At Pacific Office Automation, we believe electronic records management systems help our customers reach their full potential and stay competitive. In a time when most content is transferred digitally, one last bastion of paper documents remains: the invoice.
Why the hold up? Organizations may be wary of changing such a critical process, worried that it would be too disruptive or too expensive. What's more, invoicing formats are as varied as the companies that send and receive them.
There has to be a better way. Manual invoicing is wasteful, from the time it takes someone to create an invoice and send it to the extra paper and ink it requires. Plus, manual invoicing is more prone to errors and slows down payment reconciliation, affecting cash flow management for all parties involved.
There are immediate, obvious cost savings with online invoicing. For one, companies save money on paper, printing, and postage. On the receiving end, an e-invoice is simpler to archive.
Yet, challenges remain, and adoption lags behind other electronic document management. Larger organizations are turning to third-party service providers to facilitate online invoicing over a secure network. That, of course, requires participation from all parties involved, and some may not want to pay the fees associated with such systems.
Luckily, there is an increase in managed service providers, like Ricoh, which can handle all invoicing, no matter the format, destination, or international regulations. Managed service providers take over the process, and don’t require buyers and suppliers to enroll in a shared invoicing system. For those customers that would like to continue to send or receive a paper invoice, they can mail it to a processing center that will digitize the content.
At Pacific Office Automation, our motto is “Problem Solved.” Our partners are the world's most innovative and trusted manufacturers offering document management systems. Contact us today to find out how you can improve your accounting processes with electronic invoicing.