Eliminate Scanning Invoices: A Quick Guide to Exceptional Accounts Payable

Invoice scanning is like a giant leap forward for organizations that still follow pen and paper-based accounts payable methods. Nevertheless, invoice scanning applications make it so that the AP team members avoid manually punching in details from a bill sent by the supplier, which is a challenging and slow procedure. Anything that does the work fast is considered a good thing.

Invoice scanning might be a good solution. Businesses that opt for such tools, especially as a stopgap and an alternative to deploying automated accounts payable systems, are selling short. Plus, costing the businesses time and money.

Usually, an invoice scanning solution is built with OCR technology that extracts invoices and stores them into accounting software. As this may sound interesting, we present a few indicators of why scanning invoices isn’t always great for companies.

Manual Record Tracking

A solution that can scan invoices does not indicate that anything will occur with the invoice once it gets scanned. Employees using invoice scanning software will require validating if the invoice is a duplicate one to prevent double payments.

Faulty Data

The data, which comes in from the scanning solution, is close to full proof, with OCR technology 99% accurate. However, in the business, close is not considered good enough with organizations processing 500 to 600 invoices per month with OCR likely to have, based on the rates of 6 to 9 invoices that include insufficient data. It’s because the system can misread the numbers and convert them inappropriately if not part of the more extensive service.

Hence, it is wise for any business that depends on scanning software to have a worker verify each scanned invoice against the paper copies to make sure that the details entered into the system are correct. Such validations must happen before the payment goes out so that companies do not wind up paying bills that they do not have to.

Digital Invoices

There are fewer requirements for paper invoice scanning technology these days. With some businesses still depending on snail mail to wait for paper invoices, it has been observed that many AP experts would prefer the electronic processing of invoices to boost operational effectiveness.

Plus, organizations could cut 45 days of their invoice processing times and save above $17 for each invoice. The savings can be attributed to less expense on personnel, early payment discounts from suppliers, and much more. The paper invoices are costly to proce and businesses can save thousands for the month by digitizing them.

More Data Security

Securing data remains a massive issue in the U.S., with over 1500 data breaches and around 165 million records exposed. Perhaps organizations that failed to adopt robust AP solutions think that scanning invoices into an on-premises server are more safe and secure. In contrast, the on-premise systems can become vulnerable as well. Some incidents show that no matter where the data gets stored, private/public cloud or in a hybrid environment, poor security practices leads to data being exposed and found with ease.

An effective way is to work with accounts payable software that has in-built security features for its solution. The cloud is secure provided businesses select authenticate providers who care.

Are you thinking of opting for AP automation software? Check out the reasons to approve the decision.

Uploading Invoices Easily

The invoice scanning solution is completely integrated. When a PDF invoice enters your inbox, the AP system can capture it, thus pulling the data automatically and exporting the invoice to a business accounting solution.

Plus, the solution can manage paper-based invoices. The advanced technologies immediately extract invoice data from the invoices sent to the software, making uploading easy, whether the documents are electronic or manual.

Quick Payments

The time taken to processing paper invoices can take weeks, from hunting down paper documents for three-way matching to approving an invoice by the higher management for payment. Besides, invoice scanning apps do not make things go faster by saving the time to enter the data.

Needless to say, invoice processing time with AP software moves quickly and can be as much as 85% faster. Due to the solution is a complete suite and end-to-end solution from invoice receipt, coding to payments. It has been observed that the invoice processing time went down from 20 to 4 days with automation. It can be said that automation eliminates several roadblocks and optimizes the accounts payable method.

It is just another reason that the accounts payable platform is an excellent option for the accounting teams than scanning invoices. Organizations should not sell themselves short. AP automation makes more sense than manual scanning.