The What, How, and Why of an Invoice Automation Software

Generating invoices manually is not only burdensome but also time-consuming and impacts the team’s overall productivity. 2 out of 3 knowledge professionals say that automation has maximised their productivity at work. These stats highlight how crucial part automation plays in managing financial tasks. Thus, the billing process can also be streamlined using invoice automation software. It offers an error-free way to enhance invoice approvals, save time for urgent tasks, and minimise overall processing costs.

What is an Invoice?

An invoice is the official document a seller issues to their customers to bill for services or goods. They usually contain information like the client’s contact details, description and quantity of services or goods provided, and the total cost. Managing the invoices is a crucial part of any firm’s financial operations, validating the legitimacy of customers and ensuring a secure billing and payment process. 

What Is an Invoice Automation Software?

Automatic invoice generator is the software that leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline bill processing and payments. The AI-powered invoice processing system automatically enters data from invoices, checks their authenticity, and processes payments faster. For instance, many software have Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that scans incoming bills, retrieves relevant information, and then enters it into the database for future use. The technology also checks for any omissions or invoice errors to ensure an accurate billing process. Compared to manually processing invoices, automation makes it easier for firms to monitor their finances by giving them real-time visibility into the Accounts Payable (AP) process.

How Does Invoice Automation Software Work?

The invoice process begins when the firm’s accounting department receives a bill from the supplier. It is matched and verified against the purchase order to ensure that the information provided is accurate. Once authenticated, the bill is entered into the accounting system for approval. There can be many steps involved in the approval process depending on the size of a company. For example, established businesses may require different levels of approval before the bill is finally processed and paid. It may take a few days to complete the approval process. However, many of the manual steps are skipped, leveraging automated invoice software. As soon as the organisation receives the bill, it is automatically scanned, entered into the system, and sent to the relevant personnel for approval. The software even can match the invoice data against the one stored in databases to ensure its accuracy before sending it for approval.

Why is there a Need for Invoice Automation Software?

More and more companies are investing in automated invoicing software to reduce, generate, and process error-free bills by automating data entry, authenticating information, and centralising invoices in a single place.

Here are some other perks of using invoice automation software, such as:

1: No More Human Errors

Automated invoice processing minimises the risk of typos or human errors, automatically entering all the data into the system. The AI-powered software automatically captures data from incoming bills and authenticates it before entering it into the system, saving accountants time and reducing costly errors. For instance, if an incorrect item is on the invoice, automated processing software detects and alerts the team about the error before it is fed to the system.

2: Increased Efficiency

When firms automate their invoicing process, it helps them reduce the time required to generate and manage bills. The automated invoice process helps access all the invoices quickly and easily whenever required. This eliminates the need to search for any invoice manually, increasing invoice processing efficiency.

Still confused about how an invoice automation software increases efficiency? Contact us!

3: Automated Invoice Matching

Manually matching bills with purchase orders is tedious and time-consuming for organisations. This is where automated invoice software comes in, making invoice matching with corresponding orders seamless. It checks for discrepancies between two documents and helps the accounting team resolve the issue quickly, saving time and minimising inaccuracies.

4: Significant Cost Reduction

Businesses can save costs twofold using an invoice automation solution, not employing workers for data entry and reducing their reliance on paper bills. In addition to reducing staff costs, AI-powered invoice processing minimises paper waste as documents are stored digitally. This helps organisations become eco-friendly whilst saving them money.

5: Faster Payment Cycles

Automated invoicing verifies all the bills and enters them into the system automatically, making the payment process faster than conventional data entry. Verifying and approving invoices quickly means they can be sent to the AP department for processing faster, making the payment cycle more efficient.

6: Improved Visibility

Automated invoice processing centralises all the bills in one place, enabling you to get better visibility and the latest information about AP processes. The team can have an overview of the outstanding payments quickly whenever needed. This helps them get greater control over when any bill needs to be paid and helps the accounting professionals plan for their future expenses more effectively.

Suggested Read: From Innovation to Impact: Unveiling the Future of E-Invoicing with RecordMe

Things to Consider Before Investing in Invoice Automation Software

• Seamless Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence can learn from data by recognising patterns and exceptions. This allows the software to make decisions without human input, speeding up the invoice. Not only this, but it does also help detect any fraudulent invoices.
• Robust Optical Character Recognition: Businesses can easily extract data from soft or hard invoices and enter them into the system with human intervention leveraging OCR technology. It is usually paired with other data extraction tools, such as Machine Learning (ML), to ensure the information is accurate and complete.
• Purchase Order Matching: The software has an advanced technology that uses a set of standards to cross-check vendor-supplied bills against internal data like Purchase Orders (POs) to minimise discrepancies.
• Cloud-based Platform: Such solutions offer improved scalability, flexibility, reliability, and security, everything that is crucial for businesses seeking to maximise the efficiency of invoice processing.
• Simple Integration with the Existing Systems: Integrating AI-powered invoice processing with the existing accounting system will help automate the entire process. Whether it is data entry or payment processing, integration with the current system makes it easier and faster to manage all finances. As all the data is integrated across systems, the accounting team can easily check for discrepancies and take the necessary action quickly.

How Can RecordMe Help?

If you are looking for an automated invoice solution to simplify your invoice processes, RecordMe is your go-to option. RecordMe, the AI-powered Financial Bot, helps thousands of businesses automate invoice processing and streamline all financial tasks. From removing the need for manual data entry to checking discrepancies, our invoice automation software helps your company save money and time. Our robust invoice processing software uses OCR technology to quickly extract data from soft or hard copy invoices quickly and with a greater precision of 99.99%. With the right automation software and tools in place, we ensure that your invoicing process is secure, error-free, and efficient simultaneously. So, bid farewell to problems related to invoice processing and generate error-free bills in multiple languages and formats with RecordMe to ensure a seamless customer experience.