Wouldn’t it be great if your department’s invoice processing was fully automated? The term e-invoicing gives the impression that this is easy to achieve, but unfortunately the process from purchase to payment runs over several stages and uses various systems. The accounts payable process is one of the financial processes that requires above-average attention, time and capacity. Invoices must arrive at the accounts payable department without errors, expenses must be entered correctly, and only correct invoices may be paid. In this article, we explain to you what is possible when you involve Robotic Process Automation(RPA) in this process. Discover too potential!

The process of invoice processing

Before we can explain what RPA can do during inbound invoice processing, it is important to have the full chain process of inbound invoice processing clear.

The process from purchase to payment can be broken down into the following 7 steps:

1. Receipt of invoice
2. Checking the invoice
3. Entering the invoice into the system
4. Coding of invoice
5. Invoice approval
6. 2/3 way matching
7. Payment of invoice

Each of these steps requires different information and data, which must be collected and processed. Often different systems are used for this. Think of a purchasing system, an invoice processing solution and a financial system (or different modules in an ERP system). Entering the data into these different systems is often done manually, making it difficult to automate the entire process.

The image below shows the steps along with examples of the manual activities and their intensity. The blue bottom line gives an estimate of what the manual intensity can have with the help of RPA.

How many processes can you automate with RPA?

With the right systems, combined with a good invoice processing solution and a smart RPA addition, most of the invoice process can be automated. It is important to understand that there are always exceptions that are not worth automating. The effort and investment to automate it does not always outweigh manual resolution.

Therefore, it focuses primarily on the simple and repeatable activities initially. This way you will get the most out of your investment. Gradually, more complex situations can be looked at.

With RPA, you can automate a number of tasks to ensure automated invoice processing:

• Filter accounts payable mailbox (including reminders and reminders)
• Retrieve additional invoices from customer portals
• Additional checks (including IBAN, VAT number and addressing)
• Additional input from source system
• Assign general ledger number, cost center and organization units
• Assign validators based on authorization matrix
• Matching order lines with purchase invoices
• Checks on payment lists

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Want to learn more about automated invoice processing or the opportunities that RPA can provide? If so, please contact us.