving the invoice from the accounts front office. The process commences with cross-checking the information already confirmed by the secretary. The accounts clerk then login into the system and feed this information and click the save button. The information is compressed into a PDF file and the company logo added. The process is completed by inserting the relevant order number into the invoice note. Where and Why: The entire process is carried out in the accounts clerk’s office. This is necessary to transform the hard copy document into a softcopy invoice that can be mailed and safely stored for future reference.	The information needed is the invoice number, name of the client, amount of payment, date, and quantity purchased. The clerk should also verify the urgency of the invoice and general authenticity.
Approval	Accounts Assistant	Physical verification from the computer application	Rules: Accuracy in reporting and proper verification of information to avoid irregular and inconsistent payments. Healthy and ethical accounting practices to avoid direct or indirect losses because of human error or personal negligence. When: This is the third stage and it occurs when the invoice is verified and fed into the payment system of the company. Where and Why: In the financial office at the accounts assistant cubicle. The assistant is well-trained to study and verify consistency in the order using different financial tools.	Company logo and relevant signature. The invoice number, name of the client, amount of payment, date, and quantity purchased. The accounts assistant should also verify the urgency of the invoice and general authenticity.
Confirming if the amount in the invoice and purchasing order match	Supervisor accountant	Computer and calculator	Rules: Financial reporting principles to avoid inaccurate reporting or inconsistent payments. Consistent payment processing to avoid time wastage or prolonged processes. Ethical financial practices on accounting etiquette. When: The verification process at this stage occurs in the supervisor accountant’s office and can be viewed in the company payment system. Where and how: The supervisor accountant has to log in to the financial data section and place his or her signature as the final approval and confirmation of authenticity.	The invoice number, name of the client, amount of payment, date, and quantity purchased. The supervisor accountant should also verify the urgency of the invoice and general authenticity.
Sending the invoice for processing or rejection	Supervisor accountant and the payment master	Computer and hand delivery backup	Accurate payment and timely dispatch of invoices to avoid direct or indirect losses. Ethical financial practices for sustainable accounting operations (De-George, 2013). When: This is the last stage of verification before payment processing. The payment master has to confirm and certify the invoice. This is followed by actual processing and payment. Why and How: The activities at this stage are aimed at facilitating the actual payment. An approved invoice is passed for payment and a rejected order is returned to the secretary office.	The invoice number, name of the client, amount of payment, date, and quantity purchased. The supervisor accountant should also verify the urgency of the invoice and general authenticity.

Metric for Measuring the Flowchart Soundness

The metric used to measure the soundness of the flow chart is the time taken to receive and process an invoice (Horner, 2013). The entire process should not go for more than two days. Another metric is the accuracy and efficiency in payment processing (Sostrin, 2013). This is measured by the number of invoice approvals against rejections (Harrison & Wicks, 2013).

Areas of Improvement and Proposed Change

The second and third steps (marching and approval of the invoice) should be merged into one function to avoid duplication of duty. At present, the verification process is repeated in two stages, which is a waste of time and company resources (Nobes, 2014). Through a merger into a single step, the company might avoid wastage of the labor resource that could be channeled to other important areas within the finance department (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). For instance, the supervisor accountant could do the matching and verification at once followed by the paymaster’s clearance. This will shorten the time taken between approval and processing.

Summary and Conclusion

Apparently, the awareness of a workflow of different activities is important in tracking and understanding the processes involved to complete an order cycle. As discussed above, a workflow enables an organization to understand its operational sequence to identify efficiencies and inefficiencies. The entire process could be subjected to feedback metrics for improvements or complete change. Everest’s workflow process in invoice processing is effective. However, merging the second and third steps would reduce time and labor resource wastages.

References

De-George, R. (2013). Business ethics. New York, NY: Pearson Education Limited.

Harrison, J., & Wicks, A. (2013). New ways of measuring company performance. Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organization, 61(4), 653-667.

Horner, D. (2013). Accounting for non-accountants (9^thed.). New York, NY: Kogan Page Limited, Philadelphia, PA.

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2018). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

Nobes, C. (2014). Accounting: AA very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Sostrin, J. (2013). Beyond the job description. New York, NY: Macmillan.

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