Alarming Accounts Payable Department facts

Inefficient paper-based manual processes make Accounts Payable one of the scarcest departments in any office. Why are AP processes so tedious and cumbersome? The below facts may surprise you:

1.             A manual invoice process can sometimes exceed 15 steps before final posting is done (Source: Stellent Partners)

2.             52% of AP departments say their top priority is migrating away from paper-based processes but 80% of invoices still arrive in paper, and only 14% of paper invoices are input into the AP system in the day they arrive. (Source: The Accounts Payable Network)

3.             With minimal automation, it may take up to 16.3 days to process a single invoice. (Source: The Aberdeen Group)

4.             The average cost of processing an invoice in an environment with a low level of automation can be up to 20 times greater than in an environment with a high level of automation (Source: Institute if Finance & Management (IMOA))

5.             Due to manual entry and handling, on average, 3.6% of invoices have errors (Source: Institute if Finance & Management (IMOA))

6.             When vendors bypass AP and send invoices directly to the purchasers , it takes 5+ days for the invoice to reach AP (Source: 2012 AP Benchmarks Research Report)

7.             47 % of the Accounts Payable managers indicate that these lengthy processing times are their biggest problem (Ardent Partners)

8.             Organizations lose an estimated 5% of their          annual revenues to fraud, and many of these cases stem from the AP Department (Source: Association of Certified-fraud Examiners)

AP automation could eliminate the need for manual data entry, minimizing errors, reducing the cost per invoice, and boosting productivity by saving employees time. Plus, documents can be stored electronically making it easy for your staff to search for files using keywords and saving time. Human error would be minimized, leading to both happier vendors and customers. Your team can focus on more important tasks and get valuable work done.

Want to learn more about AP automation? Request more info or ask for a Document Management software demo here: www.informdecisions.com/ap-automation-definition/