Digitally transform your business with Invoice Automation
Financial services firms are reeling under pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic. The rush is on to minimize risk and secure cash flows. Disruptive technologies and financial models are prevailing, but back-office automation has been a slow burner for the management in recent times.
Accounts payable (AP) professionals have been wrestling with invoice processing over the years. If you are into the AP industry, you may be aware of the challenges faced. Organizations face challenges with paper-based processes that are slow and error-prone besides being slow and costly. The lifecycle of invoice processing suffers from a lack of visibility.
Digital transformation has accelerated the need for automating the accounts payable industry. There are multiple factors driving businesses to re-evaluate processes used for invoice processing and go for AP automation. Some of the elements are as follows:
•Digital experiences: Consumers are used to digital experiences today. Getting goods and services on demand, faster processes, and instant downloads and delivery processes have become the norm. Consumers expect a similar experience in their business payments with your organization as well.
• Cost factor: Processing paper-based invoices or payments is time-consuming and cost-intensive. Without integrated and automated invoice processing solutions, an organization can lose out on early payment discounts or incur late payment fees.
• Rising fraud and cyber-attacks: Manual processes are error-prone. There are many cyber threats with malicious intent. Using automated methods in secure applications will help prevent fraud.
• Improved productivity: Technology is evolving, and automation is playing a significant role as an enabler for digital transformation. Companies need to stay competitive by adopting new technologies that save costs and increase productivity across the organization.
Benefits Gained by Automating Accounts Payables
Automating accounts payables can drive huge benefits. You can gain efficiencies in the accounts payable operations. Automation of Manual processes like invoice data entry, reconciliation, and approval workflows are vital areas. Some of the benefits delivered with AP automation include the following:
1. Optimizing Working Capital
Businesses must seek opportunities for freeing up working capital. Increasing payables by extending them is one of them, but it can have adverse effects like slower delivery and responses, unfriendly payment terms, and corrodes goodwill.
AP automation enables faster invoice processing. Automation allows you to import invoices from multiple platforms automatically. It enables accounting staff to take advantage of early payment discounts and the potential to delay payments till the due date.
2. Faster and Accurate Invoicing
Manual invoice processing has inherent problems like data inaccuracy, delays in responses, and lack of visibility leading to unprocessed invoices, delays, and late payments.
You can automate the invoice data entry process. Scanning apps can scan data from any invoice and select the required data for use. You can also connect your bank account and sync invoices with bank transactions. You get accurate data by avoiding manual inputs. All these enable faster and accurate invoicing.
3. Improving Invoice Processing Accuracy
Invoicing errors are costly to fix and are time-consuming. Discrepancies in invoice data can delay approvals and routing, causing invoice exceptions causing bottlenecks and delays.
Automated invoicing workflows streamline the process with centralized information accessibility and improved collaboration.
4. Reducing Invoice Processing Costs:
Automating invoices reduces the cost associated with manual invoice processes. The average cost to process an invoice is reduced drastically due to savings in people costs, paper and postage, storage costs, and more. Levvel Research found that AR automation can save an average of $13 per invoice.
5.Spend Analytics:
Automated invoice processing helps have data visualized through dashboards and drill-down reports. It improves visibility on spends, KPIs and empowers accurate decision making, budgeting, and forecasting.
Final Thoughts
It’s never too late to embrace digital transformation. We make digital transformation easy. Learn more on automated accounts payable solutions at GetMyInvoices.com. If you are interested in staying competitive and realizing digital transformation gains, please connect with us, and let us see how GetMyInvoices can help your organization in the AP space.
