Five Benefits of eInvoicing
It just doesn’t seem right to include only a handful of benefits, when presenting the powerful money-saving concept of eInvoicing. This is a necessary compromise to draw attention to the most meaningful benefits, which come in handy for corporate decision makers, who still have second thoughts about it.
#1 Digital Invoice Capture.
When you get a “traditional” invoice made of paper, you simply know that you have no other choice than to invest quite a lot of your time in sorting, opening and processing the documents. Even if you get an invoice as a PDF attachment in your business email system, you’re going to deal with paper related troubles, as soon as you print it. Only a fully integrated eInvoicing solution with pre-configured workflow can ensure the full automation of the invoice capture processes. Purchasing and billing data would then be routed straight from your suppliers’ system into your AP system. If you think about it invoicing is a task that is perfectly suited for automation.
#2 Automation of Invoicing Validation Process.
Validation of your invoices is another process that can be extremely time-consuming. You need to make sure that the invoices you get are thoroughly checked before they become an inevitable part of your company’s financial system. For instance, you need to check purchase order numbers, sales tax and VAT calculations, cost codes, etc. In many companies, we are talking about an entire team of professionals, who will be in charge of this “special” task. All of these elements can be easily automated with the introduction of an eInvoice workflow process. For the eInvoicing system, a validation process is just one more operation it conducts efficiently and quickly.
#3 Automation of Matching Processes.
Here’s one more time-consuming process, you just can’t avoid while dealing with paper invoicing. You will need to validate and match the received invoices against receiving documents as well as contracts and pricing documents. These materials may exist in different systems across your enterprise. With today’s eInvoicing solutions they usually will come to the table with the capability for you to provide data feeds back into their system so the appropriate information will match. In some instances, there are so many elements that you need to check that investing in an eInvoicing system is the only option. With eInvoicing, you can eliminate most of the manual work in this area, increasing accuracy and reducing cost.
#4 Enabling Self-Service for Vendors.
It comes without saying that a typical lifecycle of a paper invoice is followed by dozens of calls and information requirements. All parties involved are interested to find out what’s happening with a certain invoice, and its current status. Instead of setting up a special call center for this costly and irritating service, you can use a portal, which comes as a part of all eInvoicing programs. Vendors can simply and efficiently find all necessary information related to their invoices by using this user-friendly system.
#5 Improved Cash Management.
Both email-based and paper invoices require additional time before they become visible in your AP systems. As a direct consequence, your company’s cash managers are in constant danger of reaching the wrong conclusions or making the wrong decisions because they lack reliable and accurate information. Only the eInvoicing can guarantee invaluable real-time updates.
