Video: The ROI of AP Invoice Automation

According to the American Productivity & Quality Center, best-in-class account payable teams are saving $8 per vendor invoice processed compared to average companies. ($2 vs $10 per invoice).

Additionally, automation reduces the costs of inaccuracies, late payments, confusion, vendor noncompliance and employee interruptions related to inefficient AP workflows.

To better understand why best-in-class companies enjoy a $2 per invoice cost structure instead of the average $10 per invoice cost structure, let’s carefully examine how business process automation works in accounts payable.

The invoice arrives

• Best-in-class: Scans invoice with OCR or receives email with very little handling effort
• Average: Handles the invoice manually

• Best-in-class: Paperwise’s self-learning OCR can correctly read 90% of the invoices without intervention.
• Average: An AP clerk reads and manually enters invoice information.

• Best-in-class: Paperwise automates PO matching with tight ERP integrations and thanks to highly accurate OCR, the system can match the PO 90% of the time.
• Average:An AP clerk must manually look up the PO in the ERP system and compare the invoice taking minutes per invoice.

• Best-in-class:100% automated and paperless through Paperwise and accessible from anywhere at anytime
• Average: Employees must scan, attach or file physical copies of the invoice for future reference, approvals and disputes

• Best-in-class: Workflow is automatically initiated in Paperwise an ready inside of an easy-to-use approver inbox
• Average: Goes into an interoffice envelope and sits on a desk for hours or even days.

• Best-in-class: Your customer rules are automatically applied to determine which approver should review based on invoice amount, departments, roles, vendor categories and more
• Average: Invoice might be routed and re-routed several times before it lands on the right person’s desk

• Best-in-class: Rules automatically re-route invoices; however if there is a question or exception, invoice can be rerouted with a single click.
• Average: Invoice get sent to yet another desk.

• Best: Integration to ERP and GL for controller’s payment queue
• Average: After many delays in the process, the invoice is entered into the ERP and could still suffer more errors from manual entry.

The Many Benefits of AP Invoice Automation

Business process automation provides many benefits to your entire AP workflow

1. 1. Faster approvals — automatically route all purchasing-related invoices in a single, touchless stream of digital approvals
   2. Faster access — if any question comes up, you have immediate electronic access to your documents and process steps
   3. Higher accuracy — dramatically reduce errors from manual entry
   4. Smart OCR — Paperwise actually learns from previous invoices and formats to bring your OCR accuracy up to 90%
   5. Low-code design — you’re in charge of your process with rules and automation that can cut out 90% of the delays in your workflows through automated routing, re-routing and approvals
   6. Visualizations — track your progress, your bottlenecks, compare vendors and more
   7. Smart alerts and reminders — keep your entire team in the loop and on task
   8. Better scale — Each employee can process 5-10X the number of invoices each month.