Receipts from an increasing number of sources make invoice management difficult in many companies and organizations. The consequences include complex preparatory accounting, missing documents, no overview and long processing times. But with electronic or digital invoice management, a remedy can easily be found.
In principle, companies already receive many invoices in digital form - either by email or via customer portals. However, they must first be downloaded from there. This is an annoying procedure involving logging in and saving, which costs a lot of effort and nerves month after month as part of the preparatory accounting. In addition, invoices and receipts arriving by post are, in the best case scenario, scanned and - just like outgoing invoices that are in isolated systems - routed to various stations for further processing. In short: Dealing with hybrid documents is too much for many companies. Errors in downstream business processes are inevitable.
Paper-based booking as a source of errors
These errors include, for example, printing and posting digital invoices. The problem is not only that digital documents have to be stored digitally, but also that the paper-based process has a high potential for errors. This is how data is often typed out. Transfer errors occur and the procedure generates effort. The study “Digitization in Accounting 2019” by KPMG shows how widespread such activities are. According to her, 40 percent of companies still book on paper. In such companies, receipts are often forgotten, there is insufficient clarity and the processing time for invoices is record-breakingly long. The preparatory accounting can only be carried out with a lot of personnel effort and high costs. Nevertheless, advantages such as discounts are unthinkable and damage to the company’s image due to late payment of invoices is also not unreasonable.
That’s what matters
That’s why companies need intelligent invoice management. Many have recognized this and search the Internet for terms such as “manage invoices” or even “invoice manager”. But the search for a contemporary solution does not require such approaches. It is important to know what distinguishes clever invoice management, which is also a form of document management. These are essentially the following success factors:
- completeness All receipts are complete. This includes invoices that arrive via email, invoices that suppliers make available in customer portals and receipts that are scanned on the go, as well as invoices that arrive by post and documents from third-party solutions. This can include, for example, outgoing invoices created in the ERP system or another dedicated tool and travel expense reports that employees share via cloud storage.
- correctness The information recorded, such as invoice number, invoice date and invoice amounts, must be correct - regardless of how many different software systems and stations the receipts are passed on.
- Clarity It is important to organize all documents clearly so that they can be found again at any time with as little effort as possible. It is helpful to bring them together in a central location and tag them with specific keywords.
- transparency All work steps should be understandable for third parties, for example auditors. This includes, among other things, when a document was imported from where, who added which keywords or who deleted which document and when.
- Security Invoices can contain sensitive data and must be protected from unauthorized viewing and access. It must also be ensured that they remain readable throughout the entire retention period. Therefore, they should not only be transmitted in encrypted form, but must also be archived in a legally secure manner. Storage in PDF/A format and redundant storage in secure data centers are recommended.
- speed A key characteristic of professional invoice management is a short processing time for invoices. This means: All invoices and receipts are brought together as quickly as possible after they arrive and made available to the respective applications - whether it is an accounting solution or a document management system (DMS) for archiving. This creates the conditions for quick payments and bookings as well as timely evaluations and decisions based on the latest information.
Digital invoice management as a solution Companies and organizations can achieve all of these success factors with intelligent digital invoice management. It is possible to easily automate a variety of activities. The range extends from retrieving receipts from various sources such as customer portals, email inboxes and invoicing tools, to collecting and managing them in a central location in the cloud and up to transferring them to accounting systems, DMS and other applications.
This way of working reduces manual effort to a minimum. This means companies can eliminate sources of error and save time and money. In addition, business processes are accelerated, which is associated with a shorter processing time for documents.
