Your business's reliance on paper-based billing and invoicing could be preventing you from achieving a faster order-to-cash cycle. Traditional paper-based, manual billing and 20th-century invoicing methods are no longer fit to meet the standards of a modern, efficient AR process.
As more businesses adopt AR automation platforms and technology tools to satisfy a new age of tech-savvy customers, it becomes essential for those remaining to plan a digital transformation. Initiating a transition to take advantage of accounts receivable technology can lead to increased productivity, cost and time savings with fewer inconsistencies in your processes.
From transportation and healthcare, to how we communicate with one another, technology has come to dominate and saturate every aspect of our lives. Those who have harnessed change, rather than shying away from it, have reaped enormous rewards, fortifying themselves against disruptive market forces.
By leveraging an automated AR platform, your company will benefit from:
- Greater process visibility
- Configurability to better serve your customers
5 Downsides to Traditional Invoice Processing
Generating handwritten or printed invoices, collecting and reconciling payments and managing dispute settlements—among other tasks—cause inconsistencies and delays in your AR process. But what are the real costs to the status quo?
- No capacity for tracking and transparency
When it comes to the traditional process for billing and invoicing, AR teams are left with little oversight — if they get any at all. Did an invoice make it to the correct address? Did the right contact at the company receive it? Did it even get delivered? Finding answers to these questions leaves AR professionals guessing until a payment is either made or missed. A digitized AR system provides both clear oversight and additional touchpoints for teams to track and manage invoices.
- Time-consuming, unproductive work
After a full day of hand-preparing paper invoices, including signing, dating, securing, addressing and sealing all those documents, your team is probably ready for carpal tunnel therapy. But instead of relief, they face the reality of more monotony and repetitive tasks. With an automated system, your team can spend less time surrounded by paper and more on what’s really important: growing your business and connecting with customers.
- Longer order-to-cash cycle
Tedious tasks involved in the manual billing and invoicing process slow down your order-to-cash cycle. The longer it takes to deliver invoices to your customers, the longer your order-to-cash cycle will be, significantly delaying collections. A digitized system for billing and invoice processing automates time-intensive and manual tasks for you, shortening your order-to-cash cycle so collections can be made more quickly.
- Prone to error
Paper-based billing and invoicing systems can result in transaction processes that are cumbersome and prone to error. After all, when any system relies on large amounts of human data entry, the probability of error skyrockets.
Since manual processes often involve multiple people, the accuracy of information is at risk of becoming compromised as tasks are passed on from one person to the next. In general, manual invoicing systems struggle to detect and rectify errors in a timely manner. Fortunately, digitizing the billing and invoicing process helps reduce the risk of mistakes, and provides the checks and balances to ensure your invoicing is processed accurately.
- Increased cost for your business
The typical cost of processing a single invoice by hand ranges from anywhere between $15-$40, not including the time and effort expended verifying that invoices are correct, documenting them for audit purposes, updating tasks and managing your collections portfolio. Add to the mix inconsistencies, data errors, customer phone calls and emails, and departments can quickly become overwhelmed.
Implementing automation on just invoicing alone can help credit managers approach their daily tasks with a new sense of ease. Implementing automated invoicing is akin to having an extra set of hands that prepares invoices, calculations and audit trails and informs on the status of your company’s risk portfolio—with everything prepared for credit managers to review and adjust. Less time spent on repetitive tasks leaves your credit managers with more time to focus on strategic ones like customer management, reducing costs and delivering value directly where it matters most.
Take Your First Step
Finding the right digital AR platform to fit your requirements is a difficult and daunting task. At Bectran, we aim to make this as easy as possible, with our US-based support staff who will work side by side to tailor solutions that meet your needs and goals.
To learn more, view our AR solutions or request a free 30-minute demo.
