Account Payable(AP) automation software offers superior payment and invoice processing management over a unified and integrated platform. However, many companies are often found stuck with manual invoice processing that results in
- Extensive paperwork
- Higher exception rates
- Longer invoice approval times
Did you know? Estonia celebrated when its public organizations quit the usage of paper invoices. This public strategy has likewise encouraged the private sector to utilize advanced digital invoices.
What is Accounts Payable (AP) Automation?
AP automation enhances the efficiency of accounts payable operations with improved information accuracy, complete visibility into AP department performance, and better consistency with business and industry guidelines. With the automation of some time-consuming manual processes like invoice data entry, gap analysis, and approval workflow, AP Automation software expedites the execution and maintains the accuracy of payments. In many cases, approved payments can be scheduled and automatically adjusted on the proper date.
Reasons Your Organization Should Choose Invoice Processing Automation
1. Saves Time
Manual invoice processing is a tedious process with multiple stages, from receiving vendor invoices to entering data to approvals and emails. With too many back-and-forths, the analog approval process takes one to two months. But in invoice automation software, the invoice approval process takes minutes.
2. Faster and Accurate Invoice Data Entry
In the traditional workflow, invoice data are manually entered and passed from business units to the accounts payable team for review and approval. This manual invoices payment cycle often introduces data inaccuracy, delayed responses, and lack of visibility, leading to late payments, duplicate payments, and erroneous payments. In addition, sometimes invoices need to be processed because they get lost in the manual process.
If an organization is still accepting paper invoices, they need to gain the advantage of the current situation. They are additionally building up the cost and time-saving potential for easing their AP team of tedious work. This includes, for example, opening the mail and documenting mountains of invoices. On the other hand, these manual assignments can prompt lost invoices and human mistakes during the information section.
With the introduction of AP Automation, enterprises can manage the accounts payable process much more efficiently than if they had to shuffle paper invoices around.
3. Offers Detailed Spend Analytics
Spend visibility and planning is a critical issue, especially with paper-based invoices. Replacing manual processes with automation prevents delays. In addition, lost or misplaced invoices become a thing of the past when you have easily accessible digital archives.
Greater spending visibility also improves planning by allowing for more accurate budgeting and forecasting. In addition, it provides transparency and greater insight into where cash is spent.
AP Automation software like Aavenir Invoiceflow provides real-time dashboards that monitor invoice status and key AP KPIs.
4. Delivers Improved Invoice Processing Accuracy
While managing accounts payable, errors are costly and take time to fix. However, AP Automation can help resolve some key challenges such as :
- Manual data entries, which are known to have higher error rates
- Manual validation of invoices against contracts, goods received, and purchase order data
- No proper AP staff workflow in place for the invoice approval process, back-and-forth administrative tasks, and poor collaboration between business functions
5. Increased Productivity
With AP automation, invoice data extraction becomes smarter as you start to process invoices with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language. The AP automation solution learns from your past invoice data and accelerates the invoice data extraction saving massive man-hours for your AP team.
6. Reduced Invoice Processing Costs
AP departments that automate invoice processing can cut costs and save money from day one. Over 64% of companies with AP automation are processing more invoices with the same team size and have experienced simplified reporting. Switching from manual to automation of AP can access invoices, extract information, sort, scan, validate, match, and archive with the ultimate goal of reducing manual handling, cycle time, and costs.
AP automation can decrease the average cost to process a single invoice (all-inclusive, including labor, overhead, technology, etc.) by nearly 13%. It suggests that it improves the day-to-day operations that support invoice processing, and enterprises focusing on AP performance should catch up.
What's Next?
All these you read only scratch the surface of the benefits. The Accounts Payable team and the Purchasing and Procurement departments must collaborate with senior management to inject an AP Automation workflow throughout the company. This is about ensuring invoices are received and processed in a timely fashion.
AP Automation can eliminate the bottlenecks and error-prone processes that are consuming your staff's time and costing your company money.
The unique AP Automation solutions like Aavenir Invoiceflow - Accounts Payable Automation solution offers machine learning-enabled capabilities including zero-touch invoice data extractions. Aavenir Invoice is helping ServiceNow customers to accelerate the speed and accuracy of multi-vendor invoice processing while eliminating human intervention by 3x.
Having cognitive invoice processing capabilities, Aavenir’s AP automation solution leverages ServiceNow’s enterprise-class workflow management capabilities to streamline accounts payable processes. It eliminates the need for manual checks. The invoice processing solution reduces AP cycle times by validating and bringing thousands of invoices from different channels such as; e-procurement systems, emails, scanned PDFs, and even, printed letters on one platform.
Aavenir’s Invoiceflow delivers faster invoice processing with fewer touchpoints, fewer errors, and more early payment discounts, thus improving vendor invoice processing. To know more, schedule a personalized demo of Invoiceflow accounts payable automation or request a free trial from the ServiceNow App Store.
