AP Automation: Making the Case to Automate... It’s About Time
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This document summarizes a presentation about automating accounts payable (AP) processes. It discusses that companies often lack visibility into the true costs of paper-based AP processes. It then outlines what innovative organizations are doing, such as achieving lower average invoice processing costs and capturing more payment discounts. The presentation provides examples of how docSTAR customers automated their AP and saw benefits like reduced processing times and costs. It concludes by offering ways docSTAR can help organizations improve their AP processes through automation solutions.
![docSTAR Customer Use Case
Challenge
Over 100,000 documents in their existing AP database and processes approximately
20,000 invoices annually.
Business Solution
docSTAR’s Intelligent Data Capture with SAGE integration saves Collier’s AP team up
to 50 hours a week!
Testimonial
“I’m really impressed is the simplicity of [docSTAR] because the simplicity makes it
flexible. But at the end of the day, our experience has been so positive because of the
docSTAR people. They have made this product so strong.”
Royce Pruitt, CFO](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/psadocstarmakingthecasev5-150702170702-lva1-app6891/85/AP-Automation-Making-the-Case-to-Automate-It-s-About-Time-28-320.jpg)
AP Automation: Making the Case to Automate... It’s About Time
- 1. AP Automation: Making the Case to Automate... It’s About Time Henry Ijams, PayStream Advisors Eric McCracken, docSTAR
- 2. Today’s PresentersToday’s Presenters Henry Ijams Managing Director PayStream Advisors Eric McCracken Sales Director docSTAR
- 4. Research and Advisory Services for Financial Operations o Purchase-to-Pay Research, Tools and Education o Peer Benchmarking Groups o Electronic Payments & Discount Optimization o Annual Conference INNOVATE 2015: P2P Summit
- 5. The can’t miss P2P education & networking event for professionals in: • Accounts Payable • Finance • Procurement • Shared Services • Supply Chain • IT & Treasury innovate.paystreamadvisors.com Sessions include: • The Realities of AP Improvement: Overcoming Divergent Objectives and Limited Resources • Risk & Reward: Balancing change with Increasing Regulation, Compliance and Fraud
- 7. Experts in AP and Document Management Solutions • Award winning workflow and content productivity software company founded in 1996 • 8,000+ customers, 145,000 users in many industries • Robust, scalable, affordable solutions supported by a highly responsive technical team • Solution is available on-premises or in the cloud
- 8. Agenda • Your business case foundation • Presenting the true cost of paper • Identify role models: what the innovators are doing • How docSTAR can help
- 9. Poll Question #1 What is the largest factor holding back process improvement in your AP Operation? A. No executive buy-in B. Lack of budget C. Fear of no ROI D. Belief that current systems work
- 11. Does this sound familiar? 1. You go to a conference (or attend a webinar) and learn about cool new things other AP departments are doing. 2. You get bogged down in the day to day “administrivia.” 3. You give up until the next conference. 11
- 12. Your Business Case Foundation Current State Assessment 12
- 13. Your Business Case Foundation Assessing where you are today 13
- 14. Your Business Case Foundation Limited resources What is the time frame? What resources do we have to complete this project? Management concerns Will there be down time? What is Plan B? Identifying Potholes 14
- 15. Presenting the True Cost of Paper Processing
- 16. Companies lack visibility of true cost of paper processes Source: PayStream Advisors’ 2014 Invoice Workflow Automation Report | Q4 2014 | All rights reserved. “What is your average fully loaded cost to produce an invoice?”
- 17. Invoice Costs for Paper Based AP Visibility into AP Success Metrics Average cost to process an invoice for those just getting started (Novices) To calculate your CPI, visit www.paystreamadvisors.com/cost-per-invoice-calculator/
- 18. Costs for Partially Automated AP Visibility into AP Success Metrics Average cost to process an invoice for Mainstream organizations To calculate your CPI, visit www.paystreamadvisors.com/cost-per-invoice-calculator/
- 19. Costs for Organizations with High Levels of Automation PayStream’s Cost Per Invoice Calculator Average cost to process an invoice for Innovator organizations To calculate your CPI, visit www.paystreamadvisors.com/cost-per-invoice-calculator/
- 20. Unlocking Working Capital Source: PayStream Advisors’ 2015 AP & Working Capital Report | Q2 2015 | All rights reserved. “How often is your organization able to capture early payment discounts available?”
- 21. Poll Question #2 What is your top AP initiative? A. Get AP automation project started B. Implement existing automation project C. Develop a plan for automation D. Research the options
- 22. Identify Role Models: What the Innovators are Doing
- 23. What the innovators are doing *Source: PayStream Advisors 2014 IWA Benchmark Report | Q4 2014 | All rights reserved. Companies plan to implement AP invoice automation Which technologies are you planning to implement within the next 6 months?
- 24. What the innovators are doing To calculate your CPI, visit www.paystreamadvisors.com/cost-per-invoice-calculator/ Common Success Factors Among AP Innovators Where do you stand on the path to AP innovation? Long term paperless goals Supplier engagement strategy Metrics to define success Enabled by service partners, not just technology solutions
- 25. docSTAR Customer Use Case Challenge Processing more than 2,400 invoices per month across 6 locations, late payments, lost invoices and missed discounts Business Solution docSTAR eclipse Smart AP Automation Testimonial “The feature set is excellent. The searching is powerful and intuitive. The workflow makes approvals easy. It also has great reporting and tracking abilities that I can get in real time. We had a very positive experience. In a land of software vendors over-promising and under-delivering, docSTAR delivered everything they promised and more.” Neil Baier, VP Finance
- 26. What the innovators are doing To calculate your CPI, visit www.paystreamadvisors.com/cost-per-invoice-calculator/ PayStream Advisors’ CPI Calculator
- 27. What the innovators are doing Benchmarking Items for AP Process Improvement Metric Novices Average processing time invoice receipt to approval 45 days Average processing cost per invoice (combination of paper and electronic) $15.00 Percentage of invoice terms discounts captured 18% Mainstream Innovators 23 days 5 days $6.70 $2.36 40% 75%
- 28. docSTAR Customer Use Case Challenge Over 100,000 documents in their existing AP database and processes approximately 20,000 invoices annually. Business Solution docSTAR’s Intelligent Data Capture with SAGE integration saves Collier’s AP team up to 50 hours a week! Testimonial “I’m really impressed is the simplicity of [docSTAR] because the simplicity makes it flexible. But at the end of the day, our experience has been so positive because of the docSTAR people. They have made this product so strong.” Royce Pruitt, CFO
- 29. docSTAR as a Partner
- 30. Where to Start • What are your biggest challenges, bottlenecks and pain points? • What stage are you currently in? • Incremental improvement or complete overhaul? • Cloud or on-premises? • Basic capture or full automation leveraging Intelligent Data Capture (IDC)? • Basic or advanced workflow with branching? • Integrate with your ERP system?
- 31. Questions? docSTAR Contact Eric McCracken - emccracken@docstar.com (518) 836-2714 www.docstar.com
- 32. for spending your time with us. Thank You
Editor's Notes
- #7: Henry to Eric. Thanks again for being with our audience today and to share your 10 years of experience in transforming AP. Can you tell us a little about docStar?
- #12: Go to conference (or attend a webinar) and learn about cool new things other AP departments are doing Things that would be perfect for your department! Get bogged down in the day to day stuff Doing more with less is a way of life for AP Give up until the next conference We don’t have the time to implement something new (even if it is the right thing to do) Questions for ERIC, Eric, you’ve been in this business a long time. What can folks on this call do to make the case for automation?
- #13: Eric to answer. “Conduct a Current state assessment…” Benchmarking can help Identify where you want to be Identify what technology fits your needs best Define the project Involve the right players Justify the investment Eric to Henry for tee-up of next slide. Henry, you said that PayStream Empowers Managers to Transform AP and Procurement. What is the best way to justify the investment?
- #14: Henry: What are your current costs? You need to understand your current cost of doing business Document the Facts & figures (metrics) Determine the right project(s) for you Help you prioritize those projects Build your case Learn how to communicate AP to the Steering Committee Executives may not understand what you do but they understand statistics Measure the success of your changes What do the Stakeholders care about? Know your audience We want to hear from you. If you want to ask a question about this – please type it into the panel on the left?
- #15: Henry. Limited resources What is the time frame? How can this be done? Consultants? Management concerns Down time What is Plan B? Be flexible!!! Training Change Management
- #17: Henry, docSTAR has worked with thousands of clients. I can tell you the clients with whom I’ve worked, with very few exceptions, have never calculated their actual cost of processing an invoice. What does your independent research indicate about cost per invoice?
- #21: Eric to Henry: Before deploying an AP automation solution, I’ve found that very few of my clients had been able to fully take advantage of their trade discounts due to inefficient and lengthy invoice approval cycles. In fact, it’s been my experience that many of my clients were struggling just to meet the invoice due date! Because taking advantage of trade discounts offer a number of financial benefits, I know you and your team have studied this topic extensively. What has your research indicated?
- #23: We have a question. Can I get a copy of the slides?
- #24: Eric to Henry: I frequently advise my clients to not try and “eat the entire elephant” at one time. In other words, I always recommend focusing on the biggest pain point and deploy an automation solution with basic features or focused on one process. It’s important to adopt a scalable solution, which provides for a much smoother initial deployment around a specific business process, employees quickly adopt it and then the efforts to expand the solution are rapid and generally the demand has been generated internally. In what sequence do you tend to see companies adopting automation solutions?
- #25: Long term paperless goals to eliminate manual validation of OCR captured invoice data from paper/PDF … better support front-end invoice data capture for hand-off to AP automation Henry to Eric, (tee-up the next slide). Eric, I know you have many customers that you have helped automate their AP department, can you share a client success story? Can you tell us about Crescent Crown –a beverage distributor?
- #26: Crescent Crown – beverage distributor. After case to Henry from Eric. Eric to Henry: Henry, you mentioned calculating cost per invoice – how should organizations determine their cost per invoice.
- #28: Henry to Eric to Tee up next slide. We promised several case studies. Eric – can you share another docStar success story that helps us see how developing a strong business plan lead to savings and paperless AP?
- #29: Collier Restaurant Supply, owns more than 15 restaurants chains including Golden Corral, The Melting Pot, and TGI Fridays.
- #31: Henry – It’s almost time for your questions. Eric, almost everyone viewing this webcast wants to improve AP. What do you suggest that organization do in order to get started on the AP automation journey? What questions should they ask?
- #32: Maria: We have a home grown system, can docstar work with that? James: Over the years we have acquired many different companies with different ERPs, can docstar work with all of them at once? Rahim: Does docstar work well for shared services centers? Luis: How does docstar connect to back-end systems? Jackie: Who’s data centers do you run in? Rosemary: (Henry) We’re a mid sized hospital with 5000 month invoices? What do you suggest we do to get our project started? – based on previous efforts, the CFO has not been willing to invest in AP. Liam: What is the licensing model, how do you pay for the solution? Abigail: Because data is in the cloud, how is security managed? Hannah: How is docstar configured and customized? Jonathan: Would docstar help with building a business case for senior management? Yasir: Does docstar have other modules and what do they do? Question for Henry: how would we learn more about AP automation? Maurice: How does dynamic discounting work with docstar?