Switching to a paperless Accounts Payable process

This is in response to the developments triggered by Covid and Brexit which revealed vulnerabilities in their current supply chain management during unpredictable and dynamic times.

To expand, the pandemic has impacted customer demand across international industries. Whereas the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union has brought additional administration and documentation to process.

Both these situations emphasise the need for businesses to exert tight control over internal processes, especially in regards to cost and efficiency – areas which existing antiquated invoice systems fall short.

Hence businesses are now turning to a reliable solution: Accounts Payable (AP) automaton.

Switching to this paperless approach reaps many benefits. This includes…

Billentis* reports that the volume of eInvoice exchanges is expected to quadruple by 2035. With more businesses reaping the benefits of an updated invoice processing system, it is cruical to not lag behind and maintain competitiveness. Read in depth about the advantages of taking a paper to digital invoice approach below.

One of the key advantages of a paperless Accounts Payable process is accuracy.

Manual data entry introduces human error. For instance, mistaken data entries and duplications. This consequently results in two additional time-consuming processes to ensure data accuracy: the checking for errors and the re-keying of data.

Hence, businesses are now turning to a more efficient approach: paperless Accounts Payable (AP) software. With AP Automation software, there is no need for manual data entry, data is instead automatically processed. Thus, the roadblocks introduced by a manual-intensive AP process are removed.

Plus, at Transalis, it is not necessary for your trading network to have eInvoice capability. They can send invoices in a format, including scan, EDI, PDF, etc. These will then be digitally translated and routed to your chosen business application.

As mentioned above, manual keying involves many processes to ensure data accuracy, all which are time-consuming and results to delays.

Due to the great volume of invoice data that needs to be processed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, this means a large accumulation of incomplete work. This slows down the approval process, escalates to delays in payment and unsurprisingly disputes.

According to Ardent Partners’ 2023 research**, the top Accounts Payable challenges in 2023 are to do with paper-based processes. In fact, for a second year in a row, slow invoice and payment approval times made the top most frequent obstacle (47%) that prevents AP teams from achieving better results.

On the other hand, an automated Accounts Payable process ensures a fast exchange of invoices across a trading network and speeds up payments.

Moreover, by removing tedious admin tasks in staff’s workload, they can focus on more valuable work, such as building stronger relationships with trading networks and more importantly, revenue-generating activities.

By improving accuracy and time efficiency, businesses are able to achieve cost savings.

For example, by speeding up the downstream processes of payment authorisation as mentioned in the section above, businesses can obtain advantages such as early payment discounts.

Furthermore, a paperless Accounts Payable process can deliver great ROI. According to Billentis*, businesses can achieve between 60% to 80% savings compared to the labour-intensive manual process.

Want to know your exact cost savings? Here at Transalis, we value price transparency so you can rest assured of no hidden fees with our solution. The cost of our AP Automation solution starts from £19,500pa. However, you can also use our calculator to determine your exact cost, or alternatively contact our helpful team to discuss an overall price breakdown.