subject: Labour Cost Savings Through Invoice Automation [print this page] You probably see evidence every day that your manual accounts payable processes are too slow and inefficient, and it may be obvious that invoice automation would dramatically improve productivity. However, before they spend company money, managers will want to see proof that, financially, automated invoice processing would be a wise investment.
According to Zona Research most organisations who use invoice automation recoup their investments within six months. These are the main areas where costs will be reduced through invoice automation.
Labour
Payment speed
Accuracy
Storage costs
Operations costs
Additional benefits
Staff cost savings through invoice automation
The majority of the costs of invoice processing are related to labour. These include time spent:
Receiving invoices
Invoice-matching
Sort and filing
Inputting
Printing, copying, faxing and posting
Searching for misplaced invoices
Resolving disputes
According to the Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA), it costs companies with a low level of invoice automation 7 to process each vendor payment. Companies with a high level of automation report reducing this to around 4.20 a saving of almost 60%.
Say your company spends 7 per invoice and processes 50,000 invoices a year, a 60% reduction through invoice automation represents an annual saving of 210,000. Many companies report seeing these savings in the first year of implementation.
Invoice automation will mean that your company is able to produce invoices more quickly and accurately so youll also save money through a reduction/stabilisation in the number of staff you need to employ and a reduction in the need for temporary staff and staff overtime.
What is invoice automation?
Invoice automation solutions include software modules (or an option for an outsourced service) which provide:
Invoice scanning
Import of EDI invoice
Extraction of header and line items
PO and GRN matching
ERP database data matching
Nominal coding
Routing and workflow approval
Posting to the ER system
Archiving
Tax compliance
Reporting
by: Sarah Cornish
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