All Star has been asked many times about the differences between the products we sell, implement and support as well as the products we compete against.  All Star has sold many different workflow, capture and content management products over the past twenty plus years because we are constantly evaluating products that can be used for process automation by our customers.  This gives us the opportunity to act as a consultant versus putting blinders on because we only sell one product.  One of the newer products in our portfolio is called Palette Arena.  The Palette Arena product suite focuses on the Procure to Pay transactions like Invoices, Requisitions, Expense Reports, Contracts – Recurring Invoices and CapEx Requests.  The focus on those types of documents/transactions has produced a product much more configurable for the type of logic and workflow required versus using a generic tool that requires much more customization.  Below are some comparisons between Palette Arena and an ECM/BPM type of Procure to Pay solution.

Line of business system versus ECM and BPM

The below items require custom coding, custom database tables and a custom user interface in ECM/BPM type solutions.  In Palette Arena, these are all out of the box items that can be point and click configured using the Administrator tools in the web interface.

• Table of authorizations
• Account and Object coding permissions
• Account coding defaults
• Payment terms and discounts
• Tax types and tax codes
• Company parameters (default roles/accounts, accounting model, matching logic, variance management, etc.)
• Accounts and objects
• Currency and currency conversion

Additionally, all ECM/BPM solutions require a custom eForm user interface for logic driven processes.  These eForms can take up to fifty (50) days of development effort.  In Palette Arena, the user interface requires no custom development since the logic and data fields are all configured using the Administrator tools.

Workflow

Palette Arena uses “flow proposals” to get the invoices to the right person based on “cascade matching”.  Cascade matching tries the most reliable matching methods first and then continues down the list until a role is identified as the initial reviewer/approver.  Cascade matching logic is built into the software versus having to write custom code to create logic in a generic BPM type solution.

• PO total – PO lines – Invoices can be matched to a purchase order total or line items.  Roles can be assigned based on the authorization amount limits for invoices that fall out of tolerance.
• Vendor – A role can be linked to a vendor so that all invoices from that vendor go to a specific role no matter what.
• Contract – For recurring invoices, contracts can be setup for invoices to match against a contract based on the period, the invoice amount or the total amount invoiced to date.
• Reference – Palette Arena has two reference fields that can populated in the document capture/data entry phase or after the invoices have come into Palette Arena.  The values in these fields can be tied to flow proposals.

Palette Arena has a concept called “Manager Role” that is associated with the flow proposals.  Each role in Palette Arena has a manager associated to it.  When the Manager Role option is ON, there is no additional workflow required.  Palette Arena will look at the signing authority of the initial role and determine if the invoice requires additional authorization based on the invoice total or the total of an invoice line item.  Therefore, if you can get the invoice to the appropriate first role, the approval process is taken care of based on managers and approval limits.

Integration with ERP

Palette Arena uses a disconnected data model to import and export data to and from ERP.  Much like ERP products have staging tables, so does Palette.  Data coming in or going out of Palette Arena goes through the Palette staging tables.  No custom coding is required to push or pull the data to and from Palette Arena. Below are some examples of data coming into and going out of the Palette Arena system.

These are a few of the many differences between Palette and other ECM / BPM solutions.  Understanding the different solutions and what they provide is crucial to knowing exactly what products will suit your organization’s needs.  To learn more about this software and the functionality check out Palette under All Stars Technology Partners tab!

Published By: Paul Johndrow
All Star Software Systems, LLC