Web Invoicing & Electronic Payments: Strategic Impact of Accounts Payable Automation

This report is designed for those organizations that have an active interest in Web invoicing solutions but need help identifying appropriate strategies, vendors and solutions.

This report features Web Invoicing platforms and solutions from the following companies:

Ariba | AvidXchange | Bottomline Technologies | Direct Commerce | iPayables | JPMorgan Xign | Nexus Systems | OB10 | PowerTrack | Transcepta

The Full Report Includes:

Selecting a Web Invoicing Solution | Best Practices Revealed in Full Report

One of the first questions that accounts payable professionals must answer when investigating automation options is whether a tightly focused or a more comprehensive solution would better meet their needs. Our analysts believe that AP technology buyers should keep the following factors in mind when making this critical decision:

Financial Automation Goals: There is a solution to meet every organization’s need, but identifying the ideal solution requires an organization to clearly understand what it hopes to achieve from its adoption. Organizations that have been slow to adopt other financial automation technologies but want to take an incremental step forward should consider adopting just electronic invoicing or electronic payments as a starting point. On the other hand, organizations that are comfortable with technology and want to accelerate the pace of improvement in their invoice receipt-to-pay cycle should think about an application that delivers full circle functionality.

Adoption Readiness: Every organization does not stand an equal chance of succeeding with automation. Differences in culture, financial resources, and human capital mean that certain organizations are more likely to succeed. This is a major reason all the vendors have put considerable effort into developing installation routines that require minimal IT support, but some in-house computing environments will still be problematic. Individuals investigating Web invoicing should determine how their organizations stack up in each of these areas. As a rule of thumb, an organization’s overall use of financial automation technologies relative to its peers provides a rough indicator of its readiness to adopt such solutions, especially in its more challenging end-to-end form.

Process Complexity: The higher the complexity of an accounts payable operation, the greater the payoff from automating invoice receipt and approval processing. Accounts payable professionals should consider the number of suppliers and invoice formats they receive, as well as their overall invoice volume and the complexity of their average invoice when evaluating Web invoicing solutions. The structure of their accounts payable operation (i.e. decentralized vs. centralized) and the steps required to process, approve, and pay invoices are also critical and will have a direct bearing on their choice of a solution.

AP Department Size: While large organizations should focus on the process improvements and resulting ROI an investment in electronic invoicing and payments technologies will deliver, regardless of the number of staff that are performing invoice and payment processing activities, small and mid-sized organizations do not always have that luxury. Small AP departments, particularly those with five or fewer employees, often face budgetary constraints that limit their solution choices. In these cases, firms looking to automate invoice and/or payment processes should be looking for vendors that can deliver a foundational solution, or one targeted very specifically to their needs.

Accounting Software Infrastructure: One of the key reasons a market has developed for best-of-breed electronic invoicing solutions is the lack of sophisticated invoicing and discounting capabilities offered by ERP and accounting software. Different AP software modules can offer very different levels of functionality around invoice and payment management. A major consideration for determining an organization’s selection of a Web invoicing solution should be the process gaps system weaknesses that are inherent to the AP/ERP software currently in use.