One of the most costly back-office operations in your company could be your Accounts Payable department. The reason for the high cost of doing business back there is that many companies and organizations still have a paper-intensive manual process to receive invoices, open the mail, sort the mail and then start the arduous process of getting the invoice approved and finally paid.
Does this sound like your AP department?
Have you ever considered outsourcing this function – the complete process – and finally automating your accounts payable process through an effective digital mailroom operation that takes the pain out of the process and actually improves your bottom line in two very noticeable ways:
- Automating your AP process through a professional document conversion outsourcing business partner will reduce the cost of an internal staff that is currently processing all that paper.
- An effective and automated AP process will allow you to move invoices through the approval process electronically and quickly, thus allowing you to take advantage of quick-pay discounts every month. This savings alone will usually generate savings that will exceed your cost of automating the process and realizing a significant return on this investment.
- And don’t forget those audits! Once you automate, the days of not finding invoices, or spending countless hours trying to find them are history. Your new automated AP process will allow you to instantly find the invoice, appease the auditors and avoid those costly fines associated with sloppy paperwork and poor record keeping.
Is it really this easy?
Does it really generate significant advantages to your company or organization?
Yes it does. Accounts Payable scanning and the automation of the complete AP process are well documented in our industry. New scanner technology and capture software improvements now make this process affordable for small to medium size businesses.
While the process was pioneered in some of the largest corporations in the country, some processing over 30,000 invoices a month or more, it is now cost effective for just about any company processing over 500 invoices per month.
If you have never investigated the scanning of your invoices, and what benefits you can enjoy through automation, consider some of these possibilities the next time you look at that pile of paper invoices on the desk and wonder when you will ever get to the bottom of the stack and finally issue checks:
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- Let CTI manage the process through our digital mailroom processing services. We receive the invoices, not you. We do the opening, sorting, scanning and indexing of the financial information you need to import into your ERP system for payment processing. You don’t see a piece of paper, you never open another invoice – you just get the data and images you need to process the payment or identify the exceptions that your staff can now spend productive time on adjudicating for payment.
- We mentioned it above, but it bears mentioning again. One of the biggest benefits to automating your AP process is the ability to now take quick-pay discounts offered by your vendors. Imagine paying an invoice early and saving money when you do . . . this money pays for your new automated accounts payable system. It really is that easy. How much do you pay out in invoice payments each year? What if you could save 1% or 2% of that amount if you paid them early? Think about it . . . it’s probably a lot of money.
- As companies rebound from the recession and business improves, you will not have to add new accounting staff if you automate the process. An automated process will allow you to significantly increase the amount of invoices you process as your business grows, but you will not have to add a single person to your payroll to achieve even greater savings and pay for your automated AP processing system even faster!
- Automation allows you to seamlessly integrate the outsourced services and the importing of data and images directly into your accounting and financial software. Once you have this data, the workflows move the information electronically from receipt through payment in just hours, not days. Exceptions are quickly identified and can be process immediately because that’s all your staff will have to work on.
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Contact CTI today for a no-charge assessment and review of your manual paper-intensive process and let us show you how to quickly move to an automated accounts payable invoice processing system.
If you’ve seen some of our recent blogs from CTI, you will notice that CTI’s theme this year is “Lean and Mean in 2013”. One of the owners of CTI, Michael Epstein has been on an amazing weight loss journey that will be highlighted on the ABC TV show “Extreme Weight Loss”. He is applying his knowledge and success to CTI and it’s customers. No area is more deserving for getting lean and mean than in AP Automation. Let Michael and the CTI team help you get “Lean and Mean in 2013” !!!
Keep following CTI’s future blogs and find out more about Michael’s weight loss success, his tips and techniques for staying fit and other possible areas that CTI could help you get “Lean and Mean in 2013”.
Here’s a link to our first Lean and Mean in 2013 that talks about Michael’s transformation: http://bit.ly/138lzjf
It really is that easy!