In today’s fast-paced business environment, optimising operational processes is key to staying competitive and up to date with the advancing world of technology. One area where automation is making a significant impact is invoice processing. In this article, we will delve into the world of automated invoice processing, its benefits, and how businesses can implement it to streamline their operations and gain advantage over other businesses in their industry.
What is automated invoice processing?
Automated invoice processing is a cutting-edge solution that revolutionises the way businesses handle their invoices. It involves using technology to extract, process, and manage invoices, eliminating the need for manual data entry which can be labour intensive and a waste of resources.
It also helps with reducing human errors that manual processing is susceptible to, such as mistakes, delays, and inefficiencies. Errors in data entry can result in costly mistakes, while delays in processing invoices can strain supplier relationships and lead to unhappy customers.
The benefits of invoice processing automation
The advantages of automating invoice processing are manifold. It reduces manual data entry, which not only minimises errors but also frees up valuable employee time and business resources for more strategic tasks that could help further the company’s development and invocation. Automation also streamlines the matching of invoices with purchase orders, ensuring accurate payments and reducing discrepancies, both of which are important to uphold strong relationships with supplies and consumers.
On top of this, automated systems offer efficient routing and centralised document management, making it easier to access and retrieve invoices when needed, from anywhere and by anyone with permission. This not only increases employee flexibility through being able to work in any location, but also helps with the collaboration and data sharing between businesses that is vital for digital transformation to happen.
Performance monitoring becomes a breeze with automation, allowing organisations to track invoice processing metrics and make data-driven improvements. They can also use this data to see where any mistakes are being repeatedly made or processing is slow and inefficient and improve these areas.
How to improve invoice processing with automation
Automated systems excel at matching invoices with purchase orders, resulting in fewer payment errors and discrepancies. This not only enhances accuracy but also strengthens supplier relationships by ensuring timely and accurate payments.
Electronic document management systems play a crucial role in automated invoice processing. They offer secure storage and easy retrieval of invoice records, simplifying audits and compliance requirements. Moreover, automation provides valuable insights into workflow efficiency. By analysing the data generated during the invoice processing journey, organisations can identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, enabling them to optimise their processes continuously.
How to implement automated invoice processing
To embark on the journey of automated invoice processing, organisations can start by using pre-built templates or creating custom forms tailored to their specific needs.
Customisation options for invoice approval workflows, including visual and code-free choices, allow businesses to align automation with their unique processes. Should any non-matches occur for invoices that cannot be resolved via automation, exceptions are routed via email notifications and escalation rules to be manually processed, meaning these issues can get identified and be resolved quicker.
Finally, by automating invoice processing, you can benefit from same day upload of all images, including PO’s, invoices, cheques and remittances) to a highly secure portal.
It’s crucial to emphasise the importance of testing and refining workflows before full deployment. This ensures that the automated system seamlessly integrates with existing operations and maximises efficiency as well as ensuring its scalability if the business grows.
Automated invoice processing is a game-changer for modern businesses seeking to improve efficiency, reduce errors, and optimise their financial operations. By embracing automation and following best practices in implementation, organisations can streamline their invoice processing workflows, enhance accuracy, and gain a competitive edge in today’s dynamic business landscape.
How can Parseq help with automating your invoice processing?
At Parseq, we provide up front technical consultancy and solution development to deliver tailored automated invoice processing for your business. We work with you to understand the scope of your business with onboarding, project management, implementation and account management to enable a seamless transition and ongoing service delivery.
We provide an end-to-end solution including data capture, encoding and validation underpinned by OCR (optical character recognition) technology and machine learning capabilities. This process helps identify multiple fields across invoices per annum. Our system comes with built-in custom imports to handle receipt of bespoke master data for validation which contains separate vendor and purchase order files as well as exception handling. This includes the production of invoice images for all invoices that have produced an exception.
All this will enable you to:
- Improve visibility of your data
- Increase accuracy of invoicing to 99%
- Reduce invoicing costs by 30% on average
- Integrate with other systems
- Improve the time taken to process invoices
- Be flexible and scale your business
Why not get in touch?
Want to find out more? We would be happy to discuss your organisation’s challenges and how Parseq’s solutions could quickly provide you with real value.
Simply put in an enquiry or give one of our friendly team a call and we’ll be more than happy to discuss your current situation and how we can help.
