Improving trading partner relationships with AP invoice software

Manual invoicing has many disadvantages, including slow approvals, delays in payment, and so on.

Consequently, this negatively impacts relationships with trading partners, possibly even stifling future opportunities. Therefore, it is essential to move towards a more reliable and automated approach: an AP invoice solution.

In this blog, we will be covering the main benefits of automating invoicing processes, particularly how it can support trading partner relationships. This includes…

Manual invoice processing is time-consuming.

During this process, the AP team must handle a high volume of invoices on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and manually rekey data from one source to another.

However, this process is made even longer due to the inaccuracies introduced by human error.

To explain, it is common for employees to make mistakes while processing inbound invoices. This includes duplications and incorrect character entries. Hence, there is a need to rectify these. Ultimately this prolongs the entire approval process.

Overall, these delays can cause tension with trading partners, especially if it is a reoccurring issue. This may even escalate to the loss of future business.

Thus, to combat this and ensure accuracy, it is necessary to implement an automated solution: AP invoice software.

Unlike manual processing, there is no need for rekeying of data between systems. This is because inbound invoices are extracted, processed, and routed to the business application. Hence, approval times quicken, payments are expedited, and disputes with trading partners are eliminated.

As mentioned above, the manual rekeying of data and correction of errors in the invoicing process takes a considerable amount of time.

These admin tasks are not productive and do not directly benefit the business’ relationships or contribute to profits.

Thus, an automated AP invoice solution is necessary to unburden the AP team with these tasks. However, not all invoice processing software will deliver the same results. It is important to analyse the technology your provider is offering.

For instance, rather than identifying errors manually, it is important that the software can identify and rectify the error automatically using an exceptions tool. Transalis AP Automation offers just that. Our software uses IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) technology rather than OCP (Optical Character Recognition) to ensure the most accurate results.

This technology interprets data using AI and ML (Machine Learning). Unlike OCR, IDP reviews the invoice data and formatting and compares it with previous submissions. If any changes are identified, it is corrected and flagged to the AP team via an email notification to be reviewed.

Hence, the AP team is able to entrust the admin tasks to be handled in an accurate and timely manner with Transalis AP automation. Thus, enabling them to fully utilise their time on more valuable tasks. For example, interacting and strengthening relationships with trading partners can open revenue-generating opportunities.

A report by Forrester found that 58% of European consumers prefer to purchase more environmentally friendly products.²

Hence, now more than ever, it is crucial to keep up an eco-friendly presence. However, this is difficult to achieve with a manual invoicing process.

It is also important to note that the costs are significant when calculating departmental spending, or across an entire organisation. To have a better understanding, the paper consumption involved in a manual invoice process is illustrated below:

Average annual printed paper consumption per employee

(based on an average cost for a box of paper – 10 reams, of £40)

In addition, there are other factors to consider above from paper consumption. For example ink and the running of printing hardware.

Hence, it is necessary to switch to a paperless solution such as automated invoice processing. Making the switch not only reduces the business’ carbon footprint and thus ensures an improved, positive brand reputation for consumers and trading partners alike, but also helps to reduce business spending.