Accounts Payable (AP) Automation

There are a number of benefits realized when you automate processes through our accounts payable management software. Details of these benefits can be found in our Definitive Guide to Accounts Payable Automation. Digitizing AP processes enables you to:

• Eliminate manual tasks and improve cash flow by processing invoices up to 70% faster
• Reduce invoice processing costs by up to 80%
• Eliminate keying errors by eliminating manual handling of invoices
• Handle 100% of payment disbursements electronically
• Scale your AP department for growth without increasing the number of FTEs
• Improve supply chain visibility
• Ensure greater compliance and accurate audits
• Significantly reduce the opportunity for fraud
• Capture early payment discounts
• Spend less time handling disputes
• Free up your AP team’s time so they can focus on value-added tasks.

The average cost to manually process an invoice is $15.96 compared to $2.94 per invoice for best-in-class AP teams that have implemented automation. Automation enables AP to process invoices up to 70% faster, thus cutting both cost and time.

AP automation achieves these goals by streamlining the approval workflow, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual matching and approval of invoices. Automating the process cuts exceptions and other bottlenecks; issues which require valuable AP time to resolve.

Manual keying of invoices is error-prone while automating the process ensures data accuracy. Accounts payable workflow automation also eliminates the likelihood of lost or misplaced invoices. Errors and lost or misplaced invoices can lead to delayed or late payments, impacting relationships with suppliers.

Process efficiency translates into workflow efficiency. When you remove paper and manual tasks from the invoice approval process, you also remove the incidence of lost invoices and mis-keyed data.

With Cor360 Approval Workflow, you become 100% paperless from Day 1. Our Smart Routing technology ensures invoices are routed to the appropriate person for approval and review.

Cor360 Approval Workflow’s automated three-way match capability matches invoices to POs and Receipt of Goods without human intervention. This allows invoices that match to be routed straight through to your ERP or accounting system for accurate and timely payment, leaving only exceptions to be handled and routed to the appropriate approver automatically.

An electronic invoice or e-invoice is a fully digital electronic exchange of an invoice between a supplier and a buyer. It is fully digital from the point of creation straight through to its approval and entry into the company’s ERP or AP system. An e-invoice is not a fax, email, or pdf.

Corcentric’s e-invoicing software can help make you paperless from Day 1 by centralizing and digitizing all your invoices. We set up managed digital and physical mailboxes so all of your invoices can be immediately centralized and converted to accurate, easy-to-manage electronic invoices.

Our e-invoicing solution lets you define the allowable parameters for invoice conversion, configure invoicing rules to fit your business, and generate audit trails quickly.

Accounts payable professionals agree that the three-way match (Invoice to PO and Receipt of Goods) is the optimal way to ensure accurate and timely payments. However, manually matching invoices to POs is extremely inefficient.

What makes Corcentric’s three-way match capability so compelling is our matching algorithm that gives you full control over how invoices match and what line-item matching fields are required.

This enables the vast majority of invoices to pass straight through to your AP system or ERP for payment, and provides confidence that payments are accurate. Those that do not match are flagged for further action.

Visibility into invoices and spend can give the accounts payable department better insight into the Days Payable Outstanding (DPO), capture early payment discounts, and enable better forecasting and more informed decision making. Manual processes and paper lead to a lack of visibility, but digitizing and centralizing every invoice provides real-time, 24/7 visibility into the approval and payment status of every invoice, for both the supplier and the buyer.

Corcentric’s Supplier Portal gives your suppliers visibility into their own invoice status. This will reduce the amount of time your employees spend answering inquiries and handling disputes.

By gaining insight into Days Payable Outstanding (DPO), AP can define better payment timeframes and capture supplier discounts. Automation technology allows finance departments to control payables more effectively and provides real-time visibility into liabilities.

Corcentric’s Cor360 Payables Automation also provides a wide range of on-demand reporting capabilities, which reveals the information necessary to gain greater control over cash flow and working capital.

Some solutions find ERP integration problematic. Our AP automation solution is ERP-agnostic, integrating seamlessly with all popular ERP, financial systems, and enterprise platforms. There is no need for laborious synchronization processes or complex data extraction algorithms.

Automation streamlines the invoice approval process and substantially reduces late payments and thus, reduces payables friction. Suppliers will know when their invoices will be paid and if there are any exceptions that could impede payment.

Corcentric’s Supplier Portal lets suppliers see the date and amount of every payment to increase transparency. Corcentric can make those payments via paper check, ACH, ghost cards, wire, Vcards, or whatever medium you and your supplier agree on. Plus, Corcentric’s assistance in onboarding suppliers results in better relationships between suppliers and buyers.

Corcentric can also provide accelerated payments to suppliers with our supply chain financing capability.

Corcentric will scan, capture, and convert paper to 100% electronic invoices at our Invoice Virtualization Center, whether they are submitted via PDF, web, fax, email, or snail mail.

Using invoice scanning and double-blind keying technology (which is more accurate than traditional Optical Character Recognition or OCR), we extract 99.95% accurate, standardized information from invoices and convert them to true electronic invoices. This will enable accurate matching and exception handling.

B2B payments are digitally transferred, in real time, directly from your own ERP or AP system into the supplier’s designated bank account. This eliminates the cost and time associated with manually cutting and mailing checks.

When payments are made electronically, potential fraud and duplicate payments are eliminated, since invoices that pass through the matching process are sent straight through to the ERP or AP system for payment.

Corcentric is able to disburse payments in multiple formats in 18 countries and 140 currencies.