How invoice platforms are failing both the supplier and customer

Managing some or all Accounts Payable processes via an invoicing platform is becoming increasingly common in this digital age.

Especially as digital transformation is more accessible and affordable than ever for businesses.

However, some organisations are discovering that their tools aren’t simplifying processes to the extent they originally planned. Suppliers and customers alike are both being failed by invoicing solutions that are not suited for the business need.

In this blog, we explore why some invoicing solutions are not up to the task, from the perspective of the supplier issuing the invoice as well as how this impacts the customer receiving the invoice. We highlight the key considerations Financial Directors need to be making when selecting the right invoice platform for all stakeholders to benefit, including greater efficiency and cost savings.

Accounts Payable, automated.

Remove unnecessary manual tasks from your AP team's workload with inbound invoice automation from Transalis. Integrated directly into your business systems.

The problem with simplistic invoice management platforms

As mentioned above, businesses of all sizes have been investigating how best to create efficiencies in their invoicing processes. Digital transformation teams have been highlighting how technology can help in this area. So, businesses have been implementing invoicing platforms to digitise previously manual or paper invoice processing.

Whilst this has been a huge step forward for a lot of businesses in how they manage their incoming invoices, others have stumbled across problems. For example, some Accounts Payable teams (AP) are discovering that their solution is too simplistic to deal with incoming invoices from various sources and in various formats. Other Accounts Receivable teams (AR) are realising that they are needing to manage invoices via multiple different customer invoicing platforms. As a consequence, it is negatively impacting customer-supplier relationships.

Inefficient invoice processing solutions from the Accounts Receivable perspective

For supplier AR teams, submitting invoices via an invoice platform is sometimes just as complex as submitting invoices manually or via email. This is due, in part, to the multitude of different invoice platforms being utilised by their different customers. For each platform, there is another login and another interface to be familiarised with.

The Accounts Receivable community are referring to this phenomenon as ‘Portal Fatigue’. AR teams are becoming increasingly exhausted as they navigate sometimes dozens of different invoice platforms.

60% of respondents in an APEX Analytix survey had to log on to 10 or more portals every month with 10% logging on to more than 50, and 40% said that portals had increased the departmental workload. Spendmatters.com

As highlighted by Bottomline.com, AR teams are having to log in to multiple customer invoice platforms, and match the payments to open invoices in their record systems. This level of additional administrative work takes its toll on suppliers and can damage working relationships with their clients.

Inbound invoice automation to benefit all

Evidently, there’s a significant need for the centralisation of invoice data and the removal of unnecessary processes for both the supplier AR function and customer AP function.

More enlightened CFOs are achieving this by working with their digital transformation teams and researching more suitable solutions for all parties involved. This solution needs to allow; simplicity and ease for the invoice issuer (AR function), efficient processing and payment for the invoice recipient (AP function), as well as avoid the unnecessary implementation of new systems. This is where inbound invoice automation fits the bill perfectly.

Transalis have developed a solution targeting these pain points for both the supplier and customer when it comes to invoice management and processing. Transalis inbound invoice automation provides an efficient and simple way of processing invoices, by harnessing systems integration and narrow AI technology. With this solution, invoices are automatically translated from their original file into a format that is compatible with the Accounts Payable internal business systems. Therefore, there is no time-consuming setup between trading partners, no additional logins, and no time needed to familiarise.

An efficient invoice management solution

Despite being an Accounts Payable solution, Inbound invoice automation supports the whole invoicing process for both AR and AP teams.

Firstly, the invoice issuer (AR) can send the invoice in any file format that suits their business processing. This means they no longer need to submit their invoices via other invoice submission platforms. There are no extra logins and no portal fatigue.

AP teams also benefit as inbound invoice automation captures the incoming invoice, translates it into the right format and then automatically feeds it into the chosen business application. This means AP clerks no longer spend time manually rekeying data, the subsequent risk of error is removed, and they can instead concentrate on more valuable tasks.

Ultimately, inbound invoice automation simplifies the entire invoicing cycle to create efficiencies in processing and speed up payment. Naturally, this results in strong, positive supplier relationships. This solution can also provide serious ROI for businesses looking to digitally transform their AP function, which can be discovered by using our helpful calculator. Going forward, finance and digital transformation teams need to work innovately together when exploring how they can simplify business processes as well as make savings.