Aberdeen group lists best practices for managing receipt and approval of incoming invoices

(June 2011)

According to a research conducted by the Aberdeen group, best in class organisations turnaround invoice payments in 3.8 days while the laggards would take about 6 times longer to process the same invoice.

So what are they doing differently?

The research lists some best practices –

• Standardise your invoice receipt and approval processes. This helps reduce your exception rate by almost 30%.
  
  
• Centralise invoice management – such as initial receipt, discrepancy resolution and final payment. This helps remove redundant operations and capitalise on economies of scale.
  
  
• Quantify benefits of AP automation to achieve executive support. Lack of internal support can pose a challenge for further improvements.
  
  
• Enable 3 way matching of invoices with goods received notes and PO’s.
  
  
• Integrated AP with contract management to enable comparison of invoices to negotiated payment terms and pricing. This is to make sure that you never loose on your early payment discounts and improve relationships with suppliers.
  
  
• Maintain a centralised, searchable repository of invoices to ensure ease of accessibility. The data on the invoice like – vendor, items, price, terms etc is valuable for future negotiations and should be easy to retrieve. It’s essential to retain and retrieve invoices easily from a compliance perspective as well.
  
  
• Integrate AP system with existing ERP systems or financial backend systems- this eliminates manual re-keying of data and avoid any discrepancies between systems. 

Invoice automation solutions from DCS

Refine your purchase to pay (P2P) operations with a solution which seamlessly connects the entire process from procurement to final payment, reducing processing time and saving your company money.

DCS’s P2P solutions eliminate paper invoices, capture accurate information with no keying and match transactions automatically, enhancing the visibility and efficiency of your P2P process.

For more information on invoice automation solutions call DCS on 01753 616720 you can also complete our contact form for a fast tailored response.