Imaging and Workflow Automation: Moving Beyond Paper

People have dreamed of a paperless workplace for decades.  In the 1960s, for example, futurists predicted that organizations in the new millennium would exchange information in a fully electronic manner.  This sounds quaint from our current vantage point, but who knew that getting rid of paper would be more difficult than putting men on the moon?  The unfortunate reality is that corporate processes remain mired in paper, and no one knows that better than accounts payable professionals. 

Our latest research illustrates that buyers and sellers are keen to resolve the communication and processing issues that retard the order-to-settlement cycle and inhibit visibility and control. Buyers want to optimize invoice receipt, approval processing and supplier and spend management, while suppliers are keen to streamline invoice presentment, discrepancy management and customer account management.

These issues have sharply increased organizations’ interest in a rapidly maturing set of technologies that we call Imaging and Workflow Automation (IWA) solutions that streamline the invoice receipt-to-pay cycle to meet these new requirements for efficiency and control. Consider the results of our 2004 Financial Automation Survey of Fortune 1000 finance, treasury, and accounting professionals:

• 40.0 percent and 27.4 percent of respondents said that workflow tools and imaging and document management solutions respectively will be critical to their payables automation strategies for the next 18 months;
• 30.1 percent and 27.4 percent of respondents said that they plan to deploy an imaging and document management or workflow solution respectively during the coming year.

What is Imaging and Workflow Automation?

Imaging and Workflow Automation (IWA) solutions streamline the invoice receipt-to-pay cycle by enabling organizations to convert paper invoices into digital images, store them in a Web-enabled repository for rapid retrieval, and extract data from them to enhance approval processing. IWA solutions may provide document and data capture, workflow, or both in order to create an end-to-end imaging and workflow solution that integrates with enterprise and line of business applications.

The Different Flavors of IWA

All IWA solutions share the goal of improving organizations’ management of their invoice receipt-to-pay processes. However, not every solution follows the same approach or provides equivalent functionality at each step of the process. Therefore, accounts payable professionals should understand the major forms that IWA can take:

• Back-end document capture and archival
• Front-end document and data capture
• Front-end document and data capture with workflow

Benefits of IWA

Organizations that utilize an IWA solution experience a wide range of benefits, depending on the type of solution they deploy. IWA solutions lower costs by

• Substituting electronic repositories for filing cabinets and effectively eliminating the need for
  long-term storage space,

• Trimming their full-time equivalent (FTE) requirements,

• Eliminating late payment penalties and capturing a higher percentage of prompt payment discount

In addition, they also offer enhanced visibility and control by

• Providing secure storage for invoices and support corporate policies and statutory requirements for document retention and disposal.

• Allowing access to invoice images facilitates reporting and analysis by eliminating the need for physical documents.

PayStream Advisors’ latest Corporate Insights Report titled, “Imaging & Workflow Automation: A Buyer’s Guide to Accounts Payable Automation Solutions”is available for download from our online store.  This report, profiling eight of the leading imaging and workflow automation solution providers, offers valuable insights into IWA solutions and helps managers compare and contrast different solutions to identify the one that bests suits their organizations' requirements.  The report is available at paystreamadvisors.com/reportlibrary