Aviation and Marine fuel invoice processing has a number of data capture and normalization requirements that make them very hard to automate without specialized knowledge and customized business rules.
Our team has implemented aviation, marine, and land fuel transportation invoice automation projects, with some of the top global energy services companies. We have extensive knowledge of these types of invoices and the way that they need to be processed to ensure that the myriad of taxes and fees are captured and applied to the correct fueling.
What Makes Aviation and Marine Invoice Processing So Complex?
- Multiple taxes from multiple jurisdictions apply to each transaction. Excise tax, Environmental tax, LUST tax, VAT, etc.
- Additional fees like Airport, Storage, Intoplane, Flowage, Fuel Surcharge, etc.
- Different vendors use different descriptions for each tax and fee.
- Invoices with multiple itemized fuel transactions but a single summary of taxes and fees that must be applied to each fueling proportionally.
- Sometimes the same data appears in the header, and other times in the line items, sub-tables, or footers.
- Aviation and Marine are international businesses, so handling multiple languages and currencies, exchange rate calculation, and currency conversions must be performed.
- Since the price of fuel changes constantly, slight changes must be accommodated within acceptable tolerance.
Achieving Total Automation
Other invoice solutions capture data only as it appears on the invoice. While some normalization or mapping to known item IDs can be done, it is rare that the data can be imported and matched to a fuel order without additional manual steps. Unless the data being imported matches the expected data line by line, someone must manually reconcile the differences.
When orders are placed for a single uplift, but the vendor sends a daily or weekly summary invoice with several transactions, it is necessary calculate the true cost of every fueling so each can be matched to its corresponding order. Do you itemize taxes and fees for your customers? Or do you provide a single all-inclusive price? Or does it depend on the fee or the customer? We customize your solution for each scenario to ensure that data we output always matches the data you need to avoid reconciliation.
Tolerance for slight pricing variations is another key component to total automation. Since fuel rates change daily, and unexpected fees can often be incurred, the invoice amounts often don’t exactly match the expected amounts on the order. To avoid reconciling every discrepancy, it is necessary to allow for a certain percentage or dollar amount difference.
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Find out how our experts can help you achieve total automation for your aviation and marine fuel invoice processing.
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