Preparing a Business Case for AP Automation: 5 Key Steps

Here's sharing a few conversations from prospects from different industries with our Pre-sales team during different timelines in the year.

January 2022

The prospect from the Manufacturing vertical:

“Our invoices are a major pain area, and this may be the perfect solution. However, with supply chain disruptions, we may not get the budget”.

March 2022

The prospect from the Education vertical:

“Oh, we know AP Automation is a major problem, but our CFO won’t approve this budget.”

July 2022

The prospect from the Financial Services vertical:

“This product is amazing and can help us solve many problems. I wish we could demonstrate the ROI to our Business Head.”

Every AP manager or IT manager wants to solve Invoice Processing problems in the organization but has a common refrain–

The common factors for selecting Accounts Payable Automation solution can be categorized as:

Common Factors for selecting AP Automation solution

1. Manual invoice processing costs in time and effort

AP Managers can start by calculating the cost of manually handling invoices at their organization. They can begin with determining some components:

How much does it cost finance and the AP Team to process an invoice?
How many invoices does the organization process per month?
How much time and effort can be saved on processing invoices?
How long does it take to approve an invoice?
How long does it take to process a vendor payment?
How much time is spent by the AP Team on managing invoice exceptions?
How long is it taking the organization to process an invoice from start to finish?
How much are late vendor payments costing the organization?

2. Industry benchmarks for all costs mentioned

AP Managers could start identifying industry standards and know-how organizations in the same or similar industry and what benchmarks they follow. For example, AP Transformation Manager can understand the measures and set business goals and criteria to match the industry standards.

Therefore, the benchmarking exercise in the organization is critical to establishing a quantitative plan to achieve and align all stakeholders with participating in the AP transformation program.

3. Possible benefits and core requirements for AP Solution

The AP team already uses an existing set of software tools or solutions to meet business requirements. Some questions to ask internally before disrupting the existing processes include:

How much training will the solution need for all; users?
Can this new solution integrate with the existing set of tools?
Should the tool be a cloud-based or an on-premise solution?
Can a single source of truth be achieved for invoice processing needs?
Can AP solution help set up the invoice validation rules?

Accounts Payable Automation Software Buyers Checklist

4. ROI and Need for AP solution

So far, we have done an internal calculation to achieve all possible outcomes from the AP Automation goal. As a transformation manager, you need to bring urgency to this process.

You can start with setting up the urgency in timelines and why the solution is needed now.

Why should your organization do this now, not later? - Talk about potential losses and missed-out benefits of early discounts, standardized payment terms, and Invoice frauds.

Why fix a working system? - You can set up industry benchmarks with your organization’s current state of AP processing. If there are any underlying gaps, the AP automation can fix those gaps in the current system, and the AP team can start utilizing savings.

Will this solution grow with us? - C-level leaders need to think of a solution in the present and future. They will evaluate AP solutions in their current state and show that AP solutions fit the organization's future roadmap.

The right AP solution will scale and have maturity levels to grow the organization from invoice onboarding to detecting invoice frauds. In addition, C-level leaders will need that confidence from you to give the buy-in from organizations.

5. Aligning with Stakeholders and Buy-in

Congratulations on coming this far and collecting all the information!

If the stakeholders have minimum alignment with your research, your business case has a low chance of becoming a reality. Getting the buy-in from each stakeholder level is critical. Your stakeholders include IT, the Finance department, Business approvers, and most importantly, your Boss. You would need a champion from each stakeholder team.

You can start by ensuring the team understands the advantages and has a stake in the complete process – researching and choosing the right AP solution. You want the stakeholders to cheer for your success. So, you need to onboard each stakeholder early and make them part of your vision.

To summarize, getting funding is the most critical step in this process. In this step, spell out the quantitative and qualitative advantages of the AP solution.

Conclusion

After all, the right combination of internal analysis(numbers), external benchmarks, and financial numbers for stakeholders will help you turn the AP transformation dream into a reality. As the organization evolves and grows, the AP processing needs to scale up, becoming agile and supporting faster decision-making. As a result, organizations will need a highly adaptable and robust AP automation solution to transform the AP function internally to support this.

Video AI enabled Accounts Payable Automation on ServiceNow

What is 2-way or 3-way matching?

Procurement teams are trying to maintain the perfect balance between choosing the right supplier to fulfill the needs and achieving the targeted cost savings. To strike this balance, procurement teams must implement stringent procurement processes.

For example, an AP team member spends 4–15 hours weekly ensuring that rigorous processes are followed. In addition, the AP team applies different validations or business rules within organizations, such as Vendor Validation, PO Matching, G/L Account Validation, etc.

2-way/ 3-way Invoice matching is the most common validation applied across organizations.

What is Invoice Matching?

Invoice matching compares invoice information with all purchase documents such as contracts, purchase orders, or goods receipts. Invoice matching ensures accurate vendor payments and journal entries.

In this step, the invoice matching professional collaborates with purchasing contracts and goods receiving departments to create an audit trail that helps to detect fraudulent invoices. In addition, the AP team reads the invoice matching audit trail and approves the invoice payment if there is no exception.

What is 2-way Invoice Matching?

A 2-way invoice match is the most basic comparison of organizational purchases and vendor payments. In a 2-way invoice match, the AP team compares the quantity and amount on the invoice with the corresponding purchase order.

During this step, the accounts payable analyst will verify invoices for the following:

Ensure that the total invoice amount is less than or equal to the PO total amount
The price of each line item on the invoice is less than or equal to the line item values on the purchase order

This process is time-consuming as it involves the comparison of both documents. with those listed in the organization’s finance system.

The AP team processes and pays the vendors for the invoices without discrepancy. However, this matching process (without an automated AP solution) besides being time-consuming can leave room for manual errors. In the case of partial invoices or partial orders, organizations may have serious problems to solve.

What is 3-way Invoice Matching?

In the case of 3-way invoice matching, AP teams ensure that a supplier's invoice is valid against both a purchase order and a goods receipt. When the AP team receives an invoice from a supplier, an AP team member verifies the following information:

Standard 2-way matching of price and quantity of invoice with that of purchase order
Comparison of vendor invoices with the Goods Receipt document of the organization

This process is conducted to ensure that the exact quantity of goods ordered has been received. This stringent mechanism helps keep the purchasing, AP, and inventory departments on the same page. Moreover, any quality-related issues (that involve the vendor) can be matched with a 4-way invoice matching with inspection orders.

Challenges of Manual 2-way/ 3-way Invoice Matching

If done manually, this is a time-consuming process as the AP team needs to verify documents across disparate systems. Most organizations prefer automation solutions to complete 2-way/ 3-way matching.
The 2-way/3-way matching depends significantly on the data quality of all documents. The AP team has to ensure a proper audit trail to complete verification.
Employee expense reports cannot be verified as the parameters in most cases fail. Nowadays, organizations have started using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze expense invoices and understand spending patterns.

Next Steps: Experience Straight-Through Invoice Processing with Aavenir Invoiceflow

Organizations must integrate invoice processing solutions with procurement, contract management, and inventory management systems to implement automated invoice matching. ServiceNow customers choose Aavenir Invoiceflow because it can easily verify invoice data with other systems like vendor management, procurement module, and Aavenir Contractflow on ServiceNow.

With the advent of AI, organizations can automate step-based rules and set up exception workflows. Using AP Automation solutions like Aavenir Invoiceflow, organizations automate the invoice matching rules to identify errors.

Using AI, AP Automation solutions can also analyze large datasets to find discrepancies and apply digital workflows to make course corrections. With improved auditing capabilities and quick error identification, organizations are freeing up AP teams to focus on high-value work in organizations.

Is your organization still relying on manual invoice matching? Get in touch with our experts to know how you can boost efficacy for your AP teams with AP Automation - Built on ServiceNow.

How do Companies use AI to Check Duplicate Invoices?

In the pool of invoices, you never know how many duplicate invoices you may have approved unknowingly. As per a study, approximately 0.05% to 0.1% of invoices paid are generally duplicates. The problem begins when the incoming invoices have similar and repeated data like invoice amount and number. You need a robust Accounts Payable Automation Solution to help you manage your invoices efficiently.

What are Duplicate Invoices?

Invoices are termed “Duplicate invoices” when there is a slight similarity in terms of invoice numbers, dates, and amount, at times, against the same product/service. And when missed, you end up processing numerous vendor payments under duplicate invoice errors without being aware of this detection - further leading to significant amounts of spend leakage.

Detecting duplicate invoices is tricky and a difficult task. And, if you are still using manual approaches, you will miss identifying a lot of duplicates.

Manual techniques involve an exact match on a combination of Supplier + Invoice ID + Invoice Date + Invoice Amount.

Handling the situation of duplicate invoice detection manually can never ensure error-free invoice processing. Manual invoice data extraction from invoices in different formats has a high probability of errors.

What causes Duplicate Invoices?

Duplicate invoices can result from various issues ranging from human errors to complex internal business processes. Some of the common causes of Duplicate invoices include:

Manual data entry errors
Errors in a master vendor file
Pricing errors
Adjusted quantity or price on invoice
Canceling vendor invoice post payment
Sending the same vendor invoice via multiple channels
Huge vendor invoice volume
No proper data validation for vendor invoices

Top reasons that lead to Duplicate Invoices At a glance

How can your AP Team solve Duplicate Invoices?

Unnecessary vendor invoices sent to organizations can poorly affect the vendor’s business impression and increase tasks for the organization. For smoother vendor invoice processing, Aavenir brings this Account Payable Checklist too.

Let’s understand the two primary reasons that cause the vendor invoice approval problem:

1. Invoice Classification

Can you easily see which vendor invoices are paid, which ones need to be checked out, and which are past due?

If the answer is no, you are already in the stage of creating duplicate invoices. With no classification, there is either a translucent or rather opaque view of invoice status. Neither the vendor nor the employees are aware of things.

Tips: The easiest way to solve this problem is to have

Accounts Payable Automation Solution — Easily classifies and organizes invoices

Set Business Rules — Automatically check and compare vendor invoices to past transactions (invoice number) and master data (vendor)

Use 2-way/3-way Invoice Validation — Cross-check the invoice information with the PO, GRNs, and contract data

Cross Analysis of the Line Item Data — Verify items/materials, quantity, and price with the vendor invoices

WatchNow Simplifying Invoice Audits and AP Processing

2. Verification of Vendor Information

Ideally, when your accounts payable team works with different vendors, they create one vendor master file record for each vendor. But it is not unusual to accidentally create multiple vendor records for the same organization. For example, the same department may receive two or three vendor invoices. However, the same vendors can have different postal addresses, and invoices get repeated without any check.

Tips: The easiest way to solve this problem is to have

Tips for Verification of Vendor Information

Verification of Vendor Details — Fields check level with the business rule of vendor number, invoice number, and invoice amount

Vendor Master Data — Confirm the vendor master with the vendor (PO box code + zip code + vendor name) and invoice amount

Introduction of AI — Auto-verify based on past learning, identify vendor invoice data patterns and see discrepancies or repetitions

Red - Flagging Vendors — Notify the AP team regarding vendor invoice repetition without human intervention for discrepancies

Automated Invoice Approvals — Using advanced AI workflow conditions to settle the invoices

Download Now Invoice Verification Checklist

Over to you…

Many organizations take advantage of the ServiceNow platform to start their digital transformation journey. The platform offers out-of-the-box solutions to digitize many enterprise processes.

For Vendor Invoice Processing, your organization can leverage Aavenir Invoiceflow, which provides a unique 'zero-touch invoice processing' solution covering

Aavenir Invoiceflow delivers faster invoice processing with fewer touchpoints, fewer errors, and more early payment discounts, thus improving vendor invoice processing.

Never pay a duplicate invoice again; instead, schedule a demo of Invoiceflow Accounts Payable Automation.

5 KPIs That Drive Accounts Payable Performance

The global pandemic of 2020 has reshaped the workplace model, with most organizations shifting gears to remote and hybrid models. Similarly, Accounts Payable teams are also struggling to measure efficiency and visibility in the current scenario.

While the needs have changed, the solutions sold as the “Accounts Payable Technology of Tomorrow” have remained the same. Technological advancements lead us to a world where almost everything can be easily monitored, tracked, and measured. There are specific applications available in the market today to remind and give us notifications on our calendars related to our travel schedules, food orders, and exercise routines to heartbeat rate.

Then why cannot we get automated alerts and reminders in our calendars for our Accounts Payable dues?

Analyzing Accounts Payable KPIs

Nowadays, progress is measured most often in seconds rather than minutes, which also holds for the accounts payable team within an organization. With accurate Accounts Payable KPIs measurements & metrics, organizations can address some of the standard accounts payable challenges, such as

Reducing database errors due to manual data entry
Monitoring invoice collection from various channels
Matching invoice data with purchase orders, contract values, and goods-or-services-received notes
Reducing the number of invoice exceptions and manual workflow bottlenecks
Identifying AP fraudulent transactions
Improving the efficiency of multiple accounts payable channels

Which Accounts Payable KPIs do Organizations Track?

To identify bottlenecks and maximize the efficiency of the accounts payable department, companies should define key performance indicators (KPIs) for the accounts payable department. KPIs can help the Accounts Payable team continuously measure your performance against key business objectives and set a target for continuous improvement.

In addition, Accounts Payable KPIs provide valuable data for crafting short and long-term procurement and payment strategies.

5 key metrics to empower your accounts payable organization from Aavenir

5 Key Metrics to empower your Accounts Payable Department from Aavenir

Here are 5 Account Payable KPIs that almost every AP department should focus on reviewing:

KPI # 1 Cost for Processing a Single Invoice

“Ardent Partners presents an average cost per invoice is $10.08, including the cost of labor, overhead, and technology.”

The tracking cost per invoice processed is the organization’s first glimpse into overall departmental efficiency. Different costs associated with processing an invoice are infrastructure and follow-up, staff salaries, managerial overhead, and IT support.

How to calculate this KPI:

Cost per Invoice Processed = Total accounts payable costs / Total number of invoices

KPI#2 Time for Processing a Single Invoice

“Ardent Partners reports that the average small-to-midsize company takes about 9 days to process a single invoice when using a manual process.”

Every organization records the time spent on processing invoices. This gives valuable insights into how the AP department performs on payment of invoices, productivity, maintaining vendor relationships, and the availability of early payment discounts. Time is money for every organization. Improving invoice data accuracy and streamlining the invoice payment-approval-receipt workflow are necessary to lower the average cost and time wasted.

How to calculate this KPI:

Time for Processing a Single Invoice= The total number of invoices paid (for a set period) / All costs incurred to pay the invoices(for that same period)

KPI#3 Number of Invoices Processed per day per AP staff

Considered a critical KPI, it demonstrates two objectives:

Which vendor’s invoice causes the most significant issues for the AP staff, and
Which staff requires additional training and guidance for proper analysis and review of invoices promptly

Measuring this KPI gives you a better idea where your AP processes demonstrate strength and which areas require improvement.

How to calculate this KPI:

Number of Invoices Processed per Day per AP Staff = Number of invoices processed / Number of AP staff who perform the accounts payable (AP) process

KPI#4 Percentage of Invoices related to a Purchase Order (PO)

One of the most important KPIs for Accounts Payable is invoice validation. The purchase order and the invoice have to match to facilitate a smooth transaction. It is a matter of concern if there is any discrepancy, regarding the time to check and the cost. The higher the percentage of invoices linked to purchase orders, the more accurate and less expensive your AP process is.

How to calculate this KPI:

Percentage of Invoices related to a Purchase Order (PO) = Number of accurately fulfilled invoices / Total Invoices * 100

KPI#5 Invoice Exception Rate

Exceptions are often caused by discrepancies in PO and invoice data, missing or incorrect POs, and bottlenecks in the approval workflow. For example, an invoice exception occurs when there’s a problem with an invoice—pending approval or routing errors. This can lead the payable process to a screeching halt, and without verification or centralized information access, it can also give rise to duplicate payments and other payment errors.

The formula to calculate this KPI is

Invoice Exception Rate = Rate of Invoice Exceptions / Total Number of Invoices Processed * 100

How to Track 5 Accounts Payable KPIs?

Just as much as it is vital to know which Accounts Payable KPIs to track, having the technology to gather, sort, and distribute the data you are collecting is also equally essential. Accounts Payable (AP) automation can be the first step toward the digital transformation of your accounts payable department. Try to bring everything onto a single platform and eliminate human intervention and paper-based inefficiency. With the help of the Accounts Payable automation tools like Aavenir InvoiceFlow (built on the ServiceNow platform), you can execute:

Intelligent Invoice Data Extraction
Invoice Data Onboarding
AI-based 2-Way/ 3-Way Invoice Data Validation
Invoice Approval Workflow
Invoice Payment Request

The first two steps might involve pulling historical data. In case of no historical data, the organization needs to start with an educated guess or define the new KPI for a trial period to establish its merits. If necessary, you can set multiple targets for a single KPI to cater to readily identifiable circumstances.

By having access to all invoice data, your AP team will be able to monitor the performance of the KPIs mentioned above and then compare it against defined benchmarks to become more efficient and cut down on operating expenses.

Aavenir Invoiceflow dashboard automates reporting all-important KPIs, identifies bottlenecks, and defines alerts for the following actions (for pending invoice approvals/payments) to improve performance.

Why Aavenir Invoiceflow?

Any department or vendor can send invoices in single invoice formats
All data stored in secure, scalable, and compliant on the Now platform
Capitalizes ServiceNow user hierarchy for Invoice Approval workflows
No separate IT security clearance or IT audit required
Integrates with all ServiceNow applications

Busting 3 Common Misconceptions about Accounts Payable Automation

The construction industry is the most volatile considering the daily price fluctuations of raw materials depending on supply and demand factors. This leads to a lot of competition among the vendors to negotiate the best prices and win the contract.

Amidst all these business transactions, invoicing is one of the most critical and time-consuming tasks in the sourcing process. Vendors expect to be paid quickly, and organizations want to be sure they pay the right amount.

Organizations have been historically employing accounting professionals for processing orders and invoices manually. However, sans an efficient process, the workload can quickly become overwhelming - leading to errors or unhappy vendor relationships.

Such back-and-forth documentation or communication between the vendor and the organization, from an operational standpoint, creates a headache for the finance team.

CFOs are slowly embracing Accounts Payable Automation, a helpful alternative to handling manual invoice processing operations. They believe it will reduce errors, minimize time, create a stronger relationship between the vendor and the organization, and add efficiencies in accounts payable (AP).

Discover the Top 3 Misconceptions to Avoid Before Implementing AP Automation

Why would CFOs of recent times ignore an automation concept that makes their AP team strategic? The answer lies with the misconceptions surrounding Accounts Payable Automation Solution.

This blog draws your attention to the misconceptions surrounding Accounts Payable Automation Solution. We believe that clarifying these misconceptions will make you think differently, be better informed, and be positioned to steer your business and the accounts payable (AP) team to the next level.

If you're hesitant to take advantage of an accounts payable automation solution, it is high time you change your perspective. Here’s a list of 3 common misconceptions to avoid before choosing an AP Automation Solution that has unfortunately prevented many businesses from progressing.

Misconception #1: AP Automation is too expensive.

Most CFOs believe that funding an Accounts Payable Automation Solution will considerably impact their bottom line. But in reality, the cost of manually processing invoices is far greater than the cost of automation. Manually processing invoices creates a massive window for errors in terms of duplicate vendor payments, failed invoice audits, missed vendor discounts, late payment fees, and strangled vendor relationships.

Furthermore, an Accounts Payable Automation Solution is an investment that yields returns in the long run. It is a cloud-based solution that handles vendor invoices, tracks vendor payment status, follows up for early vendor discounts, verifies and reconciles the invoices, and processes the payment.

With cutting-edge technology like Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Accounts Payable Automation Solution builds smart invoice workflows and automates 2-way and 3-way validation for vendor invoices.

CFOs should think of saving costs before selecting an automated invoice workflow solution, which opens many doors to streamline the invoicing process.

Misconception #2: Our organization is too small or big for AP Automation.

If CFOs consider their organization too small or big for automation, they should rethink because the organization's size does not determine if automation is necessary or not. Therefore, the efficiency of your employees and the volume of your invoices are criteria for purchasing an Accounts Payable Automation Solution.

CFOs should conduct an opportunity cost analysis to know the number of productive hours wasted by employees in manually processing invoices when they could be working on high-priority tasks.

Misconception #3: With the AP Automation solution, there is low visibility & control over invoice processes.

You are mistaken if you think that CFOs will lose invoice visibility and control over the Accounts Payable Automation Solution workflow post-implementation. The Accounts Payable Automation Solution always ensures greater visibility and control.

With the digital input of an invoice made into the system courtesy of AI and ML, it is easy to set its workflow rules according to your AP team's needs. Besides, you can alter protocols between processes without stopping workflow, determine the access rights, and more.

In short, you have the ultimate control over every process and can make any necessary adjustments wherever required.

Likewise, managing visibility is an easy task. You can smoothly view an invoice's status, track employees' workload, and even retrieve and review past documents from the Invoice Dashboard.

Invoices will no longer be lost or forgotten under an employee's desk, resulting in late vendor payments. Employees will be held accountable for their role in the invoice process, and management will be able to drive efficiency and analyze reports more easily.

Experience Aavenir Invoiceflow: Make the Move!

77% of CFOs are heading up efforts to improve efficiency by adopting digital technology, according to a recent Accenture study.

CFOs are building a solid case for automation to reduce costs, minimize manual errors, and improve the quality of their accounts payable workflow. However, the urgency for the adoption of accounts payable automation keeps increasing.

The operational and manual challenges have forced many AP teams to redesign and streamline their payment processes. As a result, organizations with little to no accounts payable automation are subsequently missing these key benefits:

Experience Aavenir Invoiceflow - the global solution for complete accounts payable automation that offers ease of use, administration, and deployment to ensure accurate and on-time vendor payments.

Best Practices: Automating Invoice Approval Process for PO vs. Non-PO Invoices

A robust supply chain consisting of reliable sourcing partners accelerates the growth of successful enterprises. Each enterprise aims to make fast payments for vendor invoices received to build successful vendor relationships.

In a recent survey conducted for 170+ North American Accounts Payable teams, 23% of companies shared that non-PO invoice processing is one of their most significant pain areas. The remaining 77% are still figuring out a way to process PO-based invoices faster in their digital transformation.

The vendor invoice can be divided primarily into PO invoices (having a reference Purchase Order) and Non-PO Invoices (vendor-generated without any PO reference).

To reduce average receipt-to-invoice cycle time, Accounts Payable teams use different digital tools such as ERP, A/P automation tools, and lately, even ServiceNow to implement PO vs. Non-PO invoice approval workflow.

This blog discusses the difference between PO and Non-PO invoices and helps you understand the best practices to implement a successful invoice approval workflow process using the ServiceNow platform.

What is a PO Invoice?

A PO (Purchase Order) invoice is the invoice raised by the vendor based on the purchase order created by the buyer. Generally, for processing an invoice, accounts payable will match the PO invoice raised by the vendors against the purchase order to ensure all details (quantity, price, PO number) are correct.

In some cases, enterprises will do a 3-way invoice matching process to confirm if the PO invoice details match the purchase order and the receipt number of the goods registered by the procurement system. For example, PO invoices typically include invoices for direct goods or services purchases.

Learn about the most popular PO Invoice examples:

What is a Non-PO Invoice?

Non-PO invoices are those invoices raised by the vendor that does not have a purchase order (associated with them). Sometimes Non-PO invoices are also used to make vendor payments when an invoice is under a direct spend budget/ limit.

Non-PO invoices are often used for indirect purchases or spend below the tolerance limit. They might have a preparer and an approver as two major stakeholders for managing invoices. Here there are chances that an organization’s cost center or internal order might have been used.

Here are a few prominent Non-PO Invoice examples:

What is the difference between PO vs. Non-PO Invoices?

Differentiating between PO vs. non-PO invoices lies in exploring the underlying logic of the purchase that led to the generation of the invoice. The key differences are:

Parameter	PO Invoice	Non-PO Invoice
Meaning	A purchase order is associated with the invoice raised.	A purchase order is not associated with the invoice raised.
Used for	Primarily used for Direct Purchase or Procurement.	Used mainly for Indirect Procurement or Purchase.
Approval	The purchase order reference is pre-approved.	The invoice approval process is not pre-approved and has been prepared by an Approver in some cases.
Processing Time	Faster Invoice Approval & Processing.	Slower Invoice Approval & Processing.
Clubbing	All goods can be clubbed into a Single Invoice.	Can have multiple invoices.
Transparency	Greater transparency of the invoice payment process.	Less transparency of the invoice payment process.
Advantage	Ideally used for normal procurement.	Ideally, used during discretionary spending (below tolerance limits) or emergency procurement of goods or services.

Best Practices: PO vs. Non-PO Invoice Approval Workflow

Organizations need to consider these best practices while processing the PO & Non-PO Invoices:

The Preparer and Approver must ensure that the transactions they submit are correct and compliant. They must read all warnings and errors against each transaction before submitting it.

Ensure that payments are allowable, acceptable, and accurate. Also, ensure that the original vendor payment request is on file within the department. The Procurement Services nor eProcurement will not authenticate the reason for the invoice payment.

Be careful and check that Procurement Services performs spot audits on Non-PO Invoices. The audits should reflect that transactions are compliant (i.e., items are not on the exceptions list).

Determine the workflow between Preparers and Approvers for Non-PO Invoice payments within each department.

How to Automate PO & Non-PO Invoice Processing?

Currently, invoices received by the Accounts Payable teams in paper or email are processed either manually or with OCR (which requires manual effort in 62% of OCR invoices). Manual processing requires the most employees of any method. It is the processing approach used by companies with less than 10,000 invoices per month and processing greater than 10,000 invoices per month. OCR is more efficient (requiring fewer employees) than manual processing.

Depending on how fast and efficiently the accounts team processes invoices can help the organization save on late-payment penalties and avail of early-payment discounts.

Enterprises need a digital workflow solution like ServiceNow that enables all the departments to work collaboratively.

Your organization can leverage Aavenir Invoiceflow, which provides a unique touchless invoice processing solution covering intelligent invoice data extraction, AI-based 2-way/3-way invoice validation with flexible invoice processing workflows for automating invoice processing.

How Can Aavenir Invoiceflow Help?

Pre-configured metadata identification of invoice number based on previous invoices from the same vendor or cost center
Automatic distribution to the relevant approver based on the organization’s approval hierarchy
Automatic approval by matching recurring invoices (such as a lease) to the payment plan in a contract
100% visibility into procurement and tracking of Invoices via workflows

Over to You

Aavenir Invoiceflow delivers faster invoice processing with fewer touchpoints, fewer errors, and more early payment discounts, thus improving the vendor invoice processing.

5 Procurement & Sourcing Trends for 2022 and Beyond

While the pandemic has left enormous disruption in its wake, procurement and sourcing teams have globally experienced some genuinely positive developments and professional growth. The spotlight turned to procurement as responsible for sourcing everything, from masks and gloves to jet fuel and microprocessors.

As the global economy continues to recover and prepares for future supply chain disruptions, the hard-won lessons of the past couple of years will shape the procurement profession for years to come. But, as wise people have said, the pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.

Five Smart Trends That Will Shape Procurement & Sourcing in 2022 and Beyond

As we think about procurement in 2022, it's time to rethink our strategies and approaches. Procurement, contracts, vendor performance, warehouse management, logistics, and other supply chain functions must be redesigned for the future. This blog will go through the top five smart trends for our supply chain strategy in 2022:

Trend 1# Communication and Collaboration Tools

Strategy: Streamlining internal collaboration can help companies boost productivity and save money. In addition, they can improve external communication to strengthen supplier relationships and reduce supply chain risks. As we apply procurement technology, employees enjoy intuitive and straightforward buying experiences when and if they interact with procurement. In addition, companies can promote a customer-centric procurement process that provides a seamless purchasing experience by using the correct collaboration and communication technologies.

Trend 2# Enabling Self-Service Portals

Strategy: One of the benefits of digital transformation is the availability of self-service, which improves the user experience for all involved and also speeds up a specific business process as dependencies on other people are eliminated. From on-boarding and off-boarding to everyday vendor interaction, a self-service system is a win-win for all stakeholders and an emerging trend in procurement. The supplier relationship is a critical path in our procurement journey. Technology will let suppliers see more of your process, giving them more opportunities to self-serve by accessing real-time data. In addition, suppliers will be ready and integrate their business to your needs to be more responsive and relevant.

Trend 3# AI and Data Analytics

16% of European nations believe automation through AI, and other technologies can help lessen the impact of COVID-19.

(AI) Artificial intelligence is nothing but the ability of a computer-controlled system to learn and adapt its behaviors with minimal human involvement. AI is used in almost 90% of companies, with procurement applications ranging from automated payments and contract management to spend analytics and supplier information management.

Strategy: AI-driven solutions streamline and automate time-consuming tasks and deliver insights based on large, complex data sets. It was challenging for procurement to determine their organization's total spending in the past. Today, most CPOs deploy AI-based analytics to discover opportunities for bottom-line impact, ranging from management reporting to process improvement.

Trend 4# Embracing Mobility Technology

42% of organizations plan to invest heavily in mobile technologies to support procurement activities.

Strategy: Widespread use of mobile technology is another emerging trend in procurement. Mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, are now a crucial part of our lives. They have also become essential business tools for procurement specialists who often spend a lot of time away from their desks. Even as many procurement specialists are returning to the office, they'll continue to rely on mobile technology as they spend quite a while away from their desks.

Trend 5# Cloud Ready with SaaS

Cloud computing and SaaS (Software as a Service) products support many business operations, and procurement is no different. As a result, companies may leverage the subscription model to access the latest procurement automation solution without the cost, staff and resource overheads that accompany traditional on-premise software systems.

Strategy: Cloud technology is typically a pay-as-you-go service allowing companies to lower upfront investment, reduce overhead, and enhance real-time information sharing. Companies can scale operations with many subscription-based models with optimal solutions that yield multiple benefits. As a result, companies can now easily incorporate new technologies into their existing digital landscape to run their business processes more efficiently, with reduced total cost of ownership, thereby improving their overall financials.

Take Away

“Disruption” is the new constant, and the world around procurement is changing at lightning speed. There's a lot of pressure on the procurement solution providers to create something simple, intuitive, and user-friendly. At Aavenir, we envision the future of procurement as the frictionless purchase and delivery of goods and services across the business, creating a user-friendly experience powered with AI for the entire source-to-pay cycle.

Exciting times lie ahead for procurement as technology is advancing fast. It's allowing us to find new and innovative sources of value. As a result, organizations are starting to compare the procurement organization to how they buy products and services through the different apps they use every day. Data will be that channel to finding those new sources of innovation. Book a demo!

Learn how to change the traditional procurement operational approach so that the team can deliver faster RFx-to-award cycle time with effective supplier evaluation criteria.

Accounts Payable Trends: What to Expect in 2022

Introduction

“2021 was challenging” is quite an understatement — and accounts payable was certainly no exception. As we embark upon the new journey, viz, 2022, it’s ideal to start putting plans in place to make sure you hit the ground running.

Top Accounts Payable Trends for 2022 & Beyond

Few could have predicted the rapidness at which the world shut down during the pandemic, followed by the equally surprising and strong rebound as policymakers poured stimulus into economies. As a result, confidence going into 2022 is intense.

About 60% of CEOs anticipate an economic boom over the next two years, as per Gartner.

As global activity continues through the recovery phase, priorities have also shifted towards fast-tracking modernization goals. Technology initiatives are the second biggest priority for CEOs, following growth.

By now, most businesses have successfully prioritized the digitization of client-facing and revenue-generating processes. The subsequent growth phase comes from the internal functions that promote cost-saving and strategic planning automation. As a result, financial leaders look to make smart choices when streamlining operations with constant changes. For many, the accounts payable function remains a crucial area to start with:

In this blog, we’ll discuss the top 4 trends for the AP team as a critical priority for businesses in 2022:

Trend #1: Automation with AI + Digital Workflows

Automating accounts payable is not only a strategically sound choice—it’s also imperative Many factors can be attributed to this, including:

Because finance teams no longer operate under a single roof, automation makes it easier to stay aligned. Digital Workflows are a boon combined with AI that can drastically reduce the time to process invoices by 68%. With an accounting team of 10+, 68% is a sufficient number to save and focus the team’s effort on other crucial business areas.

71% of businesses plan to automate their accounts payable function further in 2022, according to IOFM.

Trend #2: Integrate & Adapt Faster

In the post-pandemic recovery phase, there has been significant growth and acceleration in industries that used to thrive in a remote setting, such as:

With remote capabilities, these high-velocity businesses may now capitalize on new opportunities that will allow them to expand their operations globally and scale to new markets and verticals.

Given the international challenges, many companies are looking to AP Automation solutions and global payment providers to improve AP workflow and efficiency, manage their currency exchange requirements, and help them take advantage of the most favorable exchange rates.
These solutions include integration with your financial management and ERP systems, “touchless” processing of invoices, document recognition, scanning, e-invoicing, and approval routing and notification via desktop, tablet, or mobile devices.

Forecasted global growth is expected to accelerate to 5.6% in 2022, mainly in significant economies like the United States and China.

Trend #3: Consolidation

Today’s financial leaders seek to consolidate multiple functions in one technology platform to increase efficiency and maximize their return on investment (ROI) on the technology platform. For increased visibility and control, look to optimize in heavily manual areas, like:

Bringing legal, appraisal, risk, environmental, and related departments together, a government agency providing financial services cut the time needed to approve secured lending transactions by 60%.

Trend #4: More Robust Cybersecurity

With the recent challenges of working from home and the shortcuts and workarounds that became necessary as a result, fraudsters had a field day.

They exploited the simple security measures adopted for the sake of business continuity, using:

As businesses are regrouping from post-COVID confusion, fraud incidents will continue to be a threat. More than ever, strong cybersecurity will be necessary.

This involves checking for code vulnerability, endpoint security, data and asset management, constant monitoring, and careful identity management and credentials.

In 2022, fraud will continue to rise; the best-protected organizations will employ strong cybersecurity and risk assessment partner to thwart it.

Keep Pace with Competition

Additional time may be required to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic before they resume or even begin their digital automation journeys. At Aavenir, we are committed and can help make your journey successful.

In 2021, some large and global enterprises initiated or continued their digital automation transformation journeys. Unfortunately, due to the effects of the pandemic and implementation of vaccine norms, other enterprises needed to put their plans on hold. As a result, we have seen specific industries severely affect the latter group, such as the tourism and hospitality industries.

We can conclude that “automation” will continue to be a trend for the finance community and that the impacts of the global pandemic have accelerated changes in the way of working of accounts payable teams. Although you may recognize some of the trends listed above, you may also discover new ones. Additionally, we have added action points worth considering in the following presentation discussing the Future of AP in 2022: 5 Important Trends to be Ready for.

Accounts Payable Trends 2022 from Aavenir

Reimagining Category Management: A Strategic Approach to More Innovative Sourcing

Need for Reimagining Category Management

Organizations worldwide have realized the extreme importance of an efficient, reliable, and resilient sourcing and procurement process. A solid sourcing and procurement process helps organizations to meet their forecasted demand optimally. Yet, many organizations fail to give sourcing the attention it deserves. Sourcing is often fragmented among multiple locations, business units, and categories, making it hard to identify and capture enterprise-wide savings opportunities. Leaders of procurement functions typically lack sufficient clout to obtain the technology and talent they need. Many companies also do not have mechanisms to monitor product categories and reflect their performance on financial statements.

To overcome these challenges, companies need a new vision for sourcing that combines cutting-edge tools and automation solutions and modern category management approaches to address fundamental issues relating to processes, capabilities, and data. Using this coordinated, technology-enabled approach, global companies are already capturing the untapped value of indirect procurement.

Simply put, evolution is not enough. To succeed in the 2021s, companies need a revolution in procurement through reshaping their categories.

According to CIPS, category management is a strategic approach that organizes procurement resources to focus on specific areas of spend.

Category managers can zone in on one specific category and conduct market or pricing analysis for that particular group. By leveraging this in procurement decisions, procurement managers can create higher ROI than traditional purchasing models.

Four Key Elements to Reimagine Category Management

What makes the new vision for procurement so powerful? Indeed, digital technologies and best-in-class practices provide the foundation. But these are just the starting point. We have tried to describe the most advanced solutions relating to four key elements to reimagine category management to unlock the full potential.

1. Zero-based Budget Strategies

Each product category’s expenses must be justified for each new budget period based on demonstrable needs and costs, instead of the more common method of using last year’s budget as your starting point, then adjusting up or down.

Approach:

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) requires department heads to base their budgets on business needs and the achievement of business strategy and goals. ZBB encourages department heads to seek to be more efficient, so increasing workloads actively do not drive increased spending – effectively determining how to do more with less.

2. Supplier Partnerships and Co-innovation

Companies are looking for opportunities to create competitive advantages to counter the downturn that the pandemic has created, including through vendor partnerships and joint innovation.

Companies should leverage supplier partnerships and automated replenishment to reduce costs and increase service levels. Companies should identify and develop a supply base with complementary capabilities that will drive value through collaboration. Organizations need to evaluate and contract with suppliers who are the best fit for their needs.

3. Minimize Risk Exposure

Organizations should invest in a cross-functional team to catalog the full scope of risks they face. They should also build a risk-management framework that determines which metrics are appropriate for measuring risks and how to track and monitor these metrics rigorously.

There should be a thorough assessment of supply-chain risks and how to manage them more thoughtfully. Companies can create better transparency by working with suppliers to gain information about their next-tier suppliers and upstream value chains.

4. Enhance Supplier Performance

Companies should actively seek ways to:

Leverage performance metrics (including key performance indicators or KPIs) to find the root causes of supplier performance issues creating expense, waste, and risk and take corrective action.
Optimize their value chain by digitizing and optimizing business processes throughout the entire source-to-pay lifecycle and prioritizing strategic sourcing
Minimize the number of suppliers in the chain without negatively impacting business continuity and finding ways to align procurement activities with larger organizational goals.

Establishing sustainable strategic category management process beyond the tools

Designing effective procurement strategies is imperative to align business goals with category management and sourcing objectives. There are a few ways organizations can optimize costs and maximize value from their procurement activities:

1. Value capture

Companies tend to look internally, and base spend on what they're doing rather than focusing on what's happening in the market. Siloed functions may get away with basing most of their work on internal company proceedings. Still, when sourcing becomes centralized, as frequently happens when companies adopt category management, understand external factors. Thus category definition and segmentation become essential to define each category before developing a strategic category management plan.

The organization’s growth potential must set a baseline using common terminologies, templates, and processes. It involves dividing the suppliers into segments most effectively and efficiently that the skillset is profitable, actionable, and accessible. Defining each category and segmenting them into similar groups forms the basis of strategic category management.

2. Measurement

Organizations accelerate the adoption of digital and analytics to enhance transparency and standardization. The foundation of the category management process is the software that enables sourcing professionals to apply all categories. The software should have capabilities for spend visualization, forecasting, and systems integration.

Category-specific: Automated solutions — hard-coded into analytics — identify, apply, and monitor standard and advanced levers unique to a category.
Smart workflows: These platforms review the forecast spending per category and activity and provide a strategic category management dashboard to integrate best-practice actions for selected categories. Companies use the insights to develop negotiation strategies for each category.
To improve category functionality, buyers can apply functional advanced analytics tools, including network optimization tools, automated, real-time KPI dashboards, executive scorecards, parametric clean-sheets, and eSourcing tools powered by artificial intelligence and advanced analytics.

Test drive the Aavenir RFPflow product on ServiceNow to manage and measure sourcing performance.

3. Change Management

Succeeding in category management also requires support and involvement from the right people across supply management categories, who must be willing to break away from silos and manage spending in a centralized fashion. Also, strategic category management managers need to understand the challenges and opportunities before deploying category plans to design the right processes.

It is essential to ensure that the procurement team of tomorrow has the required skills, processes, and tools that best drive success. Transforming procurement to operate more strategically requires careful planning and execution to identify the essential skillset gaps and performance expectations. Also, organizations must identify performance gaps and build necessary procurement skills to focus on a sustainable, cohesive strategy and add value for stakeholders.

The Bottom Line for the CPO

Strategic category management is a continuous improvement process that will inform all future successful strategic sourcing initiatives. It requires the right level of attention and a good training program. Your category managers will be responsible for gathering supplier requirements, collecting bids, and negotiating contracts. Establishing them as a single point of contact means better coordination and communication, vastly improving stakeholder and supplier relationships.

Computing the true ROI of IT Vendor Invoice Automation

Introduction

61% of top global companies have implemented Accounts Payable (AP) automation, focusing on IT vendor invoice processing.

But this implementation hasn’t come without challenges. The main issue? Money. When a CFO looks at potential expenditures related to adopting the IT vendor invoice automation, they need to know how each function will impact their bottom line. And it’s not just the immediate impact on cash flow. There are long-term risks and rewards to consider. Without the right profile, even the most promising project won’t get funding, which leads to a central question:

Is automating IT Vendor Invoice processes worth the effort? What is the actual ROI of IT Vendor Invoice Automation?

The ROI of IT Vendor Invoice automation can be a bit more complex to calculate. Why? To startup, it impacts so many different aspects of your business. For example, what is the value of a less frustrating and manual invoice extraction process? Is it worth automating, and if so, what is the ROI?

Savings from fully automating IT invoicing are estimated at 30-80%. With fully automated IT invoicing, you can use features like the following to reduce costs and increase cash flow.

Invoice templates – eliminate repeated invoice creation from scratch
Email and text invoice copies – save postage and processing costs and reduce delivery time
Links on invoices – speed collections with online payment options
Reminder emails and text messages – reduce collection calls and increase cash flow

Let’s start by considering the financial benefits of IT Vendor Invoice automation. Then, we will take a look at the non-financial benefits of switching to IT Vendor Invoice automation.

The Financial ROI of IT Vendor Invoice Automation

IT Vendor Invoice processing is the most common process that AP departments automate.

Cost is reduced from $14-$17 per invoice (when done manually) to $3 (when automated)

Time investment is lower: the typical cycle cuts down from 14 days to 3 days with automation

Lower costs, fewer late fees, and more early payment discounts are the norm – not the exception. That’s the IT Vendor Invoice Automation ROI realized.

The Non-Financial ROI of IT Vendor Invoice Automation

Getting executive buy-in for IT Vendor Invoice automation is critical, yet most people only focus on the financial benefits. Which makes sense; it is easier to convince higher-ups that IT Vendor Invoice automation is beneficial when you can say, “This will save our company $X per year.”

But, don’t overlook the non-financial benefits. These benefits might not have an easy to calculate cash value, but they can still help the company grow and increase employee happiness long term.

More Control: IT Vendor Invoice automation creates a streamlined, controlled process that leaves less room for manual errors and mistakes. The result is a tighter, well-controlled IT Vendor Invoice process with fewer errors.
Streamline Auditing: Do you dread the audit process? IT Vendor Invoice automation makes it easier to stay organized and pull reports so the AP team can get audits done faster, with better accuracy and less frustration.
Improve Business Relationships: IT Vendor Invoice automation can also help you improve relationships with vendors by making communication easier. For example, all the vendor communications are kept in one location, making it easier to see and respond to questions and requests. In addition, anyone with access can see past conversations, which keeps everyone in the loop.

How does an IT vendor invoice automation solution help SaaS enterprises?

An automated IT vendor invoice solution, like Aavenir Invoiceflow, lets you

Identify, categorize, ingest data required for account payable workflow from any invoice formats
Detect various parts of invoice through a regular expression, machine learning extraction models, and unique parsing strategies
Automatically match a combination of the invoice, purchase orders, goods/services receipt, quality check, vendor contract
Execute on-time payments on ServiceNow powered flexible workflow platform with rules-driven conditional approvals,
Complete audit logs and alerts with pre-built analytics reports and insightful dashboards
Collect and share invoice data to multiple endpoints including existing accounting and procurement systems built with SAP, EMC, and any other CRM or ERP solutions

Conclusion

Watch this video case study to learn how T. D. Williamson Gains Greater IT vendor Invoice Visibility with Aavenir Invoiceflow.

We get it: automating isn’t an instant decision. Organizations need to evaluate (and often maintain) the long-standing IT Vendor Invoice processes. Aavenir’s solutions let you keep your current ways of processing but automate them for increased efficiency.

Companies lose up to 5% of revenue or face critical IT issues due to delayed payments, duplicate invoices, frauds, and manual processes.

Attend this webinar to learn how to use AI to automate 90% of manual IT vendor invoice processes and manage approval workflows on Servicenow.