Invoice Scanning and Data Capture

Invoice scanning and data capture can be a cost saving solution for businesses. In the current financial climate, we're all looking for ways to reduce costs, so here's a few facts about how scanning your invoices can save your organisation money.

You may not have thought about the cost of processing invoices before, but it can cost up to £20 just to process one invoice. You may have multiple departments entering the same data into different spreadsheets and systems for their own budgeting purposes.

Businesses process hundreds or thousands of invoices and financial documents on a monthly basis, spending extensive time on manual data entry and processing. In large organisations invoices often get lost and can be sent to multiple departments to resolve, if no purchase order is provided. 

This can create a massive paper trail, slow down the payment process and cause bottlenecks for your business. If this sounds familiar, consider digitising your invoices and accounts payable documentation on arrival.

Invoice scanning can help free valuable office space, removing paper archives from your organisation. Just think how much of your office space is filled with invoices? Digitise your financial documentation and re-use that costly office space for core business purposes

Professional scanning bureaus can set up a virtual mail room to scan your invoices, so you don't see any paperwork at all. Once scanned, key data can be extracted using intelligent invoice capture software. For example the invoice number, reference, supplier name, value and date can be captured and extracted for direct import into your financial systems.

Some scanning bureaus can help automate the whole invoice process, using accounts payable automation software. This clever technology can match invoices against original purchase orders, checking the value and raising exceptions without any intervention. Once checked the software will send invoices through for authorisation to the appropriate manager in your organisation.

Alternatively, you can just digitise invoices you've already processed, providing a digital record for your archived financial documentation. Once scanned, you'll be able to search your invoices using simple keyword search technology. Again this can save time searching through paper records and provide a digital backup for your documents.

Scanning bureaus should offer secure storage for your documents, after all you need to protect your customer information. 

Article Source: Nettie Smith