The accounts payable process can be a time consuming and labor intensive process. Invoices arrive on a daily basis, some be email and some by postal service. The accounts payable staff generally have a daily routine which involves a few things:

Once the supplier invoices are organized and invoices that require approval are then distributed to the approvers for review, approval and assignment to the ledger. The approval process comes with it's own set of challenges:

If procurement is issuing Purchase Orders, then any incoming invoices that reference an issued purchase order will have a PO number on it. The invoices with PO numbers will need to be matched against the actual Purchase Order to ensure there are no discrepancy with the pricing or items ordered.

In order to process invoices for payment the AP Staff are required to enter invoices into the financial system in order to issues the payment to the supplier. The process of entering invoices requires the AP Staff to manually key all of the relevant details on each and every invoice into the financial system. Not only is this a very slow process, this isn't make very good use of the AP Staff's time.

The traditional approach to processing accounts payable invoices relies heavily on people and manual processes. With advent of Accounts Payable Workflow it made it easier to automatically route invoices to approvers using electronic workflow queues. Now lets take that a step further as Accounts Payable Automation leverages both invoice workflow and automated PO invoice matching and by combining both of these with integration to the  financial system the ability exists to completely eliminate the need to manually enter or key invoices for payment processing.

Does your Accounts Payable Process rely on suppliers emailing invoices to your business and your AP Staff then open each email one-by-one, download a PDF or file to their computer and then print each invoice to paper.

An AP Automation platform like, "Vision360 Enterprise", eliminates the need for AP Staff to open emails, download PDF files and print invoices. This dramatically reduces the risk of fraudulent emails exposing an organization to potential hacking or phishing schemes.

In addition, this is an incredible time saver by reducing the amount of time and energy it takes an AP Department to open and print emails.

An AP Automation platform like "Vision360 Enterprise" will apply a series of business rules and validations against the incoming invoices to further ensure that they are being submitted from "legitimate vendors". By having centralized processing coupled with consistent internal controls that are applied systematically and not relying on human intervention the risk of potential fraud is greatly reduced.

What are computer hackers?

Computer hackers are people who break into internet-connected devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones, usually with the intent to steal, change or delete information.

Just as other thieves have malicious intent, hackers usually find their way into devices for negative purposes. (However, one exception is so-called white hat hackers, whom companies hire to break into their devices to find security flaws that need to be fixed.) Hackers may want to steal, alter or delete information in your devices, and they often do so by installing malware (software used for malicious purposes) you might not even know is there. These thieves might get access to your most precious data before you’re aware of a break-in.

Types of hacking: Ransomware is on the rise!

Here are some of the reasons computer hackers break into devices:

• Financial crimes. We’ve all heard the classic story of somebody checking their credit card statement, only to find transactions they didn’t make. These false transactions are often the result of computer hackers stealing your credit card numbers, checking account info or gaining access to other financial data.
  
  
• Vandalism. Hacking has its own subculture, so some hackers may want to vandalize certain websites just to show off to other hackers. Does it sound ridiculous? Don’t make the mistake of not taking this motivation seriously; it’s fairly common, according to Malwarebytes.
  
  
• Hacktivism. This portmanteau describes a form of hacking somewhat like vandalism. Some hackers may want to alter or destroy certain websites for politically motivated reasons.
  
  
• Ransomeware. Ransomware is a type of malicious software (malware) that threatens to publish or blocks access to data or a computer system, usually by encrypting it, until the victim pays a ransom fee to the attacker. In many cases, the ransom demand comes with a deadline. If the victim doesn’t pay in time, the data is gone forever or the ransom increases.
  
  Ransomware attacks are all too common these days. Major companies in North America and Europe alike have fallen victim to it. Cybercriminals will attack any consumer or any business and victims come from all industries.
  
  

Accounts Payable Automation systems can modernize your invoice processing by reducing risk, providing cost control and increasing efficiencies. Please consider registering for one or our informational webinars or contact us directly for more information.

Description
Our team is seeking an Accounts Payable (AP) Specialist who will be responsible for processing (i.e., coding and entering) and paying vendor invoices and employee expenses in a timely manner.

Essential Functions

• Check accuracy of invoices and confirm against budget for indirect cost
• Validate services invoices against approved time and expenses
• Match invoices with Purchase Orders
• Send invoices to managers for payment approval
• Input and code invoices to correct cost centers
• Review expense reimbursement receipts for accuracy against project setup
• Prepare weekly schedule of payables due and coordinate with the cash flow process
• Set up approved for payment employee expense reimbursements, vendor and subcontractor invoices in banking template for payment
• Prepare payment register and enter payment data into accounting system
• First point of contact for debtor inquiries
• Perform reconciliations, including supplier statement reconciliations
• Support the month-end close process
• Report of Aged Payables plus other ad hoc reporting where applicable
• Support the annual audit process related to the accounts payable function
• Other tasks as requested to support the accounting team
  
  

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 3-years relevant experience
• Experienced in accounting practices
• Preference to  certifications in accounting

You seek a candidate with relevant job experience, skilled in accounting practices, they will be involved in the cash flow for your business, the need to make quick business decisions that effect your supply chain and vendor relationships.

However, with all this in mind, they will spend between 40 - 60 percent (or more) of their day manual keying invoices into the financial system for payment processing.  Seems like all this experience could be used to better serve the business and their interest in a career in accounting.

You went through the process of advertising (costs money), interviewing candidates (costs time & money), hiring and training the new hire (costs time and money) and in the end they spend more time keying invoices than any other function.

Does manual invoice keying make the best use of your AP Staff's time?

Lack of Visibility.
Tracking current progress into financial close and accounts payable processes is essential for every organization. Without real-time updates, finance and accounting leaders may find it difficult to navigate the status of essential close tasks and AP transactions.

Increased Errors.
The more manual your tasks are, the more susceptible those tasks are to errors. Relying on human intervention for tasks that can be easily automated not only burdens accountants to repetitively track transactions and reconcile them, but it also increases the potential for violating compliance regulations.

Ineffective Controls.
Financial data affects the entire organization. Accounts payable teams must manually upload invoices and transactional updates into ERP systems, while accounting teams are dependent on the general ledger information when performing reconciliations to ensure their internal controls are being met. Without a standardized and automated process in place, F&A teams may find difficulty in achieving comprehensive compliance.

Fewer errors
Manual data entry inevitably results in human error. With electronic data capture technology, you get over 99% accuracy on every invoice. Plus, the automation system flags any suspicious invoices for manual review. That lets you catch potential problems and take care of them early on.

Real-time reporting and data analysis
With financial automation software, users are able to view real-time dashboards that display vital information regarding the status of a financial report. With access to real-time data, a business can make decisions based on factual data at any time without waiting for the end of the month to have access to accurate data.

Vision360 Enterprise is an AP Automation platform intended to assist in streamlining all aspects of accounts payable invoice processing. For more information consider attending one of our information webinars or contact us directly and we'll be happy to answer any questions.

Contact us directly for more information or consider attending one of our informational webinars.

If you're thinking to yourself, "Maybe there is a better way". Then take 2 minutes to watch our overview video where we explain ways to free up your AP Staff's time and in more ways than you may have thought about.

Of course this answer will vary company by company, industry by industry and person by person. The fact of the matter is that it does take quite a bit or time to enter each and every supplier invoice into the ERP system and some are better and faster at this than others.

If you look around any accounts payable department you are likely to see file cabinets, bankers boxes and stacks of paper invoices all in vary degrees of completion. One of the most tedious, time-consuming and error-prone steps and expensive steps in the accounts payable process is manually keying every single invoice into the ERP system for payment processing.

Now a lot has already happened prior to this step (routing, coding, approvals, PO matching, exception processing, variances, etc), but for the moment lets focus on invoice entry.

It's now time to enter each invoice. So the AP Staff roll up their sleeves and starting typing away, click, click, click, vendor name, vendor number, invoice number, invoice date, purchase order number, gross amount, freight, taxes and amount due. This could literally be hundreds of keystrokes per invoice!

Multiply this by the number of invoices that get entered each day as compared to the amount of time spent by your AP Staff manually keying every single invoice and you can start to see where this very tedious process can quickly become very, very expensive!

There have been a number of studies performed by Aberdeen Group, PayStream Advisors and PYMNTS about how much time it takes for AP Staff to manually process and key supplier invoices on a daily basis and the results are staggering. On average, AP Staff spend two-thirds of their day doing data entry! In an 8 hour day, that is 5.5 hours a day spent typing on a keyboard.

Not only is this not a good use of time. This is incredibly costly and expensive. Your AP Staff are trained, skilled and experienced in finance related matters, yet their skills are under utilized and they become data entry clerks.

In this day and age, organizations are seeing high turnover rates, struggling staffing shortages, hiring bottlenecks and continual rising costs. There are ways to offset these conditions and make way for process improvements that can be embraced by all.

How much time does it take you AP Staff to print or save invoices ever day? What if I could show you that we could completely eliminate this step from your AP Staff and free up this time so that they can focus on more important tasks related to the financial well being of your organization!

Is manual data entry making the best use of your AP Staff's time?

There is a better more efficient and cost efficient way!

Of course this answer will vary, company by company, industry by industry and person by person. The fact of the matter is that it does take some time to print out the supplier invoices. Some are better at this than others.

If we look at the methods used by suppliers as a way to submit their invoices for payment processing, emailing is high on the list. In most cases an accounts payable department is receiving anywhere from 70% to 90% of invoices via email with the average being around 80%.

This translates into a lot of clicking to open email messages, opening each attachment and deciding if it should be printed, or not. Maybe you staff got a but creative and rather than clicking the print button on each and every attachment, they open the attached invoice and save them into folders and rename each file so that that they can make sense out the long list of files that are collecting every day.

In the end, no matter whether your AP Staff print out each invoice or save each invoice file or your network somewhere, this is a a slow, tedious, and cumbersome process which can quickly become riddled with problems.

How much time does it take you AP Staff to print or save invoices ever day? What if I could show you that we could completely eliminate this step from your AP Staff and free up this time so that they can focus on more important tasks related to the financial well being of your organization!

Is this the best use of their time?

Leave your comments below!

True Story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I had been calling on Mary who is the AP Manager of a mid-sized manufacturing company for years, 5 years to be exact The reason for calling Mary was of course to introduce our approach to accounts payable process improvements and more specifically, automation as a way to streamline processes, increase efficiencies and reduce overall costs.

Mary had been at this company for many years and she just wasn't interested.

During each call I would ask a few basic questions about how supplier invoices got processed, I'd try to understand where the bottlenecks and issues were to see if we could help improve things.

There would always be some reluctance to answer my questions, or a reason why they didn't need any help in accounts payable. The usual responses would be we're old fashioned, our people are faster or its nice to have or too expensive.

Then one day, I got a phone call. I was shocked. It was Mary.

"We've got a new CFO and they're interested in AP Automation".

I said, that's great! But I thought you didn't need any help. Mary admitted to me that it wasn't that they didn't need it, she just didn't understand it and was embarrassed to tell me this.

She was afraid that something new like this might make her look weak, or that she might be looked at as the bad guy (or gal) for bringing in new processes, or worse, would she need to let someone on her team go if this actually worked.

The new CFO got what they wanted, which was process efficiency in finance and low and behold Mary's AP Department became so efficient that this opened up some doors for promotions! Mary was eventually promoted to Corporate Controller and much of this was attributed to the efficiency gains that we're realized once she embraced AP Automation.

In the end, Mary's fears were preventing her for making progress. In the end it all worked out and the AP team couldn't have been happier and wished she had done this sooner.

Don't let fear paralyze you from making decisions and moving your business or personal life forward.

Healthcare organizations face different challenges to their counterparts in other sectors. The highly-competitive nature of the industry creates pressure to adopt a lean approach to delivering goods and services to customers. This has led to an increasing emphasis on customer centricity and faster, more robust supply chains. While there tends to be a focus on front-end process improvements, healthcare providers realize that there is also a need to extend these improvements to their back-end processes, particularly in accounts payable (AP) and procurement.

AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. In an effort to reduce costs and optimize efficiency, leading organizations are implementing AP automation software and streamlining their back office functions.

This white paper serves as a guide for finance leaders on the drivers for implementing AP automation and the value it adds to the Healthcare supply chain. It summarizes the issues that healthcare providers are faced with, and the benefits that AP automation has delivered to a range of organizations, including, reduced costs, increased visibility, improved efficiency in AP processes, and enhanced vendor management. The paper highlights the ways in which AP automation can be integrated with existing ERP, procurement, and supply chain systems, and ensure tangible results including:

Organizations in the Healthcare sector have a faster supply chain, and there are greater demands to purchase and deliver goods and services quicker and in innovative ways. As businesses increasingly focus on meeting the needs of the customer in order to outperform competitors, many healthcare organizations are putting competitive pressures on providers to improve processes in the front and back ends of the business. The use of e-commerce, in particular, and the demand for ever shorter delivery times has forced manufacturers and distributors to shift focus from traditional to a much faster turnaround on orders and deliveries. For this tilt to be possible, supply chains must be fast and reliable, and back end processes must be agile and automated.

This pressure to improve back end processes to achieve cost reduction and maximum profitability is widely covered in industry research. Forrester research predicts that customer centricity, analytics, and optimization will be key for healthcare providers in order to distinguish themselves from competitors and mitigate the risk of reduced growth. Research confirms that management will fundamentally change the pace of their business, replacing cumbersome, manual processes with automated, agile ones. According to further research, this is a key area of focus for the future: 81% of executives surveyed agreed that operational efficiencies are a priority to improve profitability.

Organizations can gain a competitive edge in the Healthcare sector by allowing finance teams to focus on their core activities. AP automation eliminates the manual tasks of invoice data entry, coding, approval, matching, and payment, allowing operations and finance teams to focus on strategic, high-value work. A dedicated system for automating AP tasks ensures that costs are significantly reduced and spend management is brought under complete control. AP automation can have considerable impact on the bottom line, delivering cost savings as a result of increased transparency over company spend, improved efficiency, reduced costs, and better relationships with vendors.

Healthcare organizations typically utilize industry-specific systems for procurement, particularly for purchasing goods, as this accounts for approximately 80% of total spend and is vital for revenue growth. However, when it comes to goods, including expense items such as marketing, legal fees, utilities, etc., organizations generally do not employ a dedicated system for procurement and AP, and instead rely heavily on manual processes. This results in deficient spend management, a lack of transparency, and poor vendor management, which contributes to inefficient AP processes. AP automation replaces these inefficient processes with structured solutions that enable finance leaders to take control of company spend, increase productivity of their teams, and improve vendor relations.

The Healthcare industry has many industry-specific challenges in purchasing goods and services such as tolerances (allowing an organization to manage under shipments, late shipments, and unit price variations that cause discrepancies between the PO, invoice, and goods receipt), surcharges (for returns or for over handling of goods), and over-receipting (receiving more goods than originally ordered), and individual organizations have additional, bespoke business requirements to meet. AP automation solutions facilitate all these healthcare-specific requirements as well as the standard AP requirements such as duplicate invoice checking, varied payment terms, discount allocations, and VAT calculations. In a manual AP environment. This results in disjointed back-end processes, with a primary focus on goods, and crucially, without one single view over finance operations.

In typical Healthcare environments, the different types of invoices are often separated by different processes or by different systems, or by different AP teams. This separation of processes for PO vs Non-PO spend results in unnecessary complexity, duplication of resources and a lack of visibility of overall spend. Invoices for goods are typically received in e-mail, PDF or paper formats. Procurement of goods is typically managed by industry-specific solutions and while these systems may automate the creation and approval of purchase orders (PO), organizations ultimately rely on manual processes to complete the remaining AP steps including invoice capture, matching, and posting for pay

On the expense side, Healthcare organizations typically do not utilize systems specifically for expense invoices or the associated Non-PO AP tasks, in which case the AP teams are left to manually complete every step from procurement through to payment of invoices. This manual processing is inefficient, slow, and uncontrolled, with a high number of touchpoints which drives up the costs involved in processing an invoice, and increases the risk of human error. This makes it difficult to manage expense spend, which is often non-PO based and can often account for over 20% of total spend. Typical problems that arise with non-trade spend are retrospective approvals, maverick buying, and non-adherence to company spend policies.

In Healthcare environments, it is common for organizations to have large numbers of vendors across global locations. This poses several complex challenges which often are not sufficiently managed by existing ERPs and, as a result, organizations implement further manual processes to handle them. One challenge faced by many healthcare organizations is duplicate invoices and duplicate payments. In AP departments with no automation, manual processing naturally results in human inefficiencies and inconsistent invoice handling processes. From a vendor point of view, there is no visibility over whether or not an invoice has been received, approved, or paid, which often leads to vendors submitting invoices multiple times (by post, EDI or email) in an effort to get paid more quickly. Since there are no reliable ways to detect duplicate invoices in a manual environment, AP teams end up duplicating their effort to process these invoices and in some cases ultimately making duplicate payments which result in commercial implications and require further effort to remedy.

Vendor management is another area where Healthcare organizations often find they struggle. This is due to limitations in the ERP vendor master data and the lack of structured tools within the ERP to efficiently and accurately manage existing vendors and on-board new vendors. Simple requirements, such as ensuring that all vendors are compliant with tax clearances, industry certifications, insurances, and other buyer-specific policies, are typically managed externally from the ERP using offline, manual processes. Likewise, vendor contract renewals and other vendor updates are often handled in a similar manual fashion.

The AP automation solution allows organizations to control buying from approved vendors and management can enforce strict ‘No PO, No Pay’ policies and gain full visibility over what is being purchased. AP automation solutions work seamlessly with multiple ERP systems and provide a single view of the world for AP teams.

Segregated AP teams can be consolidated and the manual paper-based processes and spreadsheets are replaced with structured and controlled systems. This allows the entire AP process to be automated by one solution, eliminating the need for two separate AP processes, and two separate AP teams. The automated processing of invoices enables finance teams to only handle invoices by exception and to prioritize by key criteria such as value, early payment discounts, aging, etc. Reporting and analytics also provide finance leaders with the necessary dashboards to project operational and financial metrics such as processing times, FTE productivity, approver performance, invoice accruals and vendor performance.

Other industry-specific challenges can also be managed. In Healthcare it is not unusual for vendors to send invoices before the goods arrive - often as soon as the goods are ordered - in an effort to expedite the receipt of payment. Situations like this can cause real problems with traditional manual processes. However, with AP automation, invoices are automatically assigned an expected arrival date and are held pending the goods receipt note (GRN). When the GRN is received, the system triggers an automatic 2- or 3-way match, and unless an exception is found it will be automatically approved and routed for payment.

AP automation provides a single system for processing all invoices through a structured workflow with automated matching and built-in approval logic. This ultimately enables the touchless processing of invoices and focuses AP teams on only handling invoices with exceptions.

Invoices can be captured in any format including paper, XML, PDF and EDI, so healthcare providers can accept invoices electronically from sophisticated vendors using XML/EDI or, for other vendors, they can also automate the processing of invoices received by paper, email or PDF or submitted through an online invoicing portal. Vendors receive notifications regarding the status of submitted invoices, providing them with visibility over whether invoices have been received, processed, approved or paid.

AP automation allows for better control over the organization’s cash flow. It equips the AP team with transparency over all vendors, enabling them to consider early payment discounts, and to strategically buy from preferred vendors and schedule payments in order to avail of these discounts. The solution also facilitates multiple languages and currencies, and provides full visibility over pending payments, allowing management to make informed decisions on when to pay invoices without incurring unnecessary charges. Taxes and freights, which are not always accurately accounted for in a manual environment, is fully automated within the AP solution, enabling precise payment and reporting.

The costs incurred in the finance department can be significant. Automating the AP process enables organizations to achieve better employee productivity, increased visibility and control over spend (both trade and non-trade), and significant cost savings at each stage in the AP process. Industry research by PayStream has found that 90% of CFOs that implemented AP automation achieved an average savings of 80% in invoice processing costs.

The cost of manually processing invoices can be significant. Forrester reports that over 97% of invoices are processed manually. The average cost of processing invoices varies, but can amount from $15 up to $45 per invoice.

AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. Successful organizations are modernizing their AP processes by automating each of the steps involved. AP automation can be achieved by transforming the following tasks:

Competition between healthcare providers has resulted in greater demands to establish differentiation. In order to get ahead, organizations are making efforts to provide improved healthcare services to people. Considering the emphasis on speedy supply chains and the importance of vendor relationships for success in healthcare have started to improve back end processes in order to increase efficiency and maximize profitability. Leading healthcare organizations have deployed AP automation in order to deliver considerable efficiencies and have achieved faster invoice processing times, reduced invoice processing costs, improved vendor relationships, and lower overheads and labor costs. Automation of AP processes allows for better visibility and control over total spend (both trade and non-trade) which enables finance teams to produce higher value reporting and analysis of operations.

BlueCreek Software is a leading provider of financial process automation and developer of Vision360 Enterprise software. Vision360 replaces inefficient processes with solutions that transform financial processes, reduce costs, and ensure that organizations meet their business and compliance obligations.

BlueCreek’s Vision360 Enterprise solution fully integrates with all major finance systems, and ERP systems including Meditech, SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, Lawson, MS Dynamics, Sage and many more.

From payroll to accounts payable (AP), B2B payments fraud continues to threaten organizations of all sizes, industries and geographies.

It’s a risk to which no one is immune, even billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who recently spoke with reporters at CNBC about his own experience dealing with a nasty case of AP fraud.

Nearly $13 million was defrauded out of two finance companies over nearly six years by MyPayrollHR, admitted the payroll company’s CEO, Michael Mann, who pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, reports in the Times Union said. Mann admitted to conspiring to fraudulently secure loans worth millions of dollars for Mann’s own companies. To do so, he reportedly represented false invoices allegedly owed to those companies in the form of accounts receivable. Reports noted, however, he has not entered a plea in response to charges of bank fraud.

$82,000 was stolen from Cuban’s first company via AP fraud, the entrepreneur told CNBC. He reflected on the experience that occurred at his first company, MicroSolutions, when he was only 24 years old. “I’m like, ‘OK, for our accounts payable, we print out the checks to the vendor,’” he recalled, adding that those checks were then given to a receptionist to pay suppliers. Yet that receptionist forged those checks to pay herself, leaving just $2,000 left in the company’s bank account — a scenario Cuban ultimately said helped him get more serious about his business ventures.

More than $300,000 was embezzled from a California company through its corporate card, reports in VC Star said. An internal audit of the Simi Valley business found one employee recently promoted had been misusing the company’s commercial card to make unauthorized purchases, while that individual is also accused of manipulating the firm’s payroll system to overpay herself. That employee has been arrested, reports said.

$740,000 was stolen from a Washington county via phishing attack, local Tri-City Herald reports said. An email posing as a legitimate construction vendor for Benton County requested an invoice payment, and a government employee fell for the scam that had convinced the employee to change the payment details for that particular vendor. Authorities were able to recover a majority of the funds. The case coincided with separate reports in The Durango Herald of a similar scam targeting county officials in New Mexico, which led to $447,000 stolen from Bernalillo County.

$4.5 million was embezzled from an Oregon company over a decade by a woman accused of submitting fraudulent invoices for a fake vendor. According to KEZI reports, that employee would then generate checks in AP to pay that false vendor, wielding her position in the company’s accounting and finance departments to then direct those payments to her personal account. The employee reportedly admitted to mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and tax evasion.

A $168.7 million invoice fraud ring was busted by Indian officials, the Hindustan Times reported recently. Three men were arrested under new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regulations following an investigation, which reportedly discovered the men allegedly falsifying invoices and companies in order to steal funds from iron and steel manufacturers.

In this week’s B2B Data Digest, PYMNTS uncovers the latest stories in B2B payments fraud from Cuban and others, including a busted invoice fraud ring in India, plus the latest on the ongoing MyPayrollHR fraud saga.

Reprint Credit: PYMNTS

PYMNTS is reinventing the way companies share relevant information about current developments in the connected economy space. Our powerful B2B platform is the #1 site in the U.S. and globally by traffic and the premier source of news and analysis for the industry.

We've all heard about or maybe even been the victim of phishing schemes, and phony invoices, click here for your order, and ransomware attacks by fraudsters. These attacks are never going to stop, and it seems the accounts payable department is the one under fire. Why? They pay the bills!
 
With lots of incoming invoices and emails to sort through the accounts payable department is the area of least safeguards and technology, which heavily relies on people and manual processes.
 
There are ways to reduce the risk of potential fraud, while increasing efficiencies and reducing costs, our article is food for thought.

In a recent fraud study, more than 68% of organizations said they were the target of fraud and phishing attacks. The majority of attacks by fraudsters were conducted by email. An ever increasing number of attacks are targeting the finance departments of organizations and primarily focusing on the accounts payable department.

Since the accounts payable department is responsible for issuing payments to suppliers, it would appear that this are is an easy target for fraudsters and scammers.

It's estimated that the cost of these crimes is upwards of $42 billion dollars per year!

Vision360 AP Automation uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and robotic process automation (RPA) and applies this intelligence to every single incoming email and invoice. Vision360's advanced invoice detection monitoring will eliminate duplicate invoices as well as stopping invoices devised to appear as phony vendors.

The benefits of Vision360's invoice automation doesn't stop there. Accounts Payable Departments can leverage electronic invoice routing and workflow for approvals, while automated PO matching will systematically perform the three-way match. The final step in improving efficiencies while reducing labor and costs is by connecting Vision360 with the financial ERP system. By connecting the AP process with the ERP system, AP Staff are freed from the tedious, error-prone and time consuming task of manual data entry. 

On the surface, the Accounts Payable (AP) process seems to be fairly simple. Right? Let's think this through for a moment: Suppliers send in their bills for goods or services. When the invoices arrive the AP Staff look at the invoice and makes sure the invoices get approved, processed, entered and paid.

Are we missing anything here? The process seems simple. So, is this the reason that AP Automation doesn't make sense to some organizations, is because the AP process is TOO simple? Hmmmm...

Maybe we should break down a few of the steps that the AP Staff perform each day? We already know that suppliers submit invoices for payment. So how do invoices arrive each day? By postal mail? By email? Okay, so nothing out of the ordinary yet. Someone on the AP Staff opens the envelopes and takes out the invoices and gets them organized for processing. Okay, seems straight forward. The AP Staff are used to it and have probably been doing this since the company started. But wait, many companies have switched their suppliers to email invoices to the AP department. Isn't this better than opening envelopes and mail. It must be better, because now all the AP Staff have to do is open every email, from every supplier and click "print". This sounds like a far more efficient use of the AP Staff's time. Are we missing anything yet...

So far, so good on the AP process. Seems very simple. Now that the AP Department has all the invoices in and organized, what's next? Some invoices come from suppliers and reference a purchase order (PO) number and some don't. I see so the invoices with a PO number are, how shall we say, pre-authorized to be paid. Right?

Well, not really. It just means that the buyer got an approval to buy. but it doesn't mean the invoice is correct or for the right amount. Well, that's not the AP Staff's problem, is it? It kind-of-is the AP Staff's problem. The AP Staff will need to compare the supplier invoice against the purchase order to make sure the quantity, the unit price all match. If the invoice and the purchase order match the AP Should be able to pay it, right? Yes, that sounds right. But wait. How does the AP Staff know that the buyer actually got the goods or services they ordered? This is another really good question. They don't.

So they AP Staff don't really know if the buyers received the goods or services that they ordered? Then how can the AP Staff process and pay the bill? Well, they need to match the invoice a third way, the AP Staff also have to match the invoice to something called, "the Goods Receipt". Now in days passed, the Goods Receipt would be a physical piece of paper, a packing slip or some type of document to prove that things we received. In today's world of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP's), warehouses, receiving departments and buyers have the ability to "confirm" that items have been received in the ERP system.

Okay, so not that we've given some thought to the way AP Staff match PO invoices to process and pay them we're starting to understand why AP Automation isn't really necessary. Right?

BUT, I know this is far out thought and is probably very rare, "What happens if an invoice doesn't match the PO or the Goods Receipt?" What then?

Well, this happens. Probably more often than the AP Staff would like. We call these invoice "exceptions".

When exceptions happen then the AP Staff need to switch gears a bit. Some companies have what the call, "Allowable Tolerances", meaning its okay for a supplier to charge them a bit differently, or incorrectly as long as its not too much. So this means the AP Staff break out the calculator and do some quick math and as long as the invoice is "under" the set tolerance level by either a percentage or dollar amount then the invoice can be paid. Otherwise,  the AP Staff will need to get the buyer involved, or procurement to deal with the exception invoices and decide what to do with them and whether or not to pay, how much to pay, etc. 

We're still on track right? I can see why AP Automation would not be needed.

Let's not forget about the invoices that don't have PO numbers assigned to them. What about those?

That's got to be easy, right? The AP Staff just send the invoices to the approved for approval and that's it. Well, you would think that's all there is too it. What is the approver is in a different building or working remotely or traveling? So the AP Staff scan the paper and email the invoices to approvers. How hard can that be? It's not necessarily hard. But it sure is a slow and tedious process. The approvers are busy, maybe they get to the invoices, maybe the invoices quickly get buried in an email inbox, I am sure no invoices ever go to SPAM or Junk mail folders. So this process must be very efficient.

Don't invoices need to assigned to the "Chart of Accounts" (COA)? Yes they do. Sometimes the buyers do this, sometimes the AP Staff are responsible for this. Sometimes both.

The approvers probably just print the PDF invoices, scribble the COA, their initials and date with an "Okay to Pay", then re-scan the invoice and re-email back to the AP Staff. Now, is an invoice requires many approvals, let's say the invoice is for $12,000 dollars and needs three (3) approvals. The AP Staff only has to do this process three (3) times.

Okay, so lets recap what the AP Staff have done so far and why they don't need AP Automation.

1. Suppliers send postal mail and emails and the AP Staff open mail, print emailed invoices and get everything organized for processing. The AP Staff do this every day and it's so easy that AP Automation isn't needed.
   
2. If a supplier invoice has a PO Number on it then the AP Staff handle those invoices differently and match the invoice to the purchase order and in some cases to the Goods Receipt. If for some reason the invoice doesn't match for any reason then there are additional steps the AP Staff must take and treat the invoice as an "exception". The exception invoices involve other people and departments and possibly some other processed if there are taxes, or freight or tolerances. Got it. These steps happen every day and because the AP Staff have this process down pat there is no reason to use AP Automation. Makes sense.
   
3. If a supplier invoice doesn't have a PO number on it and needs to be reviewed, approved or assigned to the Chart of Accounts then the invoices are sent to approvers every day. There's a bunch of back and forth and the AP Staff keep track of all of this and because they're so good at what they do AP Automation isn't needed. Do I have this right?
   

So far we've reviewed what it takes to get a supplier invoice in, reviewed, processed and approved. We're done. Right? Wrong!

Now the AP Staff have to manually hand key all of the information from the invoice into the ERP financial system in order to be able to pay the bill. So how hard can this be. Right? I mean, if a company has a few hundred invoices that need to be hand keyed for payment processing and the AP Staff are good at keying data then this sounds really easy. Heck, the AP Staff manually enter supplier invoices all day, every day of the week. So now we know that there really is no need for AP Automation.

Now that we've gone through the very high level, basics of processing supplier invoices and how the expertise of the AP Staff get utilized, it's very easy to start to add up what it costs organizations in time, energy and more importantly costs.

I see!! It is much more economical to use experienced AP Staff to perform all of these manual tasks over and over again, because the AP Staff are more efficient than AP Automation.

Now, it all makes sense.

Interested in learning more? Attend our next informational webinar. Always free.

Imagine. Thank you John Lennon. You are missed. ​

Small-to-Midsize business are frequent targets of accounts payable scams and email invoice fraud. Email is one of the easiest methods used by scammers and fake invoices is one of the most common types of fraud.  According to a survey by the Association for Financial Professionals, 81% of organizations have been targets of fake invoices and payments fraud since 2019. Large companies are not immune to this type of fraud they typically have more resources and technology available to utilize in their fight against this ongoing battle.

Let's face it, on a daily basis scammers, hackers and fraudsters are coming at organizations from every conceivable angle, using whatever they can to get and steal information and money. It is very difficult for average people to recognize what is a fake email, or phone call or activity and prevent or stop these attacks. An organization needs every single person, employee and staff member to be on the lookout, vigilant and recognize what is a scam vs what is not.

The best way to combat fake invoices and payments fraud is with a enterprise level Accounts Payable Automation solution. Accounts Payable automation solutions can help address fraud issues. Most enterprise level AP Automation systems are based on systematic checks and balances based on financial principals and rules.

Here are a few examples of systematic checks and balances that an enterprise AP Automation system like our Vision360 Enterprise system can provide businesses in the fight against payment invoice scams and payments fraud:

• Is the vendor valid and approved in the ERP system for payment
• Are buyers authorized to approve invoices and match their authority limits
• Apply systematic segregation of duties and invoice escalations
• Do invoices match against purchase orders issued by procurement
• Eliminate manual data entry of invoices for posting and payment
• Complete audit trail of invoice approval, payment and invoicing lifecycle

These are some high-level examples of ways that enterprise level AP Automation can assist in the fight against hacking, phishing and fraudulent invoice activity. Of course the benefits of an enterprise level AP Automation system goes well beyond fraud prevention and helps businesses of all types and sizes to improve efficiencies by eliminating the tedious error-prone tasks of receiving, routing, coding, matching, approving and entering invoices into the ERP system for payment.

For more information about our Vision360 Enterprise AP Automation solution and how it can help you address these challenges and more, please contact us at 603-437-1400 or contact us directly using the button below.

Small-to-Midsize business are frequent targets of accounts payable scams and email invoice fraud. Email is one of the easiest methods used by scammers and fake invoices is one of the most common types of fraud.  According to a survey by the Association for Financial Professionals, 81% of organizations have been targets of fake invoices and payments fraud since 2019. Large companies are not immune to this type of fraud they typically have more resources and technology available to utilize in their fight against this ongoing battle.

Let's face it, on a daily basis scammers, hackers and fraudsters are coming at organizations from every conceivable angle, using whatever they can to get and steal information and money. It is very difficult for average people to recognize what is a fake email, or phone call or activity and prevent or stop these attacks. An organization needs every single person, employee and staff member to be on the lookout, vigilant and recognize what is a scam vs what is not.

The best way to combat fake invoices and payments fraud is with a enterprise level Accounts Payable Automation solution. Accounts Payable automation solutions can help address fraud issues. Most enterprise level AP Automation systems are based on systematic checks and balances based on financial principals and rules.

Here are a few examples of systematic checks and balances that an enterprise AP Automation system like our Vision360 Enterprise system can provide businesses in the fight against payment invoice scams and payments fraud:

• Is the vendor valid and approved in the ERP system for payment
• Are buyers authorized to approve invoices and match their authority limits
• Apply systematic segregation of duties and invoice escalations
• Do invoices match against purchase orders issued by procurement
• Eliminate manual data entry of invoices for posting and payment
  
• Complete audit trail of invoice approval, payment and invoicing lifecycle

These are some high-level examples of ways that enterprise level AP Automation can assist in the fight against hacking, phishing and fraudulent invoice activity. Of course the benefits of an enterprise level AP Automation system goes well beyond fraud prevention and helps businesses of all types and sizes to improve efficiencies by eliminating the tedious error-prone tasks of receiving, routing, coding, matching, approving and entering invoices into the ERP system for payment.

For more information about our Vision360 Enterprise AP Automation solution and how it can help you address these challenges and more, please contact us at 603-437-1400 or contact us directly using the button below.

In Accounts Payable, exceptions are part of the game we play. The numbers will not always match up, and your invoices will not be 100% error-free. Some will arrive incorrect; others will become problematic when processed into your system. There are common error sources that you should be mindful of, and there are equally common ways of attempting to mitigate the problem. It’s important is to understand where problems can pop up, what options you have for identifying and fixing them, and how those choices can impact the efficiency and effectiveness with which you handle the invoice processing cycle. This article will walk you through this analysis, flagging some trouble spots for your review, and offering some advice on how to minimize their impact in your operations.

What Causes Exceptions? Simply put, an exception is any situation where the numbers you receive do not match what you expect. Three key elements come into play here: (1) whether you and your supplier truly agree over the figures, (2) whether the information is accurately entered into the supplier’s system, and (3) whether any of those figures were incorrectly input due to manual data processing from the physical documents. The interaction of those different elements creates the four main sources of exceptions: accurate data that is entered inaccurately, accurate data that is lost in translation, inaccurate data that is nevertheless entered accurately, and inaccurate data that is made worse by faulty translation.

Accurate Data Entered Inaccurately. There is agreement on what the items and numbers should be, but an error was made in transcription. This is a keying error, either when preparing the invoice by hand, when creating it in the source system, or when keying it into the buyer’s portal. These errors are purely attributable to mistakes in data entry.

Accurate Data Lost in Translation. There is agreement on items and numbers, and those details are recorded accurately, but due to print/image quality, font choice, extraneous markings, etc., the information is inaccurately read by the recipient. This can come from the physical printer or from within the software used to translate documents and images to usable data. These errors stem from the use of technology to transform data to physical form – and then back again.

Inaccurate Data Entered Accurately. There is a disagreement over items, numbers, or terms, but the supplier’s view is accurately entered on the invoice. The invoice may be prepared without referencing an existing contract, so that proper terms or discounts are not reflected. The invoice may not reflect an outstanding credit that was expected to be applied against the total due. Similarly, the buyer’s expectation could be erroneous, such as when their expectation of a lower price is based on volume discounts under an unknowingly expired contract. These types of errors stem from problems with integrating and tracking disparate sources of information.

Inaccurate Data Further Lost in Translation. Take data that’s already “wrong” and further complicate the situation by inaccurate transmission. This looks much the same as the earlier categories, but can be more difficult when trying to identify the root cause. For example, if you’re charged $1.00 instead of $0.90, that 10% difference may be easily traced to the supplier failing to apply a negotiated discount called for in an existing contract. But if the price is mistakenly entered as $7.00 (due to a stray mark on the physical paper invoice), you now have two steps to work through: figuring out that the base price should have been $1.00 and that the purchase was governed by a contract which would bring the actual cost to $0.90. In this case, consulting the Purchase Order should provide clarity, but you might need to refer back to the contract as well to clear things up with your supplier’s Collections/Receivables representative. These errors are the result of from a combination of disagreement over the correct figures and technological problems when transforming a physical document into usable data.

A (Sad) Comedy of Errors. You disagree about terms, quantities, or prices. That already-incorrect information is then mistyped in the source document. Finally, to complete the failure trifecta, some printing artifact adds another source of error by misreading the information in import. This unlikely series of events is caused by a lack of integration (disagreement), reliance on manual keying (data entry).

What Impact Do These Errors Have? There are time and cost implications in dealing with exceptions. The degree to which they impact your operations derives from how you choose to deal with the problem. Generally, you have three choices: (1) you can choose not to investigate, (2) you can do enough to uncover the error and dispute it, or (3) you can fully research the situation to uncover the source of the problem.

Not identifying errors. When problems slip through, you’re simply paying as invoiced, which is a bit of mixed bag. If an invoice was accurate then there’s no harm done. If it was inaccurate but the deviation was minor, then you’re probably fine (unless the volume of invoices processed means thousands of “slightly off” invoices add up to respectable amounts in aggregate). The real problem is that you don’t know – and that’s where fraud is a big risk. Were the invoices goods or services actually purchased? Were they delivered? Is this a valid vendor? If we assume that everything else has been functioning perfectly (which is generally not a good assumption to make) then both your cost and time impact is essentially zero. In all likelihood, your cost impact (or undiscovered over-payment) is greater than zero, while the extra time devoted to finding errors remains nil.

Identifying errors. When problems are uncovered, there are two main performance-related questions to ask: how much time did it take to identify the problem, and how much time will be required to fix it? In the simplest case, you’d uncover a problem by comparing the invoice against one other document – either the original Purchase Order or the receiving document. That may show an incorrect price, or confirm that the incorrect number of an item was received. The difficulty of (or time required for) consulting those documents is based on how and where they are stored, and what the process is for retrieving them. Are copies of PO's stored in a filing cabinet, organized by vendor? Are they stored near AP or with Purchasing on another floor or in another building? Are receipt documents available at all for this purchase, and if so, where are they stored? By asking these questions, you mitigate your risk of over-payment (or fraudulent payment), but at the cost of labor hours that could be spent on other tasks.

Determining root causes. If the numbers don’t quite match, most of the information you need is likely on the documents you had in-hand when identifying the error initially. However, you may also need access to supplier contracts, credit memos received, or debit memos sent (but not acknowledged by a return credit memo). As before, this leads to questions of where and how these documents are stored and how they can be retrieved. It also requires additional time to sift through the documents and track down the source of any discrepancies. This information will be both important and helpful when registering a dispute with your supplier’s accounts receivable department. If they are well-run, they follow different procedures for genuine disputes than for traditional collections, and your documentary proof will ensure that you’re placed in the correct queue. This category of investigation increases the amount of labor consumed, with the intent of uncovering underlying problems and preventing errors in the future. It may not make sense to undertake for every small purchase from an occasional supplier, but could very well be justified when dealing with high-volume and/or strategic suppliers, since the errors uncovered would likely be repeated in future transactions.

Why Do These Errors Happen? As mentioned above, some “errors” are attributable to a disagreement between what you and your supplier believe to be correct. That said, there is also a lot of room in the invoice-creation, -receipt, and -processing cycle for more mundane (but equally important) problems to crop up. There are common error sources in those situations where you and your supplier are actually in agreement on the numbers, but the documents involved don’t match that shared understanding.

What Can Be Done? There are some common patterns. When documents are stored on paper, they require physical storage – which may or may not be located within a convenient distance to AP. If it is within the same office, retrieval speed is dictated mainly by how quickly you can walk and by how well your storage is organized. In a larger building or campus environment, this speed is more dependent on request submission, processing, and interoffice mail delivery. For distributed environments (multi-office locations), request submission and retrieval are the same, with fax, scan-and-send, or even postal mail replacing the interoffice option. If you deal with any appreciable number of purchase orders and invoices, a digital storage approach can save a lot of time.

If you have an organized and efficient way to store and retrieve electronic documents, then your best bet is to maximize the number that you receive from suppliers. Because hand-keyed documents are prone to data entry errors, you should request that system-generated invoices be sent electronically, even if that’s just via email. If you are able to import data into your system, data extraction services and solutions work very well, especially on documents that have been digital from the start rather than those that have been printed, mailed, and then scanned into an image that may introduce some artifacts. That said, their bread-and-butter is in the paper-to-digital conversion process, so the technology has ways of reducing the negative impact of those sorts of stray markings.

As above, having documents in digital form can speed up retrieval and access time – and that can be a huge efficiency gain when the physical copies would be somewhere at the end of a request-and-mail process. Once you have that quick access, you’d still be doing a manual comparison by eye. That’s where automated PO matching can improve both efficiency and effectiveness in identifying errors. Again, if you receive only a small volume of relatively simple (i.e. one- or two-page) invoices, this may be overkill. As volumes and complexity increase, however, something has to give: you can either process quickly with the potential to miss something, or methodically in order to catch problems. Since matching is usually part of an invoice workflow package, it also offers help in areas beyond the current discussion.

Conclusion When dealing with invoices, errors will occur. They may be due to disagreements, to data entry errors, or to some degree of technological confusion when converting between paper and digital formats. Ignoring the potential issue is not a satisfactory solution. Beyond that, the amount of time and money devoted to spotting errors and identifying root causes is a business decision to be made based on the size and setup of your organization, the potential costs of those errors, and the level of investment necessary to get things into shape. The best solution may simply be digitizing or receiving invoices electronically, extracting and validating invoice data, and leveraging AP Automation technologies that automatically route, GL code and 3-way match invoices while connecting to your ERP system to eliminate manual data entry. Regardless of the specific approach taken, it is necessary for all accounts payable departments to recognize the difficulties that inaccuracies and errors can introduce, and the availability of multiple options (both process- and technology-related) to help improve the situation.

2014 Reprint and slightly modified to fit the AP Processing Requirement and standards of 2021
Scott Pezza Director, Industry and Value Advisory for Spend Management

Manufacturing organizations face different challenges to their counterparts in other sectors. The highly-competitive nature of the industry creates pressure to adopt a lean approach to delivering goods and services to customers. This has led to an increasing emphasis on customer centricity and faster, more robust supply chains. While there tends to be a focus on front-end process improvements, manufacturers realize that there is also a need to extend these improvements to their back-end processes, particularly in accounts payable (AP) and procurement.

AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. In an effort to reduce costs and optimize efficiency, leading organizations are implementing AP automation software and streamlining their back office functions.

​This article serves as a guide for finance leaders on the drivers for implementing AP automation and the value it adds to the manufacturing supply chain. It summarizes the issues that manufacturers are faced with, and the benefits that AP automation has delivered to a range of organizations, including, reduced costs, increased visibility, improved efficiency in AP processes, and enhanced vendor management. The paper highlights the ways in which AP automation can be integrated with existing ERP, procurement, and supply chain systems, and ensure tangible results including:

Organizations in the manufacturing sector have a faster supply chain, and there are greater demands to purchase and deliver goods and services quicker and in innovative ways. As businesses increasingly focus on meeting the needs of the customer in order to outperform competitors, many manufacturers offer goods via multiple channels putting pressure on companies to improve processes in the front and back ends of the business. The use of e-commerce, in particular, and the demand for ever shorter delivery times has forced manufacturers to shift focus from traditional brick-and-mortar to online ordering. For this tilt to be possible, supply chains must be fast and reliable, and back end processes must be agile and automated.

This pressure to improve back end processes to achieve cost reduction and maximum profitability is widely covered in industry research. Forrester research predicts that customer centricity, analytics, and optimization will be key for manufacturers in order to distinguish themselves from competitors and mitigate the risk of reduced growth. Research confirms that management will fundamentally change the pace of their business, replacing cumbersome, manual processes with automated, agile ones. According to further research, this is a key area of focus for the future: 81% of executives surveyed agreed that operational efficiencies are a priority to improve profitability.

Organizations can gain a competitive edge in the manufacturing sector by allowing finance teams to focus on their core activities. AP automation eliminates the manual tasks of invoice data entry, coding, approval, matching, and payment, allowing operations and finance teams to focus on strategic, high-value work. A dedicated system for auto-mating AP tasks ensures that costs are significantly reduced and spend management is brought under complete control. AP automation can have considerable impact on the bottom line, delivering cost savings as a result of increased transparency over company spend, improved efficiency, reduced costs, and better relationships with vendors.

Manufacturing organizations typically utilize industry-specific systems for procurement, particularly for purchasing goods, as this accounts for approximately 80% of total spend and is vital for revenue growth. However, when it comes to goods, including expense items such as marketing, legal fees, utilities, etc., organizations generally do not employ a dedicated system for procurement and AP, and instead rely heavily on manual processes. This results in deficient spend management, a lack of transparency, and poor vendor management, which contributes to inefficient AP pro-cesses. AP automation replaces these inefficient processes with structured solutions that enable finance leaders to take control of company spend, increase productivity of their teams, and improve vendor relations.

​The manufacturing industry has many industry-specific challenges in purchasing goods and services such as tolerances (allowing an organization to manage under shipments, late shipments, and unit price variations that cause discrepancies between the PO, invoice, and goods receipt), surcharges (for returns or for over handling of goods), and over-receipting (receiving more goods than originally ordered), and individual organizations have additional, bespoke business requirements to meet. AP automation solutions facilitate all these manufacturer-specific requirements as well as the standard AP requirements such as duplicate invoice checking, varied payment terms, discount allocations, and VAT calculations. In a manual AP environment. This results in disjointed back-end processes, with a primary focus on goods, and crucially, without one single view over finance operations.

​In typical manufacturing environments, the different types of invoices are often separated with either by different systems, or by different AP teams. This separation of processes for PO vs Non-PO spend results in unnecessary complexity, duplication of resources and a lack of visibility of overall spend. Invoices for goods are typically received in e-mail, EDI, or XML for-mats, while non-trade invoices are received in e-mail, paper, or PDF formats. Procurement of trade goods is typically man-aged by industry-specific solutions and while these systems may automate the creation and approval of purchase orders (PO), organizations ultimately rely on manual processes to complete the remaining AP steps including invoice capture, matching, and posting for payment.

​On the expense side, manufacturing organizations typically do not utilize systems specifically for expense invoices or the associated Non-PO AP tasks, in which case the AP teams are left to manually complete every step from procurement through to payment of invoices. This manual processing is inefficient, slow, and uncontrolled, with a high number of touch-points which drives up the costs involved in processing an invoice, and increases the risk of human error. This makes it difficult to manage expense spend, which is often non-PO based and can often account for over 20% of total spend. Typical problems that arise with non-trade spend are retrospective approvals, maverick buying, and non-adherence to company spend policies.

​In manufacturing environments, it is common for organizations to have large numbers of vendors across global locations. This poses several complex challenges which often are not sufficiently managed by existing ERPs and, as a result, organizations implement further manual processes to handle them. One challenge faced by many manufacturers is duplicate invoices and duplicate payments. In AP departments with no automation, manual processing naturally results in human inefficiencies and inconsistent invoice handling processes. From a vendor point of view, there is no visibility over whether or not an invoice has been received, approved, or paid, which often leads to vendors submitting invoices multiple times (by post, EDI or email) in an effort to get paid more quickly. Since there are no reliable ways to detect duplicate invoices in a manual environment, AP teams end up duplicating their effort to process these invoices and in some cases ultimately making duplicate payments which result in commercial implications and require further effort to remedy.

​Vendor management is another area where manufacturing organizations often find they struggle. This is due to limitations in the ERP vendor master data and the lack of structured tools within the ERP to efficiently and accurately manage existing vendors and on-board new vendors. Simple requirements, such as ensuring that all vendors are compliant with tax clearances, industry certifications, insurances, and other buyer-specific policies, are typically managed externally from the ERP using offline, manual processes. Likewise, vendor contract renewals and other vendor updates are often handled in a similar manual fashion.

In today's world the need has never been great for staff, teams and employees to have remote access to business decision making information and accounts payable is no exception. Since the COVID outbreak in March of 2020 teams of people have been forced to work remotely and or from home. With limited access to information, invoices and documents necessary to keep the supply chain moving, many manufacturers feel sluggishly behind. Those manufacturers who were already prepared by implementing applications that provided the immediate secure transfer of knowledge outside their four walls were able to continue operating with little to no interuption. 

The AP automation solution allows organizations to control buying from approved vendors and management can enforce strict ‘No PO, No Pay’ policies and gain full visibility over what is being purchased. AP automation solutions work seamlessly with multiple ERP systems and provide a single view of the world for AP teams.

Segregated AP teams can be consolidated and the manual paper-based processes and spreadsheets are replaced with structured and controlled systems. This allows the entire AP process to be automated by one solution, eliminating the need for two separate AP processes, and two separate AP teams. The automated processing of invoices enables finance teams to only handle invoices by exception and to prioritize by key criteria such as value, early payment discounts, aging, etc. Re-porting and analytics also provide finance leaders with the necessary dashboards to project operational and financial metrics such as processing times, FTE productivity, approver performance, invoice accruals and vendor performance.

Other industry-specific challenges can also be managed. In manufacturing it is not unusual for vendors to send invoices be-fore the goods arrive - often as soon as the goods are ordered - in an effort to expedite the receipt of payment. Situations like this can cause real problems with traditional manual processes. However, with AP automation, invoices are automatically assigned an expected arrival date and are held pending the goods receipt note (GRN). When the GRN is received, the system triggers an automatic 2- or 3-way match, and unless an exception is found it will be automatically approved and routed for payment.

​AP automation provides a single system for processing all invoices through a structured workflow with automated matching and built-in approval logic. This ultimately enables the touchless processing of invoices and focuses AP teams on only handling invoices with exceptions.

Invoices can be captured in any format including paper, XML, PDF and EDI, so manufacturers can accept invoices electronically from sophisticated vendors using XML/EDI or, for other vendors, they can also automate the processing of invoices received by paper, email or PDF or submitted electronically. Vendors receive notifications regarding the status of submitted invoices, providing them with visibility over whether invoices have been received, processed, approved or paid.

​AP automation allows for better control over the organization’s cash flow. It equips the AP team with transparency over all vendors, enabling them to consider early payment discounts, and to strategically buy from preferred vendors and schedule payments in order to avail of these discounts. The solution also facilitates multiple languages and currencies, and provides full visibility over pending payments, allowing management to make informed decisions on when to pay invoices without incurring unnecessary charges. Taxes and freights, which are not always accurately accounted for in a manual environment, is fully automated within the AP solution, enabling precise payment and reporting.

The costs incurred in the finance department can be significant. Automating the AP process enables organizations to achieve better employee productivity, increased visibility and control over spend (both trade and non-trade), and significant cost savings at each stage in the AP process. Industry research by PayStream has found that 90% of CFOs that implemented AP automation achieved an average savings of 80% in invoice processing costs.

The cost of manually processing invoices can be significant. Forrester reports that over 97% of invoices are processed manually. The average cost of processing invoices varies, but can amount from $15 up to $45 per invoice.

AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. Successful organizations are modernizing their AP processes by automating each of the steps involved. AP automation can be achieved by transforming the following tasks:

• All types of invoices including paper, PDF, fax, EDI and email can be automatically captured in the system. The relevant invoice data is captured from each invoice and is used for rules based processing. Touchless processing for most of the invoices through capture, matching and approval means only exceptions need to be handled by AP team members. Other automated checks prevent problems such as duplicate invoices, missing PO numbers, and unregistered vendors at the source before they cause bigger problems and more work downstream.
• Automated 2- or 3-way matching of POs, invoices, and goods received eliminates manual paper-based processing, which typically results in the straight through processing of up to 80% (or more) of all invoices. Auto-match rate: This allows organizations to measure the percentage of invoices that are processed straight-through, without manual intervention. The higher the percentage, the more the AP team is able to handle exceptions.
• Approval automation allows for invoices to be routed electronically, reducing approval times. Complex rules based on roles, hierarchies, product type, and varying approval limits can be configured to ensure adherence to company spend policies. Sophisticated workflow automation not only enables approval routing within a single entity, but also across multi-entity organizations.
• Seamless interoperability between the AP system and an organization’s procurement and/or ERP system ensures full visibility of the end to end AP process along with a complete audit trail for every transaction.
• Reporting analytics enable finance leaders to continuously monitor and improve the operational AP processes while also delivering timely and accurate month end reporting.

Learn more about AP Automation and see it live!

​Competition between manufacturers has resulted in greater demands to establish differentiation. In order to get ahead, manufacturers are making efforts to provide improved goods and services to consumers. Considering the emphasis on speedy supply chains and the importance of vendor relationships for success in manufacturing, companies have started to improve back end processes in order to increase efficiency and maximize profitability. Leading organizations have deployed AP automation in order to deliver considerable efficiencies and have achieved faster invoice processing times, reduced in-voice processing costs, improved vendor relationships, and lower overheads and labor costs. Automation of AP processes allows for better visibility and control over total spend (both trade and non-trade) which enables finance teams to produce higher value reporting and analysis of operations.

​BlueCreek Software is a leading provider of financial process automation and developer of Vision360 Enterprise software, replacing inefficient processes with solutions that transform financial processes, reduce costs, and ensure that organizations meet their business and compliance obligations.

Do you have questions or want to learn more?