Document Management Briefing: Are You Ready to Transform Accounts Payable?
Lost invoices, delayed payments and the resulting accounting and compliance tangles are the consequences of poor accounts-payable document management. Consider these strategies and tactics to make your AP department run faster, more smoothly and in step with the most current technological innovations.
The Five Most Common AP Challenges
Which of these are you currently facing?
- Managing many manual tasks and a great deal of paper documents
- Attempting to make payments on time and avoid contract penalties
- Missing the boat on early-payment discounts due to system inefficiencies
- Lacking audit trails and risking non-compliance
- Dealing with lost or duplicate invoices
The Strategy: Say Goodbye to Dickens
Does mention of the accounts payable department conjure up a dusty vision of a backroom full of Dickensian-era clerks with green visors, filing invoices and thumbing through stacks of paper searching for “that lost invoice?”
Unfortunately, such images haven't been banished to the past. At many companies, AP staffs still have a half-dozen people—or more—reviewing and stamping invoices. Such a reliance on painfully manual AP processes can create and impair workflow and result in late or lost invoices—with often costly consequences. All that paper also makes it difficult—and in some cases simply impossible—to maintain the kind of audit trails that ensure compliance with regulatory mandates including the burdensome Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
A Short Path to Savings
AP departments can do away with these antiquated barriers to efficiency, by putting some carefully selected technology tools to work. By integrating invoice processing, order matching and scanning solutions seamlessly with ERP and other systems, companies can gain immediate control over invoice payments. Cash flow will improve, and these businesses can better manage their spending and budget planning. In many cases, an AP department can realize significant ROI within the first year of implementation.
What’s more, AP departments can bid adieu to digging through file cabinets to find invoices. They’re easily accessible and are accompanied by a complete audit history.
Imaging Growth on the Horizon
Despite such benefits, research shows that companies have been slow to move away from paper-intensive and manual processes. According to the 2010 Worldwide Capture and Image Management Software 2010-2014 Forecast and Analysis from market research firm IDC, fewer than 40% of survey respondents had invested in document imaging or capture solutions for invoice processing. But despite this seemingly anemic response, IDC also reports that AP is a “key growth area within the capture and image management market.”
Some key technology advances are likely the reason for this upswing. Document capture and OCR technology have improved greatly. AP systems can now integrate into existing electronic records-processing (ERP) systems and other back office and front-end systems. Such solutions offer a seamless, end-to-end flow of information with a comprehensive and reliable audit trail.
Such advances in the AP process deliver an attractive ROI Now, armed with such encouraging reports, you can put that Dickensian vision to rest for good, along with lost invoices and late payments.
Iron Mountain Suggests:
Five Steps to a New Level of AP Excellence
Iron Mountain provides efficient, economical and compliant Accounts Payable process solutions for companies. As you consider your own AP automation possibilities, take these steps into consideration:
1. Look for a true partner. The best vendor team is willing to acquaint itself with your organization as much as you need it to do so.
2. Maintain an open-door approach. The best vendor solutions aren’t hatched in a vacuum. Make the most from your technology’s expertise and experience by sharing as much as you can about your operation with them. The more you do, the more likely you are to get a customized system, as well as a solid plan for its implementation.
3. Integrate your AP solution into ERP and other back– and front-end systems. By doing so, you will gain end-to-end invoice control.
4. Phase it in. A gradual approach to a new AP system helps ease the pain of implementation—and lets you identify and address blips along the way.
5. Train, train, train. Moving to an automated system will undoubtedly cause culture shock. Structured, formalized training ensures that workers understand how to use the system. This eases the transition and maximizes benefits.
Have more document management questions? Read additional Knowledge Center stories on this subject, or Contact Iron Mountain consulting services team. You’ll be connected with a knowledgeable product and services specialist who can address your information management challenges.