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Celonis Product Documentation

Alert for Blocked Invoices close to Due Date

Every month there are invoices that are paid late. There can be several reasons for this, one of which is payment blocks. These late payments can lead to high fees impacting your cost avoidance.

This operational Action Flow was designed to warn you of open invoices that are at risk of being paid late due to a payment block.

Within an email, a user-defined group of recipients can see the highest value invoices for which the invoice due date is critically approaching.

Note

This Action Flow (AF) can exist as a standalone asset or as a complement to your Operational App.

High-level Description

Prerequisite: Standard AP Data Model

Workflow for blocked invoice close to due date alerts

This Action Flow performs the following actions:

  1. Sets initial variables

  2. Loops

  3. Maps each iteration to a defined set of Company Codes

  4. Queries Data Model for Invoice Details

  5. Aggregates data into an Array

  6. Orders by Invoice Value

  7. Slices Top 5 Rows

  8. Iterates over each element

  9. Formats the Rows

  10. Router:

    1. Passes info regarding company code 1000

    2. Passes info regarding company code 2000

  11. Email:

    1. Sends email to recipient X

    2. Sends email to recipient Y

Modules that require configuration

Note

Numbers in this list refer to the module sequence of this Action Flow shown above.

1. Set Initial Variables

In this module you can define the running schedule by clicking on the clock icon and setting the following variables necessary for the Action Flow:

3. Map Loop and Company Codes

In this module you can define the sets that will be used for aggregating your Invoices or KPIs.

Mapping company codes for blocked invoice close to due date alerts

In this module, you can define the sets that will be used for aggregating your Invoices or KPIs.

In the image, you can see two different outputs. In the first iteration, this module will output ‘1000’,’2000’ which means the KPIs will be calculated for invoices belonging to these Company Codes. In the second iteration, they will be calculated for invoices belonging to Company Code ‘3000’.

You can add as many rules as you want, including having Outputs with more than one Company Code (e.g. if your country is composed of Company Codes A and B, you can add a rule like “Pattern = 3, Output = ‘A’,’B’ “). You will also need to increase the maximum number of iterations in module 2.Loop for each new rule you add.

4. Query Invoice Details

In order to get the Invoice details you have to set up the Celonis Query Data Model. See Query Data

Note

You don't have to change any fields or filters.

10. Router

In this module, you can set up the filters that will be applied when displaying the data in the email. In our example, we will be passing information regarding the iteration that contained Company Code 1000 (and ‘2000’ since the list also contained a second Company Code) for the next module of the AF.

You can add as many routing paths as you would like. In the case you want the same recipient to receive the information about two different lists of Company Codes (defined in module 3.Map Loop and Company Codes) you will need to set up 2 routes, one for each list.

Setting up a filter for blocked invoice close to due date alerts

You need to set your desired Company Code value in the first condition, e.g.

Condition 1: “13.Output contains 1000”

Condition 2 does not require changes.

11. Email

In this module, you need to configure the email connection and define the recipient(s) of the email. Change the following settings:

  • Connection: connect to your mail account and grant Celonis permission to read and write emails.

  • To: define the recipient you want to send the emails to, e.g. johndoe@domain.com

Downloading Action Flow blueprints

To download blueprints for Action Flows, go to Marketplace. In the Marketplace page for your Action Flow, click the Download button to get the blueprint.

Blueprints can be imported into your Celonis Platform Team so that you can quickly make the required changes without needing to build the Action Flow from scratch.

Potential Alternatives
Alternative 1:

You can change the filters in the queries to use a different field, instead of the current one “BSEG”.”BUKRS”. For this you need to:

1) Change the rules in the Map Loop into Company Codes module.

2) Change the filter inside all the Celonis Query Data modules.

Alternative ways to work with filters and company codes for blocked invoice close to due date alerts
Alternative 2:

You can add more routes in the following way:

  1. Right-click the email module.

  2. Select “Copy module” and paste in the same Action Flow.

  3. Link this new email module to the router.

  4. Set up a filter for your desired Company Code with the same conditions of the existing filters, apart from your new company code:

    1. Right-click the connection between the router and the new email module.

    2. Click "Set up a filter."

Another possibility is to use a different email module type, e.g. Gmail or SMTP.