FAQ – Common questions from our customers
At Snowfox we meet dozens of customers on weekly basis.
Our Customer Journey consists of 4 phases: Meet’n greet cost-free AI trial startup customer success and support, including service expansions, new countries, etc.
We have noticed that we get asked the same questions frequently.
I want to address the top 10 questions here:
1. We have a lot of consolidated invoices/ project invoices/ VAT Reverse charges/ continuous changes in our business such as transferring of vehicles or other equipment between units and cost centers. Can AI really help us?
Snowfox analyzes all of the content on all of the invoices as well as the posting& approval history, meaning that if a person can figure out posting and approval flow of your invoices by logical reasoning, so can our AI, but with lightning speed while managing huge volumes of invoices simultaneously. The dynamic nature of your business doesn’t slow Snowfox.AI down, as we can boost the AI with eg. a vehicle registry which keeps Snowfox updated on to which cost center a certain car belongs to at any given time, so we can choose the correct reviewer and posting dimensions. It’s a powerful combination of inductive and deductive reasoning, which gets stronger over time and repetition.
2. We are tendering a new AP/P2P system this year, is this topical for us?
Very much so. Migrating from one AP/P2P system to another results in losing most, if not all of your built-in automation rules, which has to be rebuilt to the new system. This takes a tremendous amount of time and money, and the Go-Live is often approved with a minimum viable solution, with a very low automation rate and big plans to rebuild over time. But those plans are not fully executed too often, as in modern companies where centralized functions own the AP process, there is a physical and mental gap between the business (where the silent knowledge of the supplier agreements is buried) and the Service Centers, where the daily struggle takes place. Snowfox.AI can be trained with the legacy systems invoice history, and hooked up to the new P2P/AP system, providing an automation rate of up to 85% for postings at your Go-Live date.
Make your data finally work for you, instead of the other way around.
“Make your data finally work for you, instead of the other way around.”
3. How can we test the AI?
Snowfox is tested by uploading historical invoices to the AI engine. We need original invoice files (structured files + images) with posting and approval details. A true AI engine is characterized by self-learning capabilities, meaning all you need to do is provide us with the data, Snowfox does the rest.
4. Does this require configuration or product development to our P2P/AP system?
We prefer to use existing integration capabilities of customers systems, and now we are live with 15+ different P2P/AP technologies, both stand-alone and ERP Suite solutions. Please contact us and we’ll find out together how we can connect with your solution.
“Now we are live with 15+ different P2P/AP technologies”
5. How much training is required on business/ AP side?
None. Snowfox acts in the background and the result can be seen in your AP flow. The only user interface we provide is the analytics dashboards, which are used to follow up on the development of the automation rate, and the target demographic for this tool are our key contact people at the customer/ partner. We do recommend that you inform your troops about the change in the process and ask your pilot group to review the first “AI-boosted” invoices with extra care.
6. Will this only work with e-invoices?
We need a structured invoice file and the image copy to work with, but typically these are both provided by your scanning/OCR partner. Typically, the scanning/ e-invoice operator does not even notice that we are playing a part in the process. Please ask us for more information on this and let’s together review your current flow.
7. We recently went live with our new P2P/AP system, is this topical for us? We put in a lot of effort into automation, will this make our work obsolete?
Snowfox does not inhibit the automation rules you have built into your system, but works as an additional, value adding service, even though we often automate more non-PO invoices than the P2P/AP system does. As you develop the automation features of your P2P/AP system, the volume of invoices automated by Snowfox goes down dynamically. Snowfox frees up time and resources to develop the P2P flows and do more productive work.
“The volume of invoices automated by Snowfox.AI goes down dynamically”
8. What is required from us to make this work?
You need to provide us with the historic invoices, connections to your AP system, and resources for the kick off meeting, 2-3 test workshops and the Go-Live meeting. That is all.
9. What will this cost?
The startup fee is always fixed and very reasonable. The annual maintenance fee is unexpensive and contains all version updates, support and consulting services during the production phase without any hourly or daily rates. The main element of our business model is our profit-based pricing of the predictions. We bill you for successful postings and reviewer predictions. Any postings or reviewer information you need to change are not subjects for service billing. Win-Win. If you are a partner providing Snowfox to your end customer: Win-Win-Win.
10. What about data security?
Our service is hosted in Google Clouds’ datacenter in Hamina, Finland. Your data is encrypted both during migration and storing and is regularly backed up. We are audited by the leading infosec consultant, Nixu Oy, and their certification validates our security measures. Read more about infosec right here.
11. How much time and money can this save us?
Our customers review the benefits of Snowfox in a few different ways. With some customers, the business users were the ones posting their own invoices before Snowfox, so the time saved by enabling AI can now be used to do actual work, leading to increased employee satisfaction, faster throughput time and less errors. In organizations where AP posted the invoices on users’ behalf and sent them for review and approval, Snowfox.AI frees up time and resources for process development, supplier onboarding, supplier data management and other value-adding tasks. In Shared Services and BPO’s, Snowfox enables acquiring new customers without the pressure of recruiting new personnel. Snowfox.AI is delivered at a fracture of personnel costs and is a strategic initiative to any cost-conscious SSC or BPO manager worth their salt.
Contact us and we’ll review your business case together.
If you are tired of listening at vague “Key benefits” sales pitches, theoretical ROI’s and empty promises left unfulfilled, we will get along splendidly.