Accounts Payable Plus

Accounts Payable Automation Suite

Avanquest ProcessFlows supplies a suite of applications to automate the Accounts Payable process.

A customer who piloted our system, said:

It used to take us ten minutes to process a single invoice, and now we can process ten invoices every minute

For most organisations this will mean it will have paid for itself within 12 months, an amazingly short space of time.

Avanquest ProcessFlows AP+ is a real time, rules based, supplier invoice processing system which could save an organisation upwards of 75% of their current costs.

In addition, Avanquest ProcessFlows AP+ will provide data integrity, real time reporting, right place right time approval and many other efficiency gains that will reflect throughout your business.

Although Avanquest ProcessFlows AP+ is a solution which is matched to your specific business requirements, for Accounts Payable it is based on a generic set of principles and processes that are delivered as standard. In a generic sense AP+ can be viewed as a series of stages to completion.

Stages of AP+

• Capturing purchase orders and/or delivery notes
• ICR of invoices, Invoice Scanning
• Document matching, Invoice Processing
• Exception handling
• Approval process
• Updating Accounts systems
• Document archive

Why Automate Accounts Payable Procedures?

In today’s competitive business environment, running your operations more efficiently is paramount to a successfully evolving organisation. When looking at efficiency, most modern organisations have already solved the issues surrounding their structured operational data, by implementing CRM, ERP, Accounts and other line of business systems.

However according to Gartner, up to 80% of business data, transactions and records are in an unstructured format – paper, fax, e-mail, office documents – and nowhere is this more prominent than within the Accounts Payable (AP) department. If a business wants to significantly reduce costs and in the same stroke become highly efficient, then the AP process is the place to start.

But don’t take our word for it, one of our customers, Lexis Nexis explains their decision to automate accounts payable in their own presentation

The Cost of Accounts Payable

The AP process in many businesses is still largely a manual process. As a result, AP departments often have many personnel whose sole responsibility is to process supplier invoices.

According to research carried out by the Hackett Group, manual AP processes are costing businesses on average £2 – £4 per invoice to process and reduce employee productivity by at least 50%*. Other research suggests that where invoices go missing or have a complex approval process, the costs can be as high as £20 per invoice.

What is evident is that regardless of the processes you have in place for approval and systems you have in place for Accounting, if you are manually handling the data then there is a huge opportunity to improve efficiency and reduce costs by streamlining your AP process.

*cited ft.com

Accounts Payable Issues

There are many problems and issues surrounding the typical accounts payable process.

• Collating invoices that come from different suppliers or cost centres in many different layouts and delivery formats – post, fax, e-mail, EDI.
• Labour intensive processes required to input data compounded further if linked to different costs centres and potentially involve currency conversion.
• Errors associated with manual data entry in accounting systems.
• Longer lead times due to manual routing, processing, and sign-off procedures involving individuals in different departments and possibly different countries.
• Inefficiencies due to time spent gathering physical documents in order to match invoices with purchase orders, delivery notes, contracts, and accounting system records.
• Inability to maximise financial benefits associated with payment schedules such as, discounts for early payments, or avoiding late fees for tardy payments.
• Risk of document loss or damage, as documents are received at multiple input points and may be routed or classified incorrectly.
• Costs associated with manual document routing, shipping, couriers, storage, etc.
• Inability to easily audit invoice processing and payments to match up document flow with the accounting system.
• Archive costs for compliance and accounts audits.

Find out how LexisNexis’ Accounts Payable Manager Isobel George made the decision to switch to a fully automated Accounts Payable process.

• See her presentation ‘Accounts Payable: the decision making process’
• View the short video in which she explains the business drivers to Avanquest’s Mike Rae

More information

Please use the menu above left for more information. Alternatively you can call us on 0800 988 5543 or email sales@processflows.co.uk.