Automation has revolutionized invoice processing by bringing down human errors drastically and speeding up the process. Staying familiar with automation tools and understanding how to use them for invoice processing will yield efficiency and accuracy, leaving no room for invoice-related snags.
What is Invoice Payment Processing?
It’s a systematic method businesses use to manage payments for goods or services right from receiving an invoice to processing payment. While often perceived as a mundane administrative task, it plays an integral role in safeguarding company finances. An invoice and payment processing system is capable of streamlining an accounts payable department’s payment process to make it faster and more efficient. Switching to paperless invoicing means that accounts payable team members will probably spend much less time sorting and organizing paper invoices, tracking down colleagues to secure approvals, or waiting for checks to be delivered in the mail. A digital invoice payment processing system can also make it much easier to keep an organized record of payments that have been made. If a past invoice needs to be retrieved for an audit, an invoice payment processing system can locate it almost instantly.
Accounts payable teams can use an automated invoice payment processing system to gain other advantages as well. For example, by automating their accounts payable process, an accounts payable department could gain greater visibility into the operation of their invoice processing workflow. AvidXchange’s accounts payable automation software can be accessed remotely at any time by anyone, as long as they have a device that connects to the internet and the proper authorization.
Processing Invoices For Payment
Accounts payable teams can potentially simplify the invoice checking process by implementing accounts payable automation software. One of the most significant ways in which an automated, paperless invoice processing solution could benefit accounts payable teams is by saving them money. A traditional invoice processing workflow comes with certain expenses that can be avoided by processing invoices for payment using an automated solution. AvidXchange’s automated accounts payable software can convert invoices into digital form and process them electronically, which means accounts payable teams can save money on paper supplies. Expenses like checks, envelopes, stamps, and more can be reduced or eliminated.
Using an automated accounts payable solution to improve an invoice processing process flow can also be a great way to save time, which often translates into saved money. Electronically automating an accounts payable workflow means the accounts payable team would no longer need to spend their time physically moving paper invoices through the approval and filing process. Not to mention, those invoices may take a lot of time to find again once they’ve been filed away, making reports or audits much more time consuming. An automated invoicing system can easily store and retrieve invoices in no time at all. An automated accounts payable solution could enable an accounts payable team to follow a more efficient and organized accounts payable invoice processing flowchart.
How Automation Simplifies the Payment Workflow
Automated invoice processing software can offer a wide range of benefits to accounts payable teams. One of these advantages is increased scalability. When a company is still small, it might work to use a manual accounts payable process. If a business only needs a few suppliers, then it is usually not difficult to keep track of invoices and keep payment processing costs low. Once a business begins to grow, however, it will likely also begin to work with an increasing number of suppliers. Eventually, most growing businesses find themselves with greater accounts payable needs than an accounts payable team can handle manually.
Automation’s role in the realm of invoice and payment processing is quite remarkable. It emerges as the powerful tool that removes the chaos from the payment workflow. Efficiency reaches new heights, enabling businesses to focus on strategic initiatives than managing transactions all day.
Implementing automation in the payment workflow has a series of benefits, a notable one being reduction in paperwork. The best automated invoice processing software can process as many payments as needed without slowing down and keep track of a very large number of suppliers. Digital processing eliminates the need for manual intervention, thus trimming down the time spent on managing paperwork. It further ensures that no invoice goes unnoticed, thus mitigating payment delays and avoiding penalties.
On a similar note, automation expedites the payment process. With automated approval reminders, payments get approved and disbursed in a timely manner—crucial for maintaining good relationships with the vendors. Even better? Some automation tools offer early payment incentives, a win-win situation for both parties.
The crown jewel in automation, arguably, is its ability to enhance data integrity. As human intervention diminishes, the likelihood of errors shrinks. With automation, there’s a tighter grip on data accuracy, which translates into an overall healthier financial management system.
Accounts Payable Cycle
The list of accounts payable process steps that an accounts payable team follows in order to make a payment to a vendor is called the accounts payable cycle. Typically, an accounts payable cycle involves three main parts: receiving an invoice, reviewing billing details, and issuing payment to the supplier. AvidXchange’s AvidInvoice specializes in streamlining the invoicing section of the accounts payable cycle.
AvidXchange’s automated invoice management solution is capable of streamlining and improving an entire invoicing process from start to finish while maintaining the existing workflow that is in place for approvals. Using AvidInvoice, accounts payable teams can receive and process invoices using the workflow they currently have. The automation will match the current workflow and automate the invoicing process without requiring it to be completely changed. This can allow the inefficiencies of a paper-based invoicing process to be eliminated and replaced with faster and more effective digital automation.
Automating invoice processing can also make it easier to keep track of invoices in the system. An accounts payable team could complete an accounts payable audit checklist much more efficiently by using invoicing automation software to organize the invoicing step of the accounts payable cycle.
Invoice Processing System
An electronic invoice processing system can be a very useful tool for an accounts payable team to have. Automated invoice processing makes it possible for accounts payable teams to convert paper invoices into a digital format that can be easily automated by the software. The electronic invoices can then be coded and categorized, assigned to the corresponding workflow, and routed to receive approvals from the appropriate individuals. Alerts and rules can be applied to invoices in order to reduce the manual work required as much as possible.
After an invoice has been completely approved by the necessary corporate leaders, it can be routed directly into the business’s accounting system, and bill payments can be automatically delivered to vendors and suppliers. The whole invoicing process can be completed in a way that emulates existing invoice processing workflows. The automation software simply serves to make the process more efficient by reducing processing time and associated expenses. Accounts payable teams that need a way to process invoices more effectively could consider implementing an automated solution such as AvidXchange.
The Cost of Processing an Invoice
One of the greatest benefits of implementing an automated invoice processing procedure is that it can save a business quite a bit of money over time. Businesses can reduce their payment processing costs by about 60 percent when they use an automated invoice processing system to handle their invoice processing. According to Aberdeen Research, it costs approximately $22 to process a payment manually, from the time the invoice is received to the time the payment is delivered. When an automated accounts payable system is used to complete the process, the cost is only about $10 per invoice. That’s less than half of the amount it costs to manually carry out the invoice processing procedure.
Vendor Invoice Processing Checklist
Accounts payable automation software can help accounts payable teams keep track of their invoices and keep their accounts payable records more organized. By using electronic invoice processing software, accounts payable teams could eliminate the need to sort invoices manually and reduce filing errors and other inefficiencies that could lead to disorganization.
Using a vendor invoice processing checklist or an invoice submission checklist can help accounts payable teams keep invoices organized. AvidXchange’s automated accounts payable solutions can automatically store invoices within the system, which could make it easier to complete an invoice verification checklist.
Using the right invoice checklist format can be a helpful way to keep invoices organized. AvidXchange’s automated invoice management system can store invoices in a cloud-based hub that can be conveniently accessed at any time by the accounts payable team as long as they have a device that is able to connect to the internet. This could enable much simpler management of accounts payable records and provide easier access to completed invoices. When an accounts payable team needs to access past invoices for an audit trail or to create a report, an automated system could easily retrieve those invoices for them.
An accounts payable checklist template can be a useful tool for ensuring the accounts payable process runs smoothly. Automated invoicing software can provide electronic accounts payable solutions that could enable an accounts payable team to remain organized even when they have a large number of invoices to process.
