What Is Automated Invoice Processing : A Complete Guide and Steps to Implement It
Did you know that it takes approximately one hour to process five invoices per hour manually? And the cost can be anywhere from $14 to $20. How many invoices does your organization process in a day? If yours is a small business, maybe less than 100. For bigger companies, the chances are hundreds or even thousands. How are your Accounts Payable (AP) teams keeping up the pace? Forget about the delivery timelines. Are these invoices accurate enough so that you don’t have to repeat another whole new cycle of invoice processing?
If your answers are not positive to the above questions or if you have overlooked these critical aspects of business, it is time to overhaul the primitive methods and embrace technology. Welcome to the world of automated invoice processing.
With automation taking the world by storm, right from assisting us at home to helping organizations achieve a lot quicker, processing invoices can be done in a matter of minutes with an effective automated invoice processing system.
This blog will explore in detail all that you need to know about the best automated invoice processing software.
What Is Automated Invoice Processing?
Invoice processing starts from receiving an invoice to making the payment. Even though it looks like a two-step process, it is complex with many details. In a traditional setup, the process looks like this:
Organization receives invoices from vendors in several formats - PDFs, paper documents, emails, images, etc.
Bookkeeper enters the information manually into the accounting system
In some instances, like purchase order the invoice is verified against the document
Invoice is scanned and stored safely for future reference
Invoice is sent for approval to the authorized teams
Payment is processed
All the records, including payment information are archived for auditing purposes
