Electronic invoicing: 3 key reasons you need it

Electronic invoicing – i.e. taking your invoicing processes online instead of relying on traditional, manual (and often cumbersome) paper-based methods – offers accounting teams a range of benefits.

The reasons your organisation needs to consider electronic invoicing (if you’re not doing so already) can be summarised into three core benefits:

1. Cost reduction – because it costs less and takes less time to process and send documents electronically than it does to print, fold, stuff, frank and send individual invoices by mail;
2. Speeding up payments – because processing batches of invoices at the same time and then sending them off via email to customers can dramatically cut the time delay between delivery and payment – thereby positively impacting on cashflow;
3. More efficient capture and retrieval – because invoices and invoice-related documents such as letters, emails and faxes can be associated/linked and stored in the same place together, making them easier and faster to retrieve to resolve queries and improving customer service.

We’ll look at these in more detail in a moment.

But to begin with, let’s set the scene by sharing a few statistics from the AP (Accounts Payable) Association:

• The average cost to process an invoice is £3.50 to £8.60 in most organisations
• In some circumstances the cost can climb to £15 or more
• Around 3.6% of manually entered invoices include an error caused by inaccurate data entry
• Issues associated with manual invoice processing include:
• Late payments
• Phone call queries
• Invoices being sent to the wrong place
• Increase in ‘debtor days’

With these issues to contend with, it’s hardly surprising that electronic invoicing is gaining widespread adoption.

Back to our three core benefits of going electronic, and why you need to adopt it within your organisation as soon as is reasonably possible.

Reducing the cost of document delivery

The costs associated with manual invoicing boil down to 3 key areas:

• Print costs
• Postage
• Processing and handling

By generating and preparing invoices directly from the accounting system electronically and then sending them via email instead of post, there are significant cost and time savings to be made.

Speeding up invoice payments and improving credit control

Electronic invoicing helps accounts teams collect payments faster by cutting the time between the invoiced transaction and the receipt and payment by the buyer. In turn this leads to improved credit control.

What’s more, because many more invoices can be processed (in batches) electronically than would otherwise be possible manually, cashflow can improve dramatically.

Improving invoice documentation capture and retrieval efficiency

Because electronic invoices can be filed quickly and easily, other related emails can be quickly associated with and linked to the invoice, as can incoming faxes and scanned documents (which can also be linked to each other).

This makes retrieving files both instant and effortless for accounting staff, considerably improving the overall document management efficiency within the department – with resultant efficiency benefits for cashflow.

In summary

Zetadocs for NAV makes electronic invoicing a breeze for busy accounts teams and can transform cash collection processes to improve cashflow across the business.

Why not make life easier for your accounts teams with Zetadocs for NAV – the paperless, timesaving and highly efficient add-on for Microsoft Dynamics NAV – and do your bit for the planet as well!

Next steps

Download our Zetadocs for NAV Electronic Invoicing datasheet for more information. Alternatively, just email sales@equisys.com.