Businesses today need to meet competitive and challenging market conditions. Digital transformation has become commonplace to harness the benefits of new technology and improve business processes.

The key challenge for most businesses seeking digital transformation is where to start, how to build the business case and how to deliver ROI within an acceptable timeframe. Customer focus dictates that the shift to digital must add value and make a real difference to user experience.

In this blog, we explore a key business area to introduce digital transformation: invoice automation. Automating invoice processes saves businesses time and money as well as helps inform better business decisions.

Invoice automation refers to the replacement of manual processes with a digital solution, typically based on EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange.

Automation can support every step involved in invoice management; from the initial receipt of an invoice to the processing of payment.

Without automating invoicing, there is always the risk of human error. Manual invoice processing leads to mistaken data entries, duplications, and costly delays.

According to an international market report by Billentis*, the efficiency provided by invoice automation can achieve substantial savings between 60% to 80%, compared with the costs of manual invoice processes.

There’s a range of benefits to automating invoice processes for both AR (Accounts Receivable) and AP (Accounts Payable) departments.

Colleagues issuing invoices in AR can enjoy greater confidence in meeting or exceeding customer service expectations around process and accuracy. That is because you will typically be able to move away from multiple bespoke approaches, including time-consuming and error-prone manual tasks.

The way your system has generated outgoing invoices may have resulted in late payments with delays caused by invoice queries or errors. In contrast, invoice automation helps the AR team achieve faster payments, with greater accuracy meaning fewer rejections, thus improving your working capital at the same time as strengthening your customer relationships.

Similarly, team members receiving invoices in AP struggle with headaches caused by manual processes.

They may have to re-key invoices and experience delays matching invoices to orders. As a result, they will miss out on early payment discounts. At the same time, they will have avoidable staff overheads and other unnecessary processing costs.

Instead, invoice automation helps reduce AP costs, increases accuracy and speeds up processing. It helps reallocate teams to higher-value projects and gives greater scope to avoid late payment fees and reduce the risk of fraud. AP automation also provides confidence in invoice dispute handling and building productive supplier relationships.

To begin an automation programme, you first need to understand, map and analyse the tasks and responsibilities of everyone involved. That way you can identify and bridge those gaps between where you are now and where you want to be.

Here at Transalis, we guide you through all stages of implementation to make it easy for you to maintain BAU.

We offer a choice of eInvoice products based on your business needs. Our two solutions facilitate the digital transformation of the accounts function: AP Automation and AR Automation.

Harnessing the benefits of digital standardisation, AP Automation enables organisations with a large and varied trading network to automatically convert all incoming invoices into a standardised digital format. AP Automation is integrated with the chosen business application, so there is no need for manual rekeying of data. Businesses that are processing 2000+ invoices a month will achieve an average ROI between 60-80%. AP automation supports the whole trading network without having to onboard them.

AR Automation targets the challenges that Accounts Receivable teams face with international and B2G eInvoice mandates and inefficient invoice processes. There’s an increasing requirement to follow eInvoice protocols, PEPPOL, and Real-Time Reporting (RTR), AR Automation is able to facilitate all of this and more, with a flexible and scalable solution tailored to the client’s needs.

Our solutions are widely used by finance directors and controllers, procurement managers and heads of AR and AP in all industry sectors.

And if you are exchanging invoices with partners in the EU, you have the added reassurance that Transalis is recognised as one of just a few providers in the world to fulfil the EU’s requirement for a common eInvoice standard. Under this protocol, called EURINV19, companies can signal to other traders that their invoice automation is compliant, so making the exchange of invoices within and between markets much easier.

We are also one of the few UK tech firms to have been certified as an AS4 PEPPOL provider, reflecting our compliance with the highest level of international public procurement standards.

Both EURINV19 and AS4 PEPPOL support the goal of enabling safe and secure trade through greater supply chain transparency, visibility and efficiency.

Why not check out our handy ROI calculator, highlighting the potential savings you could realise from implementing AP Automation?