IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) Software 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment
IDC MarketScape named Hyland a Leader in intelligent document processing for its IDP capabilities and strategies.
What is invoice capture?
Invoice capture provides better, faster visibility into spending patterns and helps organizations make informed decisions about their purchasing and payment processes.
What is invoice capture and why is it important?
Invoice capture is the process of extracting data from invoices — whether in paper or digital formats — and is the first step in invoice processing for accounts payable (AP) departments. Traditionally, organizations use optical character recognition (OCR) software to scan an invoice and turn it into data that can be used with other applications and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.
With the increased adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning however, AP departments can expect that invoice processing will evolve by becoming more automated and intelligent.
Related articles:
Benefits of electronic invoice capture
For most AP departments, half of all invoices arrive in paper form while the other half arrive via email or electronic data interchange (EDI). Processing these invoices takes a lot of manual data entry, which could lead to miss-keyed data, lost invoices and lack of visibility into the process.
An invoice capture software, on the other hand, automates the classification, extraction and validation of data from any type of invoice. Invoice capture software helps to:
- Increase AP staff productivity. As manual work decreases, employees regain their time and can focus on high-value activities that require human interaction.
- Reduce data entry errors. Intelligent invoice capture recognizes unstructured data — like handwritten text and different fonts — even without templates, anchors, keywords and zones.
- Achieve touchless invoice processing. The process becomes a paperless one that is less time-consuming with minimal human intervention needed.
- Improve supplier relationships. With invoice cycle times shortened, delays in payments can be avoided as well as unnecessary back and forth for payment updates.
- Reduce AP processing costs. The processing cost per invoice can be lowered as it is directly proportional to the amount of manual touches needed.
- Reduce storage costs. AP is one of the most paper-heavy departments and as such, incurs high costs for paper, file cabinets and storage space to organize physical documents.
How to automate invoice processing for a more efficient AP department
Invoice capture is just one of the steps in the procure-to-pay lifecycle. To achieve end-to-end invoice processing automation, you need visibility, control and efficiency over the entire process.
Hyland offers an AP automation solution with intelligent invoice capture, workflow automation and seamless integration with your ERP system.
- Invoice capture: Export structured and unstructured data automatically without manual intervention.
- Invoice processing: Process invoices through digital workflows that automatically notifies and routes files to approvers for action.
- AP reporting: Gain visibility into performance metrics like time to payment, time to invoice approval, workload per employee and more to identify bottlenecks in the process.
- ERP integrations: Connect AP documents and data with your ERP so you can access critical information directly without accessing a separate application.
With an automated invoice processing solution in place, your AP department can transform from being purely administrative to a more strategic role.