BackgroundHuai-Me Pte Ltd is a B2B electronics distributor selling various Android brand phones to mid-sized and small electronics and handphone shops in Singapore. Below is the description of Huai-Me Pte Ltd.'s billing and payment processes for their B2B clients.

Billing Process

Each evening, the sales clerk will enter the completed orders for each day (sales orders) in the sales order database. In the morning, the billing clerk from the accounts department will check on the sales order database and print out the completed sales order report. She will then retrieve the delivery orders from the delivery order folder and check if the information on the sales order e.g., the items, prices, and discount correspond to signed delivery orders. It is common for deliveryman to indicate on the delivery order any changes to items delivered as some items may not be the correct colour or model. However, due to the high volume of delivery, the billing clerk usually skim through the stack and try to pick out those that have obvious changes made to the documents. For those that had changes made, she will enter the updated information e.g., changing the items or quantity of items into the sales order in the sales order database. There are times that the billing clerk may miss some 'missing' signatures or if there were partial deliveries and the delivery orders were not updated. In such cases, the billing clerk will just assume that the sales order is completed.

Next, the billing clerk will enter the sales and delivery order information into the billing module of their accounting system. The billing clerk will verify if the customer is a new or existing customer. For a new customer, the billing clerk has to ensure that credit term is set to the standard 10 days. For existing business customer, the billing clerk will verify that the credit term to 30 days. The billing clerk will also have to ensure that the correct discounts are applied as per the sales order. Again, due to the heavy workload, the billing clerk will sometimes skip through this verification as most customers are given the standard pricing. Once that is done, the billing clerk will create the invoice for the customer in the invoice database. The billing clerk will print one copy of the invoice. The billing clerk will email the invoice to the customer. The printed copy of the invoice is filed with the sales order and delivery order in the billed folder. These are filed by customer code. The billing clerk has to complete this routine task by mid-morning.

At mid-morning, the accounts receivable clerk will retrieve the invoices, sales and delivery orders from the billed folder. She will verify that against the invoice from the invoice database and then update the general ledger file and the accounts receivable file within the accounting system. The accounts receivable clerk will then file the collated invoices, sales, and delivery orders in the accounts receivable folder. They are arranged by the customer code.

Payment Process

Customers must pay a deposit for their orders using Internet banking. They will pay the outstanding amounts either via cheques or Internet banking. In the afternoon, the payment and cash receipt starts when the billing clerk goes to the mailroom to retrieve cheques mailed in by customers. The accounts manager has the Internet banking account access and he will print out all Internet banking payments for each day and file it in the Internet banking folder by date. The billing clerk will then check the payment information on the cheques and Internet banking payment printouts against the accounts receivable file within their accounting system. When the totals tally for a customer, the billing clerk will apply the payments against the record and update the accounts receivable for the customer and the general ledger. She will also print out the receipt voucher. The billing clerk will then make a copy of the cheques and bank the cheques. The billing clerk will then collate the copy of the cheque, the internet payment printout with the receipt voucher in the paid folder. It is filed according to customer code. In cases where the amounts do not tally, the billing clerk will send it to the accounts manager to check with the customers.

This paper trail is necessary as their sales system and accounting/billing systems are separate systems installed in two computer servers located in their main office. Due to budget constraints, they do not currently have any data backup for these servers

Requirement:

Analyze Huai-Me's billing and payment process to draw a flowchart to show the Billing process (not the Payment Process). State all assumptions made.

Flowchart must be included Title, and Label the SWIMLANES.