Going 'Green' With an Invoice Management System

1. Going 'Green' With an Invoice Management System Over the last decade, many businesses have been actively working towards reducing their paper usage. With the advent of technology such as an Invoice Management Solution (IMS), businesses who want to reduce their reliance on paper now have the chance too. Investing in IMS is a good way for businesses to improve their green credentials along with working towards their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. Investing in IMS can also provide huge time savings along with reduced data entry costs. For More Details Regarding Invoice Management Software and Expense Management Software, Please visit here. With recent headlines warning us that global warming is becoming a serious issue, CSR is becoming a higher priority for companies. For companies processing thousands of invoices per month, this may quickly add up to millions of pieces of paper being handled. So what changes can a business make to become more environmentally friendly? Investing in IMS could be one of the first steps to take in reducing paper consumption within the company, helping the environment along with giving the ongoing company some financial benefits too.

2. Manually processing invoices is a very labour intensive and expensive job and accordingly it costs an average of $19 to process an invoice manually, whereas automating an invoice would cost, on average, only $2. This statistic shows that by investing in IMS a business could gain huge costs savings aswell become more 'green' and sustainable. Additional benefits include: 1.Improved productivity of the accounts payable team: Automating many of the processes enables AP staff to concentrate on more strategic tasks. 2.Improved supplier relations: When suppliers contact the AP department with queries, the invoice and all accompanying details can be instantly retrieved and the query answered, saving time and removing the cost of calling them back. 3.Improved control over key business processes: Invoices are coded, matched or authorised and become ready for payment much faster than with a manual process allowing all supplier discounts to be received. 4.Improved level of service to internal departments: Authorised users outside the AP department can view the invoice and status in order to answer supplier queries without referring to the AP team. They can also obtain details of expenditure against specific budget codes or cost centres. 5.Reduced data entry costs: Many invoice processing solution use OCR technologies (optical character recognition) to automatically "read" the invoice and inputs the details straight into your finance system. It can also learn new supplier invoices automatically.

3. 6.Reduced cost and time in resolving discrepancies: An invoice processing solution means the AP team do not need to chase the procurers to approve order discrepancies. If there are any delays they are automatically escalated to ensure invoices can still be processed within supplier credit terms. 7.Reduced document storage costs: An invoice processing solution will completely eliminate other storage costs, whether you are currently storing on or off-site, using microfilm or any other alternative storage media. The solution is BIP0008 compliant (legally acceptable format), so paper copies can be discarded. 8.Reduced stationary costs: An invoice processing solution will save businesses money on buying paper, ink and toner as well as on using power to print and copy documents. Although there are many benefits to investing in IMS, a recent survey found that only a third of small and mid-sized companies and just 22% of the largest have yet to adopt any paper free processes. These statistics shows that there is still a long way to go if businesses want to be totally paper free and 'green'. However, those businesses who have invested in IMS will have seen numerous benefits, such as the ones mentioned previously, and the environment would has been helped by them by taking the first steps towards becoming paper free.