Many organizations would have a hard time imagining how they could run their day-to-day business without an enterprise resource management system (ERP). These software packages are quite powerful, allowing a company to track, manage, and optimize a host of activities as well as ideally being able to cover their entire value chain from purchasing and sourcing, to manufacturing, sales, and distribution all the way to human resources and finance.
The drawback: while there are tons of ERP vendors out there, there are only a few purely cloud-based offerings that come with specialized capabilities around the purchase-to-pay workflow. US provider Acumatica is one of these, offering Accounts Payable (AP) capabilities with document recognition ability. However, to really gain a true competitive edge over the field and truly get the AP process right, they integrate with accounts payable automation specialists; partners that offer a complete automated financial systems with built-in smarts.
It Begins With Acumatica Document Recognition
Starting in 2020, cloud-based Acumatica AP document recognition service became part of it's third-party integrations, including a validation feature, that decreased the reliance on and the need to manually enter bills. So why partner with Accounts Payable automation specialists?
Combining Acumatica's capabilities with a specialized platform dedicated to AP automation brings together the best of two worlds by augmenting the capabilities for document recognition and invoice processing, extending the ability all the way from purchase order to payments. This ability addresses one of the most common problems in the accounts payable process: delays.
Thanks to a seamless integration between the two platforms, there is a significantly higher ability to speed up invoice processing, validate information, cut costs, and securely scale your business. These benefits work in any scenario, even if you have a global footprint with international suppliers and partners, an ongoing need to juggle multiple currencies, or regularly deal with a wide variety of and tax code.
Moving Past the First Leg in the Relay Race
The initial sharing and inputting data into the system is only the first step of the process. Consider the Acumatica and Yooz partnership as a team in relay race, one where you can submit and capture incoming documents in any form (paper, electronic files, PDFs, etc.) is the first leg of racing down the track. An AP automation platform will be eagerly waiting to grab that baton for the next leg, and quickly leave a traditional workflow behind in the dust.
The AP automation platform takes the baton of data extraction and sprints ahead thanks to modern techniques. Specifically, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) will take the captured documents and digitize them using smart and powerful software that can read, understand, and extract all relevant key information such as items, prices, bank account information, and due dates.
Acumatica Plus Yooz: A Winning Team From Document Recognition to Approval
Once the information is in the system, Yooz keeps speeding around the track when it comes to reviewing the extracted data. A three-way match process compares values from the invoice to other forms such as a Purchase Order (PO) already in the ERP system. Once validated, the software then routes invoices to a predesignated person for approval. Thanks to a cloud-based platform, anybody can access the data from anywhere at any time. No more delays because the designated approval is out of the office.
Seamless integration with an ERP in the cloud pays off, too, when it comes to setting up payments plus reconciling (and archiving) the relevant documents with your ERP database. It’s a real-time feature that keeps all departments in the know, helps the finance function get a handle on cash management, and provides strategic information at any time. In fact, that’s how you can build a trove of valuable financial intelligence that benefits the entire organization.
When ERP Meets AP Automation: One Intuitive Interface From Purchase to Payment
The AP team will use the same intuitive interface to review and approve invoices to select, schedule, and initiate payments. Vendors only have to provide an email address for onboarding and pick their preferred payment method to set the process in motion.
Once payments have been set up and gone out, documents and their updated status is automatically pushed to the ERP for real-time information and reporting, such as marking a PO as paid.
Speeding Across the Finish Line
Once the partners team crosses the automation finish line, you'll see cost savings of 80% per invoice, a reduction of cycle times from weeks and month to days or even hours, less exceptions or outright errors, plus have the peace of mind to make on-time payments that nix late fees, lock in early-pay discounts, and equally important... Keep your vendors happy.
When you’re off to a good start with AP document recognition, there’s no reason to drop the baton for the rest of the race. Acumatica plus Yooz provide organizations of any size with the best cloud experience to win the race for AP automation. A fast, secure and scalable solution that covers the entire purchase-to-pay cycle makes the difference between competing and winning.
