Survey Says: A/P Departments Face Challenges IDC Can Solve

On October 20, IAPP and Brainware teamed for an interactive webinar exploring the value proposition for Intelligent Data Capture in accounts payable. As part of the presentation, participants, including A/P and finance personnel from across a broad range of industries, were asked to provide input on six vital factors at play in assessing A/P efficiency:

- How many days, on average, does it take your organization to pay invoices?

-How many invoices per month does your A/P department process?

-How many people (FTEs) are processing invoices in your organization?

-What do you believe is the biggest benefit to using automated data capture for invoice processing?

-What is your average cost to process an invoice?

-What percentage of invoices have a corresponding purchase order?

Among our findings:

Among businesses with a higher percentage of non-PO invoices, "fewer errors" was a desired trait in automation solutions. When a greater number of invoices require departmental approval (in the absence of a purchase order from which to verify), automation solutions provide a simple method for approval with minimal disruption to the overall process.

"Lower costs" was the most common perceived benefit of automation, particularly among departments paying over $6 to process each invoice.

Most participants had a very high percentage of PO-based invoices, with nearly half surpassing 80%. By adopting intelligent data capture solutions, such companies could ultimately realize a significant touchless rate of touchless pass, meaning the invoice is processed into an ERP system with no human intervention whatsoever--in other words, the ultimate model of efficiency.

Participants who took more than 8 days (or even 15 days) to pay an invoice were more likely to cite "faster turnaround" as a priority in automation. These organizations may be missing out on a great deal of revenue to be gained through early payment discounts, and the efficiency provided by intelligent data capture has proven helpful in this regard.