Automatic invoice processing

Manual processing of incoming invoices is a tedious and time-consuming process. In this context, the distribution of invoices, the formal verification as well as the verification of the content cause a great effort in the financial organization. In addition, manual entries are made during posting, which are time-consuming and prone to errors. Automatic invoice processing can reduce effort by up to 70% and significantly improve process fidelity.

The vast majority of incoming invoices still reach the company today as paper documents, fax documents or as PDFs in e-mails. Only a few of the invoices are created in a standard or machine-readable format, so that manual processing is often necessary before the invoice is transferred to an ERP system, for example, and posted there. For finance department employees, invoice processing can therefore be tedious and time-consuming.

With manual processing, companies pay an average of EUR 10 to 15 for each invoice approval. This can add up to high costs, as even an average small business receives about 40 invoices per day. This means that more than EUR 110,000 per year is spent on invoice processing alone. Automation can realize savings of up to 70% here.

Automated capture and entry of invoice data

To process an invoice, an employee must review and transfer information such as invoice amount, purchase order data and relevant units, vendors and more into an invoice capture system. Using technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) and optical character recognition (OCR), this process can be easily automated to a large extent.

First of all, for this purpose, e.g. all invoices sent as email attachments (either automated or by an employee) to a smart email wizard. The wizard (bot) formally checks the documents and extracts all relevant information from them. The next step is an automated database check to determine if the supplier already exists. If this is not the case, it can be created automatically. The order and the corresponding delivery bill can also be assigned automatically.

After data preparation is complete, the user is alerted that all data has been prepared and that automation can now be triggered to enter all information into the processing system. If additional employees are required to review and approve the content of the invoice, they will be notified and their approval will also be assigned to the invoice.