Are thousands of invoices and payments coming through your Accounts Payable department regularly? More importantly, are these documents piling up and adding stress by taking away time from doing more imperative work?
If the answer is yes to the two preceding questions, then you join the 52% of organizations that have yet to adopt any automated AP systems. That staggering percentage means organizations are losing time and money relying on paper-based processes.
- 48% of organizations have already adopted automated AP management processes.
- Magnified to 67% in larger organizations with an additional
- 11% having plans of implementing in the near future.
These very positive numbers represent the impact AP automation solutions are having on various government, banking, finance, and insurance industries.
AP automation increases accuracy and efficiency by removing physical restrictions that can lead to late payments and data entry errors. When data entry errors, excess labor costs, and fewer payment disputes are eliminated there’s a greater concentration on your inbound invoices. The direct result is an increase in the number of invoices processed per week. The return from this investment has the opportunity to pay dividends for your organization. The combination including rapid time of implementation and a payback period in as little as one year means more time for acquiring invoices and contracts to further benefit your ROI.
- 65% of users reported a payback period of 12 months or less.
- 60% of organizations achieved implementation in 6 months or less with a third taking just 3 months.
- 50% “hands-free” throughput on average means more inbound invoices and greater piece of mind your documents are being handled correctly.
Some perspective on the cost saving abilities of AP automation can be seen from the following example. A survey conducted by AIIM reported that the median reduction in invoice processing costs were close to 33%. Suppose we take this 33% saving and apply it to a business processing 5,000 invoices a month (60,000 per year) at $10 per invoice. The total savings is approximately $200,000 per year. In addition to the savings from processing invoices, a savings from fewer payment errors was reported by 20% of AP automation users, and 25% of users required less staff in their AP department. Fewer outstanding costs mean greater opportunity for returns.
