Save money on every invoice you process with automated accounts payable software

Introduction 

Automating your accounts payable (AP) invoice processing offers many key benefits for your business. It not only enables you to work faster and more efficiently, but also increases your company’s financial stability and competitiveness, and boosts confidence among your suppliers, investors and other stakeholders.  

By streamlining your invoice processing, you also significantly lower costs and create opportunities to enhance profitability. Automated AP invoice processing allows you to avoid financial risks associated with late payments, while also freeing up your employees to focus on more strategic, value-added tasks, such as building richer supplier relations. 

In this article, we’ll cover all the potential financial benefits of using smart technologies to modernize and automate your AP invoice processing.

The road to cost efficiency

From manual to autonomous invoice processing

Let’s start by comparing conventional, manual invoice processing with autonomous invoice processing: 

With manual invoice processing some daily burdens are: 

• Employees have to collect the invoices, review them and enter the data by hand, one invoice at a time 
• The process is time-consuming and repetitive 
• Paper and PDFs invoices may be lost/accidentally deleted or wind up in an inbox that nobody checks, resulting in delays and privacy issues 
• Employees are stuck spending long hours on invoice processing, which includes matching invoice data, making sure that the invoices are compliant or, for instance, solving discrepancies. As a result, they lack time to focus on other tasks
• Manual data entry and validation is error-prone, which may result payment of duplicate invoices or even compliance-related issues

With autonomous invoice processing there is a new reality:

• Invoices are imported in the AP platform and data is entered automatically using optical character recognition (OCR) technology and advanced algorithms
• You can receive invoices from multiple channels, including by mail, email or via self-service supplier portal 
• Paper invoices are automatically split without the need to use bar codes, stickers or separating pages. You can automate the entire invoice processing cycle, so regular, valid invoices can be automatically processed without ever having to be “touched” by an employee 
• The software automatically initiates and oversees approval processes, ensuring approvals are collected in a timely manner 
• In case of exceptions, the software follows your predefined procedure to raise the invoice in question to the required team’s attention via a workflow, so they can intervene and make the right decision on how to proceed 
• As you can see, autonomous invoice processing presents many opportunities for boosting efficiency and delivering a better AP experience all around

In the infographic below, we explore some of the specific cost savings you can expect along the road from manual to autonomous invoice processing:

Potential savings: How much are you currently spending on manual invoice processing?

Many companies are unaware of the true costs of manual invoice processing. To calculate how much you are currently spending, consider all these factors: 

• Workforce: How many hours do your employees spend on data entry, verification, approval and error resolution. Be sure to also factor in indirect labor costs related to approval processes and error management. Also consider additional HR-related costs such as recruitment and training for your AP staff. 
• Facilities: How many square meters of floor space do you devote in your office to storing and archiving physical invoices? The price of office space quickly adds up, especially when you could easily be dedicating that same space to a more useful purpose. 
• Infrastructure and third-party costs: This includes all expenses for software, hardware, office supplies and telecommunications you use to process your invoices across different locations (missing opportunities for economies of scale). If you are outsourcing, this expense should be also taken into account. 
• Additional costs: Manual invoice processing can also result in unforeseen costs. For example, incorrect data entry may result in duplicate payments, errors, late fees and compliance penalties.

Add up all of these costs for an average one-month period. Then divide them by the number of invoices your AP team processes that month to determine your total costs per invoice. This gives you a clear view of what your company is currently spending on its AP process, so you can compare the cost savings you can expect to achieve by switching to an automated process.

Key takeaways: How automated accounts payable software significantly lowers costs

Now that you have gained a clearer overview of the costs of manual invoice processing, let’s recap and dive deeper into exactly how autonomous invoice processing lowers those costs. 

• Faster, more efficient work: Autonomous invoice processing automates time-consuming tasks like data entry and invoice matching and coding, which saves on labor and frees up your employees to focus on tasks that require human creativity, communication and strategic thinking. 
• Improved data quality: When you automate your invoice processing, you benefit not only from greater accuracy but also features that help you improve data quality. This is possible thanks to the ability to instantly detect any errors or anomalies in your incoming invoices. 
• Streamlined workflows and automated approvals: Autonomous invoice processing software allows you to optimize your business and approval process workflows. It automatically notifies the department responsible to take action and approvers, keeping the process running smoothly and efficiently. It can also automatically reroute to alternative approvers in case one approver is on vacation, which prevents backlogs in your approvals process. 
• Fraud protection: A single incident of fraud can result in severe financial costs for your organization. Automated invoice processing systems flag suspicious invoices, so your team can investigate. This minimizes the risk of fraud and financial losses. 
• Compatibility with modern invoice formats: With autonomous invoice processing software, you can embrace secure, modern formats like PDF and e-invoicing. This can eliminate the need for costly printing and on-site archiving, while also contributing to your company’s sustainability goals. 
• Full visibility and control: By automating your AP process, you gain visibility into your processing activities, enabling early issue detection and corrective action. This improves financial control and reduces fraud risks, while also enabling you to automatically generate detailed reports for auditing, monitoring and compliance purposes. Besides, advanced AP Automation solutions will provide you with data insights to further monitor your invoice processing. At Cevinio, for example, we offer our Analytics Suite. 

More benefits of automated accounts payable software

The benefits described in the previous section all directly lower your costs. Yet when you switch to autonomous invoice processing, you enjoy additional benefits that help enhance your company’s competitiveness, grow your business and increase profitability. Here are some key benefits that help you achieve these goals: 

In addition to cost savings, autonomous invoice processing solutions like Cevinio offer a myriad of benefits: 

• Stronger supplier relationships: By ensuring your suppliers’ invoices are paid on time and without errors, autonomous invoice processing builds your company’s reputation as a professional, supplier-friendly organization. This helps build strong supplier relationships that continue to benefit your organization in the long term. 
• Enhanced compliance: Having a consistent, transparent and efficient automated process for handling your invoices keeps your company compliant with tax laws, payment terms and industry standards. This includes compliance with government-mandated e-invoicing regulations, which are quickly becoming a requirement in countries around the world. 
• Better teamwork: The latest AP automation solutions enhance your entire Procure-to-Pay (P2P) cycle, extending beyond accounts payable tasks. This opens you up to better collaboration with other teams and individuals involved in the P2P cycle, such as Procurement, your Master Data team, Logistics, Purchasing, IT and approvers throughout your organization, because it allows you to boost the efficiency of your P2P activities with smart improvements like automated workflows and supplier portals.

Ready for a more cost-effective AP solution?

Lowering your invoice processing costs is easier than you think. If you are interested in saving money on each invoice you process, Cevinio’s autonomous AP solution can help you achieve your goals. With a single global tool, you can automate your invoice processing and benefit from all the cost-saving features mentioned above.

Contact us today to learn how our AP software can help transform your invoice processing into a valuable asset for growing your business.