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June 24, 2022
Accounts departments are always overloaded with processing different types of invoices having unstructured data. With automation via an invoice capture software, the accounts teams will not only be able to reduce cognitive overload but meet deadlines for invoice processing as well. Want to learn about all the benefits? Read ahead…
The finance department of your transportation and logistics business can witness chaotic invoice processing of varying degrees. There will be vendor invoices in almost every shape and format one can imagine. This includes hard copies, scanned PDF files, emails, and more.
Capturing information accurately and processing payments can be challenging in such circumstances. Matters become worse when there are heaps of invoices during peak season. Your overburdened finance staff is more likely to commit errors in forms of incorrect data, data mismatch, or lost information.
So, what’s the solution?
An invoice capture software for your logistics business can help. In this article we will be discussing what invoice capture software does?, the benefits of having one, how to choose the best one for your organization?, and how to test before you buy?.
An invoice capture software leverages the power of data to help finance teams standardize their accounts payable processes. It extracts relevant data from invoices and adds it to the accounts payable systems directly. Clubbed with AI tech, it can automate the entire process end-to-end.
Invoice automation via an efficient AI based invoice capture software can also help with matching prices, managing purchase orders, standardizing workflows, and making digital payments. Your finance team can also streamline the accounts payable system.
Here is a list of the best invoice capture software for logistics:
Automation of the accounts payable system brings several benefits for your finance team. It will be an investment that will bring long-term returns.
Let’s look at the advantages in detail:
Reduces Processing Time: Employees save between 10%-50% of their time through automated processes with capabilities to no longer cross-reference records.
Reduce Accounts Payable (AP) Operational Cost: There is a substantial cost associated with maintaining a team, the case is similar with AP departments also. AP teams day-in-and-out are stuck between manual operations (such as invoice reconciliation and data entry). An invoice capture software would increase their productivity and throughput, and reduce operational cost relatively. In fact, 31% of business leaders in a survey agreed that automation helps them save costs.
Avoids Processing Errors: Manual data processing often leads to costly errors for your business. An automated system is repeatable and performs tasks without any errors. It is also scalable, allowing you to process heaps of data at once.
Improves Team Productivity: Manual processing makes your team work on menial tasks that do not add much value to the bottom line. Automating these activities helps them concentrate on areas where more human attention is essential.
Enables Easy Accessibility: Automating the invoice process helps eliminate tedious paperwork. Your finance team and other stakeholders can access electronic records of invoices from anywhere using cloud infrastructure. It enhances communication and collaboration, leading to faster work completion.
Provides a Single Source of Truth: The automation invoice capture software provides a transparent platform with a complete overview of the invoicing process. There is no missed documents or erroneous entries that affect the team productivity. Everyone remains on the same page with a single source of truth.
Improves Collaboration and Relationship: Invoice automation software helps your internal teams collaborate better with finance. It also gives everyone the autonomy to execute tasks with well-defined workflows. Paying your vendors timely also strengthens your relationship and improves your market reputation.
Traditional invoice processing is time-consuming for your finance teams. The process starts with your team receiving the invoice from the supplier. They would try to match and approve it in the system. There would be a need for further approvals when the invoice amount is large and beyond standard limits.
Invoices will then get added to the system for payment after receiving due approvals. The manual process can involve several other complexities based on the different types of businesses. It will hamper the productivity of your staff, especially if they have to process several invoices at once.
Post Automation:
An AI-based invoice capture software helps eliminate these tedious tasks and gets straight to the business. Your finance teams can review and feed invoices into the system as soon as they arrive. There is no manual intervention needed to add information. The software will scan the data and extract the relevant information.
The software can also capture and feed the data from desired fields into the automated management system. It could be everything from the vendor’s name to the number of items and invoice amount. The invoice would then proceed to the relevant authorities for approval.
There are varied types of invoices in logistics such as proforma invoice, retainer invoice, credit invoice, debit invoice, etc. However, the requirements of any organization can be subjective depending upon the scale they operate at. A local logistics company may not witness a variety of documents while a large scale enterprise maybe bombarded by them.
Yet just to provide a streamlined thought process, here are some things to keep in mind:
Volume of Invoices: Depending upon the number of transactions fulfilled by the logistics organization, the number of invoices produced will also increase. Some of the large scale enterprises process millions of invoices in a year. Make sure the invoice capture software is capable of processing huge volumes of invoices.
Unstructured Data: Multiple large and even some small enterprises witness a variety of invoices with different structures and formats. If your organization receives similar kinds of unstructured invoices, try to go for an innovative IDP solution. These are capable of handling unstructured documents.
Scalability: A majority of organizations can have varied business depending upon the demand and the quarter of the year. However, there are times when the organizations are simply not prepared for the volumen. Look for an invoice capture software that can provide that kind of scalability.
Customization: Compliance and regulations change with time. This often leads to changes in the workflow. Having an invoice capture software that can be molded as per the changes would be a plus.
Compatibility with Existing Infrastructure: Compatibility can be a big issue considering some of the modern day invoice capture software are not compatible with legacy infrastructure. However, these should also be compatible with downstream applications used by you for data management.
Security & Support: Security & support are two different facets. Yet having secure software at your ends retains the privacy and confidentiality of data. Talking about support, the vendors backing the invoice capture software should be able to provide necessary support during fault mitigation.
Remote Access: This may or may not be applicable for invoices processing in every organization. However, companies are switching to more hybrid workflows post covid-19. In times like these having a tool that is accessible from anywhere would be a boon.
There can be other sets of guidelines too for choosing the right software. Yet, it is important that one understands the organizational need and makes decisions based on that.
There is no standard rule of thumb for testing an invoice capture software before buying. But before creating a purchase, these are the things one can keep in mind.
Besides this, it would be ideal to request for a demo to have a better understanding of the invoice capture software. The vendors understand their tools much better than anyone with a fresh perspective. Based on all these postulates, one can make the final buying decision.
VisionERA is an AI-powered SaaS based system that acts as a catalyst for enabling data-driven decision-making and offering uninterrupted business growth. It has the capability to transform document-heavy logistics businesses with advanced HI-AI collaboration.
Built with a continuous feedback learning mechanism, the software offers complete sophistication and customization for your unique business needs. It gives seamless plug-and-play functionality with additional drag-and-drop features that your team will love.
Logistics businesses that use VisionERA as invoice capture software can boost up to 20x faster processing with excellent accuracy. They can also experience up to 3x productivity or more with the help of integrations with RPA (robotic process automation) tools.
Note: Invoice processing has always been complicated in logistics but not anymore. Now, you can implement VisionERA at just $0 in your organization. Feel free to use this link here to read more about the offer.
To try by yourself, simply use our Free Trial to upload your invoices and see.
To get a detailed know-how on using VisionERA for invoice processing, schedule a demo with us.