A big reason they’re overworked comes from the stress around AP invoice processing. Every day they face looming payment deadlines, fraud attempts, invoicing errors and their only approach to their work involves tiresome and error-prone manual data entry.
Fortunately, you can make their work 80% more effective and up to 90% more accurate with easy-to-use automation. Workflow automation allows your employees to stay focused on the most important elements of their job and eliminate the most tedious and frustrating elements.
Unfortunately, not all AP invoice processing solutions are equal. The problem is that information flows both in and out of your company in a variety of forms and formats. Here are just some of the issues your AP team faces.
- No two vendor invoices look exactly alike.
- Your back-office system is probably different than most of your vendors and partners.
- Your own software may not be capable of following your evolving governance rules.
- Many companies are forcing their customers into their own payment portal formats.
- Bad actors try to defraud your company with counterfeit invoices.
- You need to be able to share information both electronically and through original documents.
Your accounting team has two requirements for your AP invoice processing solution that will solve all these issues: integrated document management combined with custom workflow capabilities.
Why You Need Both Document Management and Workflow
Most companies today process AP invoices in one of three ways.
The vast majority still process invoices manually. They receive invoices and enter the data into their accounting system for payment. This is prone to many errors and takes approximately five times as long to process a single invoice.
Some companies have adopted workflow as part of their process. Typically, the workflow is limited and relies on the specific formats of their own accounting system. It does have the benefit of streamlining approvals but without document management you still deal with reading invoices, entering data and if you must share a document because of fraud or an audit, you’re out of luck.
Other companies have focused on basic document management. This has the benefit of storage and retrieval, and you might even have smart OCR as part of the solution so you can streamline how you “read” your invoices. But without workflow, you still fall behind in approvals and miss payment discount deadlines. Since most document management systems are not integrated, you also may still face manual data entry into your management system.
Paperwise Symphony users enjoy the best possible AP invoice processing solution. It combines integrated document management with workflow for a complete solution.
The Benefits of a Total Solution for AP Invoice Processing
Here are just some of the many benefits you get with a total solution for your AP team.
You Save Time
Do you have invoices stuck in email or a physical inbox? This only leads to more delays. After scanning, Paperwise Symphony can route the invoice automatically to the right approvers based on your company’s custom rules. The workflow is tracked and measured so you can see exactly where each invoice is in the process.
How much time do you save? Aberdeen estimates that automation reduces over five days of invoice processing time per invoice and allows you to process four times as many invoices with the same team.
You Save Money
Multiple studies show that you can save 80% or more of the cost of processing AP invoices with the right automation solution. With inflation, these costs are only increasing. Most of these unnecessary costs are associated with manual tasks involved in processing AP invoices. Automation can streamline most of these tasks. For example, smart OCR can read invoices to extract data and classify documents so your team doesn’t have to do that one at a time. Documents are automatically filed. The workflow engine can automatically compare invoice amounts against the original purchase orders only requiring manual intervention when there are significant exceptions.
How much money do you save? Studies show that the average cost of processing an invoice is $10-12 and the average cost of processing an invoice with automation is around $2.
You Have Better Accuracy
Manual processing of AP invoices comes with many errors. When an AP clerk must type in information from an invoice, it’s natural to have an error rate anywhere from 5% to 15% depending on the complexity of the invoices and your purchasing behavior. The more line items per invoice, the more tedious the data is to match, and the more errors occur. Automation can perform a lot of this through smart OCR and data extraction. Manual entry is unnecessary with an integrated document management system that can input extracted data into your system for you.
You Have Better Visibility
Paperwise Symphony allows you to see all parts of the process and track KPIs and milestones with custom dashboards. You know exactly where each invoice is, who needs to make and approval and where there are delays.
You Can Fight Fraud
Fraudulent attempts to get payment through false invoices and communications are on the increase. Paperwise Symphony helps you fight fraud in many ways. For example:
- Invoices are automatically matched against purchase orders so random invoices are not paid.
- Corporate governance rules are followed so a bad actor cannot reroute payment without alerting you.
- Workflows include approval steps and flagging of outliers, so no single employee has control over your payment cycles greatly decreasing your chances of internal fraud.
- You’ll have more insight into errors and incorrect data as well as alerts for a double check on anything unusual.
Improved Auditing
Without document management, you still must figure out a way to file and store your documents. Most experts recommend storing documents for seven years which can cost a lot in indexing, filing and storage. That is one big reason why your AP team needs more than just workflow.
Document management saves a ton of time when it comes to auditing. All your documents are securely stored and linked to the vendors, clients, and original workflows for easy review. You never lose your documents, and you streamline your approach to auditing.
Maximize Early Payment Discounts
The average company misses anywhere from 50% to 80% of their early payment discount opportunities. Many companies don’t earn any discounts at all. This is mostly due to timing and obstacles in invoice processing. The difference of just a few days in payment could mean 1% to 5% additional reduction in your total spend.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can save $8 or more per AP invoice and increase your accuracy and fraud protection, please contact us for a private consultation and we can get you started right away.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
