Accounts Payables Process Needs to Evolve

Accounts Payables Process Needs to Evolve

(Last Updated On: January 19, 2023)

Accounts payables process and supplier invoice processing is an integral integral part of each and every business regardless of what sector or vertical your business is in. Supplier Invoice processing is an extremely time-consuming activity. Even though there are many automation tools available, companies still prefer the traditional approach of paper invoicing. Hard copies have been replaced with PDF, but the steps remain the same.

Accounts payable process is fairly manual, the Purchase to Pay process is strewn with lacunas.

Over the years the major challenges observed are:

  • No standard format: A company deals with multiple suppliers and vendors. Each has a unique template for invoicing. This non-standardisation is an overhead as each invoice needs to be processed individually
  • Error-Prone procedure: Invoices can be received through multiple channels which are then entered manually into an ERP.
  • Missing or incorrect data: It’s difficult to trace missing or incorrect data when the accounts payables process team is processing hundreds of invoices almost daily. This results in costly re-work.
  • Fluid Government requirements: Constantly changing government regulations may or may not be included in submitted invoices.

As per a survey conducted by Sterling Commerce:

  • 90% of invoices worldwide are serviced manually.
  • Accounts payable (AP) departments receive 35% of invoices in paper form.
  • Cost of processing an individual invoice is $12 to $30. In some places as high as $40.
  • On average, an invoice error costs $53.50 to rectify.

Want to know how you can leverage intelligent data extraction for your accounts payables process automation? Click below to get a free guide.

According to American Productivity and Quality Centre (APQC), top-performing organisations were spending an average of just $2.07 per invoice processing while the bottom few were spending an average of $10 or more per-invoice processing.

An early solution uses templates. Companies established templates which were to be used by vendors to submit invoices. But this further slowed down the process, as vendors had to adapt to the templates. Typically a supplier would be supplying to many companies, therefore there was a big chance he might miss out on details.

Furthermore, these templates have to be modified with every policy changes or new government regulation. So maintaining a database of ‘templates’ became an additional overhead. invoices required to be entered into the ERP systems which posed an independent set of problems with their requirements and templates.

A change in template meant; increased processing time before entering data into the ERP. Which meant a single invoice is processed twice; once for the correctness and then for entry into ERP.

Time to Revamp Your Accounts Payable Process

Knowing the cost of old school invoicing is a good motivator to overhaul an existing Invoicing system. There are multiple software tools which could help to optimize the process. But, implementing new tools is again an investment, a capital expenditure.

Additionally, there is training cost, the time required for implementation, testing and adaptability. Technology itself is constantly evolving, a solution implemented today, might be obsolete within a few years. And all this, the answer to the question of ROI remains elusive.

Can Invoicing be automated?? A resounding ‘Yes’ is the answer.

Revamp your accounts payables process workflow with AI and free up your team from manual data entry.

KlearStack is a proprietary platform developed by Mavenick Consulting, which helps in extracting insightful data from unstructured document formats without any templates. Information can be grabbed from Invoices submitted in any format as long as the information on the document is properly presented.

KlearStack has tested its solution in various business situations, and the creators are confident about the results. KlearStack is already being implemented at various organizations in accounts payables process- the result is 70% accuracy on the first day of implementation.

KlearStack offers Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning technology for Accounts payables process. Embedded with Adaptive learning algorithms, KlearStack self learns to adapt itself to all kinds of situations.

#90In90

A self-learning tool, backed with a secure cloud and strong data privacy protocols- KlearStack can achieve 90% accurate data extraction in 90 days- a repeatable result.

Get in touch with KlearStack representative today for a free demo!

Ashutosh Saitwal
Ashutosh Saitwal
www.klearstack.com/

Ashutosh is the founder and director of the award winning KlearStack AI platform. You can catch him speaking at NASSCOM events around the world where he speaks and is an evangelist for RPA, AI, Machine Learning and Intelligent Document Processing.