You aren’t imagining things if it feels like processing invoices is more complex than ever.
Most organizations say that their invoice processing is more complex compared to two years ago, according to a recent survey by the Institute of Financial Operations (IFO). Worse, 48% of organizations surveyed by IFO expect that their invoice processing will become more complex over the next two years.
Most organizations say that their invoice processing is more complex compared to two years ago, according to a recent survey by the Institute of Financial Operations (IFO). Worse, 48% of organizations surveyed by IFO expect that their invoice processing will become more complex over the next two years.
A number of factors are to blame for increasingly complex invoice processing:
- Receiving invoices from multiple submission channels
- Complex invoices
- High paper invoice volumes
- Operating in a shared services environment
- Remote approvers
- Multiple ERP integrations
- Multi-language support
- Multi-currency support
It is no wonder that 56.6% of accounts payable departments post less than 6 percent of their invoices straight-through (without human operator intervention), according to the Institute of Financial Management’s (IOFM’s) 2015 AP Technology Survey.
Electronic invoicing reduces invoice processing complexity in five ways:
- Organizations can receive invoices in any format, from any location.
- Invoice data is validated at the supplier’s end (earlier in the process than paper-centric invoice processing approaches), increasing first-pass match rates and reducing exceptions.
- Supplier, header and line-item data (such as amounts) from purchase order-based and non-purchase order based invoices is automatically extracted.
- Invoices are automatically matched with purchase orders and/or goods or services receipts.
- Invoices that require approval (such as non- purchase order-based invoices) or exceptions handling are automatically routed based on pre-defined workflows.
These are some of the reasons that 29% of organizations surveyed by AIIM in 2014 said they reduced their average cost to process an invoice by 50% as a result of automation.
Want to learn more about how electronic invoicing can streamline your accounting operations? Contact us today!
