Posted by Francis Hart on Mon, Mar 15, 2010
There is an encouraging sign. The number of times on a monthly basis I've heard prospects and clients that want to improve their AP workflow processes. Of course, when the dialog begins, the main theme is the amount of time and "touches" any person has to make when dealing with paper and accounts payable invoices ... It really can be overwhelming.
From receipt by mail, photocopying, file cabinet storage, interoffice mail for approval & signatures, routing to payables, pulling invoices back out of storage for audit, monthly ends and fiscal year ends ... How many times does one have to repeat this? Well, factor in the number of monthly invoices X, number of people Y and number of unique processes Z and you may have a formula ... for what? that depends on the level of pain each organization goes through on the monthly paper merry go round ... It may not be rocket science but it also doesn't have to be that complicated either ...
The rationalization is, that if one were to implement a scanning automation process, they can "get rid of three processes in a busy day". Of course this entire exercise begins with the common copier printer fax scanner. Of note, a recent blog comment (http://blog.abctechsolutions.com/2009/09/copier-printer-fax-scanner-costs-on-the-rise/) puts into perspective the rising costs of keeping the hard copy use of these machines;
" ... According to the GSA, company's printers, fax machines and copiers cost "on the average $1000 per employee per year or more." According to Xerox, company's copier printer environment costs an average of 3% of a company's TOTAL GROSS revenue ..." Something like EEK!
"Every dollar you save in your copier printer scanner increases your company's profit. Budgets for toner cartridge supplies are growing by 20-40% per year; Dataquest, IDC and CAP Ventures have all concluded that copier printer scanner page volumes are growing at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 8%. Printer cost is increasing not decreasing and the majority of the company's do not have controls in place ..." Or more appropriately YIKES!
So, here's a final thought ... accounting departments have finally grasped that they have to do something about their accounts payable workflow processes ... they are the ones feeling the pain of overwhelming manual and paper processes and the associated "many touch" costs at each step along the way. Many have just starting to use the scanner, either standalone smaller desktop units or the more central photocopier scanner hardware to begin to scan invoices ... all in the direction of accounts payable automation ... so why not use this step to help drive down the hardware cost and printing costs of all this paper?
One caveat, we haven't even started talking about e-invoicing ... Stay tuned!
Posted by Francis Hart on Thu, Mar 04, 2010
It's been my experience in working with our clients and prospects that there is a recurring and common theme in discussions regarding AP and invoice processing activities .... Pain. More specifically, it's how can an AP operation refine their workflow through automation? "There has to be a better way" is a common refrain. Well, as pain relief we are helping to alleviate it, to streamline it and to help prevent it from coming back.
When we are asked to help automate the AP and workflow process, we advise by asking clients to identify their "pain points" or more commonly, "where does it hurt?" The responses are overwhelming ... and it usually leads into a self-diagnosis of specific areas where problems and inefficiencies continue to plague an AP workflow operation.
To continue the "triage" theme, we help clients to identify their pain points, to think in terms of their major areas of workflow and invoice processing ... these are common themes:
Inbound Vendor Invoices by snail mail, fax and e-mail; we know cold and flu season is upon us but it seems the pain always starts here ...
Data Entry; we know our mothers always told us to eat slowly but sometimes, we have so many invoices to consume and not enough time or resources to help with the volume ... indigestion, etc, the most painful of all ...
Approvals and Routing; we know that if we are waiting on others and we don't get our invoices paid on time, we miss out on early payment incentives ... yes, you guessed it, more pain ...
Payment and Inquiries on Payment; it seems that this pain comes back to visit us? The when and where is it pain ....
Archiving, Reporting & Document Management; How do we make sure that this pain doesn't come back? Do we have to dig through cabinets for audit reports?
Guess what ... We have been able to identify causes. For example, are increasing volumes of monthly invoices starting to overwhelm your AP data entry staff?
Have you calculated the cost of "pain" per invoice for each physically handled piece of paper? Are your approvers, project managers, budgetary advisors and distant office locations holding up the approval process? We have a cure ... workflow automation, improves processes and web based technology would be a step towards better AP workflow health. It can also help with vendors inquiring on approval and payments.
After all that is said and done, we have been successful in determining our clients sources of pain. We have advised on a path to better health and we can safely say, the "patient" is well on their way to full "pain" relief.
Posted by Catherine Dahl on Mon, Mar 01, 2010
We are helping Tourism Victoria with their green plans though AP automation.
Did you know you can go green and save at the same time? Tourism Victoria, one of our new beanbills clients, is using accounts payable automation to go green and reduce their carbon foot print. Click here to check out what other green initiatives they have on the go throughout their operations. Did you know that an automated accounts payable method is 2/3 cheaper than the old manual system of pushed paper around for approvals and manually entering it all into the accounting system. Want to learn more about it read this article. Tourism Victoria have the opportunity to save as much as 188 pounds of paper annually! That works out to 4,225 pounds of greenhouse gases avoided. Way to go Tourism Victoria!