IPS AP Solution | Touchless Posting of Invoices via Supplier Portal

SECAUCUS, NJ, October 15, 2019 – IPS, a leading provider of solutions that digitally transform the accounts payable process end-to-end, announced today that the IPS AP Automation Solution is raising the bar for posting invoices straight-through without the need for human operator intervention.

IPS will showcase the AP Automation Solution in booth 501 at the Institute of Finance & Management Fall AP & P2P Conference & Expo, October 15-17, at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.   

IPS users are posting an average of two-thirds of the invoices they receive via e-mail, file transfer protocol (FTP) upload or a supplier portal directly to their enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform or other system of record without the need for human operator intervention. 

Best-in-class accounts payable department post 65.3 percent of the invoices they receive directly to their ERP platform, without the need for human operator intervention, according to Ardent Partners’ “The State of ePayables 2019: Driving Value in the Age of Intelligence.”  All other accounts payable departments post 19.2 percent of the invoices they receive straight-through, Ardent Partners reports.       

The touchless posting of invoices received via e-mail, FTP upload or a supplier portal enables accounts payable departments to significantly reduce operational costs, eliminate the chance of keying errors, accelerate invoice approval cycles and free staff to focus on value-added activities.

“Accounts payable departments shouldn’t have to touch, manually key or ever print invoices received as paper, e-mail, FTP upload or a supplier portal,” said IPS Founder and CEO Greg Bartels.  “IPS AP Automation Solution delivers on the promise of electronic invoicing by enabling accounts payable departments to surpass best-in-class industry benchmarks for posting invoices without human operator intervention.”   

IPS AP Automation Solution leverages advanced technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning and business intelligence to achieve its high level of straight-through processing. 

Accounts payable robots (or “bots”) log into an e-mail box, FTP site or online supplier portal to retrieve invoices for processing.  Suppliers also can use an online portal built into the IPS AP Automation Solution to submit invoices electronically or to “flip” purchase orders (POs) into electronic invoices.  The result is that all AP processes are centralized onto a single platform.  The IPS AP Automation Solution uses optical character recognition (OCR), e-mail invoice extraction, machine learning and proprietary technology to extract and verify data from each invoice according to pre-defined business rules.  Invoice data is then matched against a PO.  Matched invoices are seamlessly uploaded to any ERP application, including SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and Infor.  The IPS AP Automation Solution also integrates with supplier billing systems to deliver detailed remittance data. 

Unmatched invoices, or those without a PO, are digitally routed for approval based on configurable business rules.  If any data required for approval is missing from an invoice (such as a PO number), the IPS AP Automation Solution sends an e-mail to the supplier’s billing department.  The supplier then clicks a link, inputs the required information and re-submits the invoice.  The data input by the supplier is validated in real-time, eliminating the possibility of back-and-forth e-mails.  

The IPS AP Automation Solution securely archives the image of each invoice and its associated data.   

Suppliers and internal stakeholders such as buyers, accounts payable, accounts receivable, collections and sales and marketing can use the IPS supplier portal to instantly access actionable insights such as the total number of invoices received, the total value of invoices received, spend by unit, category and supplier, the percentage of invoices tied to a purchase order and more.

About IPS

IPS provides digital solutions that optimize business applications such as accounts payable, telecommunications expense management and business process automation.  IPS’ flagship AP Automation Solution makes digital transformation a reality for businesses by combining technologies such as intelligent data capture, robotic process automation, machine learning, business intelligence and mobile with IPS’ unmatched expertise and experience in business process automation.  Each year, IPS processes more than $100 billion in accounts payable spend and has created over 1 billion digital records over the past decade.  IPS enables its clients to reduce costs, significantly accelerate cycle times, improve transparency and enhance customer service.