| Your company has a unique value proposition to | | | | be ample agreement that this will improve the |
| its customers, that's why you're in business. | | | | speed and quality of your invoices, vendors in the |
| Therefore the concerns of your CFO can be | | | | US have lagged behind the rest of the world in |
| viewed differently from industry to industry and | | | | managing the conversion. Therefore most of us |
| company to company. There are some, however, | | | | have to consider an operation that will not only |
| that seem to be universal. We're going to focus | | | | deliver electronic invoices but process the paper |
| on three of them with respect to the Accounts | | | | ones as well. Having them both validated and |
| Payable process. | | | | made available for both coding and approval online |
| The Problem with Paper-based Invoices | | | | allows you to consider all invoices as 'electronic' |
| Financial statements should reflect the work and | | | | because all of your information comes to you |
| activities that occurred in the time period for | | | | that way. Doing this allows you access to the |
| those statements. But if your invoices are still | | | | following: |
| predominantly paper based or still delivered | | | | Immediately identify all invoice based accruals for |
| directly to the office or requisitioner of the goods | | | | any time period, even before the approval |
| or services, you may still be looking at a lag time | | | | process has completed. Immediately identify all |
| (sometimes substantial) between the time the | | | | invoiced unrecorded liabilities. In the past, this has |
| invoice arrives and the time you can evaluate and | | | | been especially troublesome. If a paper non-PO or |
| accrue the appropriate value. | | | | non-contract based invoice is laying on someone's |
| This should no longer be an issue. One of the | | | | desk, the finance department rarely knows it |
| better approaches is to outsource the 'ingestion' | | | | exists. By capturing the image up front, even if |
| of your invoices, electronic or paper. With the | | | | the approval process gets bogged down, finance |
| proper controls in place, this could streamline the | | | | can still take steps to record it. During the |
| entry and quality of the information associated | | | | approval process, identify the burden of work for |
| with your invoice stream. | | | | any person or group within your organization, |
| Much has been claimed, over the last few years, | | | | giving you the ability to estimate approval and |
| about increasing the number of electronic invoices | | | | payment schedules. |
| over paper-based ones. Although there seems to | | | | |