accounts payable optimization survey sponsored by canon business process services

A C C O U N T S P A Y A B L E O P T I M I Z A T I O N S T U D Y

Canon Business Process Services

© 2014 Canon Business Process Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Agenda

• Survey Overview

• Methodology

• Key Findings

• Key Insights

2


Survey Overview

• The Accounts Payable Optimization Study was

designed to highlight:

– steps accounts payable (AP) departments are

taking to eliminate inefficient paper processes

– the biggest challenges in processing invoices

– solutions AP professionals are considering to drive

higher performance.

3


Methodology

• The online survey was presented to several thousand

finance professionals.

• The survey was 22 questions, including some that

could be answered instantly with a single mouse click

and others that were more complex (and likely required

the respondents to retrieve some information).

• Survey respondents were given several weeks to

complete the survey.

• Some 101 finance professionals completed the survey

and 57 respondents answered every question.

4


Key Finding #1

• Most organizations still manually handle the

majority of their invoices

– Despite the growth of document imaging and

electronic invoicing, most organizations

(nearly two thirds of respondents) still manually

handle the vast majority of their invoices that

arrive as paper documents, fax documents

or email attachments.

5


Key Finding #2

• The adoption of electronic invoicing among suppliers has

a long way to go.

– Nearly two-thirds of respondents indicate that less than

10 percent of their suppliers submit invoices electronically

so that no manual handling is required for input into the

organization’s ERP system.

6


Key Finding #3

• Email attachments account for the majority of electronic

invoices received by organizations.

– Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents indicated that their

organization receives the majority of its electronic invoices

as email attachments.

– Since most companies lack the technology to automatically

extract data from email attachments, email attachments

may be the least efficient form of electronic invoicing for buyers.

7


Key Finding #4

• Organizations are most interested in outsourcing

invoice imaging and indexing.

– Invoice imaging and indexing is far and away the task

that survey respondents are most interested in

outsourcing – identified by 37 percent of survey

respondents.

– Supplier onboarding, invoice data entry, supplier

inquiries and telephone bill processing are

other AP activities that respondents would be most

interested in outsourcing.

8


Key Finding #5

• Automated workflows for invoice approval

and exceptions are a top priority for the

next 12 months

– Considering that survey respondents cited

invoice routing as the activity that caused

their AP department the greatest pain,

it is no surprise that a plurality of respondents

(39 percent) identified automated workflows

for approvals and exceptions as a top

improvement priority for the next 12 months.

9


Key Insights

• With so much paper being manually processed and so few

suppliers submitting invoices electronically, how can

AP departments begin to decrease paper usage,

increase processing efficiency and contain costs?

10


Key Insight #1: Outsourcing

• One answer is to end the “paper chase” by

outsourcing

– Focus particularly on the “receipt-to-ERP” phase

of invoice processing

– This phase includes receiving paper

(or paper equivalent) invoices via mail, fax and

email attachments and converting the information

into ERP-formatted data.

– This stage also includes prepping, scanning, indexing

and extracting data from the invoices

11


Key Insight #2: Automate Invoice Validation

• Many companies outsourcing front-end AP processes may not ask their service

provider to automate “pre-approval validation” activities

– The right service provider can automate procedures driven by business rules that more

quickly and cost-effectively filter, check and prepare invoices for the next workflow

phase

12


Key Insight #3: Another Untapped Opportunity

• Besides the receipt-to-ERP and pre-approval validation

phases, there is another potential untapped opportunity

– Consider outsourcing the third major step in AP workflow,

the “approval and exception processing” phase

– Purchase order and non-purchase order line item matching,

approval routing, exception resolution and GL coding

are some activities comprising this phase

13


Summing Up

• These three insights clarify how outsourcing can help

AP department end the paper chase, eliminate

manual, low value activities and finally evolve into

automated, high-performance operations.

• Such improvements can help hone a company’s

competitive edge and better prepare it for continued

success in the days ahead.

14


Advancing Business Performance to a Higher Level

Thank youTo download the Canon AP

Optimization Study Report:

https://pages.cbps.canon.com/2014_

AP_Optimization_Report.html


https://cbps.canon.com/resources/index.aspx

accounts payable optimization survey sponsored by canon business process services

Business

percent of survey respondents

thirds of survey respondents

thirds of respondents

plurality of respondents

methodologythe online

email attachments account

outsourcing invoice

invoice approval