Accounts Payable Processing using Document Scanning Software and Workflow

Every business has suppliers and every business has invoices to pay.  Industry surveys indicate that approximately 80 percent of invoices are on paper each of which is processed manually by being circulated to department heads for approval.  The average company pays thousands of dollars a year to process invoices and loses money on late-payment fees, missed discounts and more. Any business can benefit from the elimination of the accounts payable (AP) paper processes by replacing them with electronic invoice approval and subsequent electronic storage.

Customer Testimonial:  "We scan and retain the entire Accounts Payable using our document management software and I love it.  The electronic process saves me, and any type of auditor, a lot of time and frustration.  Now I want to push this efficiency down to the entire plant and give access to selective vendors and to some employees." 

Customer Testimonial:  "FileHold is a great product and is easy to work with.  We’ve fully implemented FileHold into our AP process and we are seeing some great advantages"

Document management software empowers you to convert this paper documentation into electronic form and immediately into an approval work flow that ensures AP documents are approved and processed efficiently at every approval stage of the accounts payable process.  Your enterprise will reduce costs, increase control and maximize efficiencies.

Automating AP with a Document Management System

In the automated document management software and workflow process all AP invoices coming into an organization are processed in electronic form. If the invoice has come in by e-mail it can very simply be dragged into the document management process and a workflow can be initiated.  If the AP invoice is in paper form it can be scanned with any scanner connected to FileHold by the FileSCan Bridge and added to an appropriate invoicing AP folder.

Once in electronic form the invoice can easily be put into a workflow and approval process that is integral to the document management software system.  The workflow process is simple to use and sends the invoice to one or more reviewers and / or approvers to comment or approve.  Once the invoice is approved it is returned to the AP department for  payment and processing.

The invoice can be kept in electronic from and filed in the document management system as a permanent record.  If it is a part of the business process the payment number can be added to the metadata fields for easy search or the payment record can also be added to the folder as an electronic document.

If an accounting system user ever wants to see the original invoice they can use FastFind to search directly from the accounting system into the document management library.

Document Tagging (Metadata) in an Accounts Payable Workflow within the Document Management Software

Many accounts payable departments use document management software to approve and pay invoices coming from vendors.  An important feature of the workflow process in the document  management software is tagging them for easy search and look up at a later date.   Each invoice has a unique tagging profile associated with it that is entered manually, by database look up or by zonal capture in the scanning process. Following is an example of metadata (invoice amount, invoice date, product name(s) and customer name) .that may be captured for each invoice entered.  

To learn more about our document management solution, sign up for our free document management software webinar!