How to Find the Best Invoice Automation Solution

Selecting the right invoice automation solution is critical to achieving best-in-class accounts payable performance.

Compared to your peers with little or no invoice automation, highly automated accounts payable departments report lower invoice processing costs, fewer duplicate payments and other errors, faster invoice approval cycle times, better visibility, and fewer supplier inquiries.

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When looking for the best invoice automation solution, there are several capabilities and characteristics that accounts payable departments need to look for:

• Compatibility: The best invoice automation solutions are fully capable of seamless integration with your existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial systems.
• Purchase Order (PO) Flip: The best invoice automation solutions must allow suppliers to easily submit invoices in any format. The system should be able to automatically flip” or match Purchase Orders (POs) to invoices for straight through processing.
• Support for all Invoice Receipt Channels and Formats: The best invoice automation solutions can aggregate and process invoices in any format, from any source. This includes invoices submitted via the mail, e-mail, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), online supplier portals, EDI, or other channel.
• Intelligent Data Capture: The best invoice automation solutions extract the header and line-item data from invoices, validates extracted data against information residing in an ERP or accounting system, and matches invoices against Vendor, POs and proof-of-delivery documents and data.
• Matching and Line-Item Detail: Departments should look for invoice automation solutions that offer drill-down capabilities for line-item detail and line-item invoice matching and validations.
• Configurable Workflows: The best invoice automation solutions provide configurable workflows, approval routing processes and business rules for validation and compliance.
• Online Exceptions Management: The best invoice automation solutions have a rules based engine with online capabilities for streamlining otherwise labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks.
• Payments support: As paper check volumes for business-to-business transactions continue to decline, accounts payable departments should ensure that invoice automation solutions offer integrated payments capabilities, such as paying suppliers via ACH and virtual card.
• A Portal: The best invoice automation solutions provide suppliers with an online portal for managing their information, submitting invoices, and checking the status of invoices and payments.
• Reporting: Real-time visibility into operations, cash flow and spending is increasingly important. That is why an invoice automation solution should have a graphical dashboard displaying critical KPIs and metrics, drill downs, ad hoc reporting and export capabilities.
• Track Record of Success: Accounts payable departments need to understand a potential technology vendor’s track record in invoice automation and in product innovation.

More businesses want to find the best invoice automation solution, to achieve best-in-class results. To learn why our solution is the best, contact us to arrange a no-obligation consultation.

FAQ

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