Your Accounts Payable Department is Too Slow

By Optiform Blogger, July 12, 2016

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Does this sound like your Accounts Payable department?

The title of this article is probably a little inflammatory, but it is what your contractors are thinking; they just won’t tell you.

Your Accounts Payable Team Is Overwhelmed

Picture this: Pepper, your Accounts Payable Representative at ACME Corporation, just received an invoice from a contractor for the lawn maintenance that Tony and his team over at Really Green Landscaping performed for your company recently. It is probably safe to say that Tony’s invoice isn’t the only one Pepper received this week. In fact, she has received 1,543 other contractor invoices this week from the large contractor pool that ACME utilizes to perform tasks that don’t necessarily constitute hiring full-time employees.

Can you imagine how overwhelmed Pepper and her team in the Accounts Payable department are right now? We can. And it’s only Wednesday! She told us, and we haven’t even gotten started with what happens after her team receives the invoices; that is if all the invoices actually make it to their desks.

WATCH THIS:

ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices YouTube video: Accounts Payable Automation with FlexiCapture for Invoices

Manual Data Extraction is as Inefficient at Typewriters and White-Out

Now that the invoices are in hand, assuming that none of them were buried on the mail desk or got dropped on their way to Pepper, the Accounts Payable team has to manually review and verify this data as well as enter it into your accounting software.

You’d like to think that the team you’ve hired to handle this job is always 100% accurate with what they see, interpret, and type, but the reality is that they are not. Sorry Pepper. Well, we’re not really sorry. To err is human, and you are just that. (Heck, you can probably point out a few errors I’ve made in this blog post!) It’s not Pepper’s fault, but there are solutions that will make her look like a hero and free up time for her to do the other things you need her to be doing; like saving the world!

Time, accuracy, and overall efficiency are the biggest selling points for scanning and data capture automation.

ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices To The Rescue

Let us introduce ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices. ABBYY has a whole suite of solutions, but FlexiCapture for Invoices is the one that is going to really rock Pepper’s world. Since ACME is an international corporation, doing business with contractors from not only the United States but also China, India, and several other countries that don’t use USD as their standard currency or have the same business rules, there are additional layers of verification that she has to go through before processing the invoice. To name just a few:

  1. Verifying the country the invoice has been submitted from
  2. Verifying the business rules for each contractor
  3. Checking for compliance with local regulations
  4. Checking the master database to match the invoice with the company to see if it is pre-existing or if it needs to be created to maintain accurate records
  5. Matching the invoices to purchase orders

Automated invoice processing is the best thing that ever happened to Account Payable teams. Take 5 minutes and check out the video we shared from ABBYY for a deeper look at what automation can do for you. After you’ve watched it, give us a call 317-822-8150. Our sales team can walk you through a demo and help you determine the best solution for your company.

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Position your team for success

Optiform offers a broad spectrum of data processing solutions customized to fit any business need. From human resource departments to the information produced through clinical trials, Optiform has a long history of maximizing the efficiency of all its clients. Optiform is here to provide  personalized support and recommendations both pre and post project, to ensure your long-term satisfaction and paper-free results. Contact us today to set up a personalized one-on-one consultation for software and business process recommendations. Already a valued Optiform client? Our customer support is ready to help.