Electronic invoicing can take your business to the next level when it comes to accounting, streamlining processes for you and your payees, and improving efficiency across the board. Making the shift from paper invoicing to digital invoicing is the first step, but completely electronic invoicing will save time on an even more significant scale, freeing up your accounting department to focus on more pressing tasks.
Electronic invoice basics
Electronic invoicing encompasses all steps involved in a process’s life cycle, and it covers invoices, debit and credit notes, purchase orders, remittance slips, and payment terms and instructions. From start to finish, an electronic program creates and sends documents as well as recording payments and balancing financial accounts.
That means no more tedious data entry or error-prone matching of paper documentation. Instead, all manual processes are computerized to improve efficiency and reduce error margins, allowing for higher accuracy in your bookkeeping and greater productivity across multiple departments.
Benefits of e-invoicing
An electronic invoice, or e-invoice, can provide the following advantages:
Reduced costs
Optimizing this aspect of your business can result in enormous cost savings, both in materials and time. Get rid of paper, printer and ink costs, and reduce overhead by shifting invoice-related tasks to a high-end software program designed specifically for smooth, swift operation and high levels of accuracy. When employees can focus on higher-level tasks, job satisfaction goes up and employee churn goes down, saving your organization even more money.
Improved efficiency
E-invoicing speeds up the entire financial documentation cycle, reducing time to invoice, time to payment and reconciliation of payments internally. When all documentation is handled by a centralized system, matching and reconciling each step of a transaction with all components of its virtual paper trail is simplified. By cutting out the data-entry process, time associated with financial accounting is significantly reduced. Information from electronic invoices can be immediately uploaded into your accounting systems and safely stored for future use.
Enhanced accuracy
Automating processes involved in invoicing reduces the chance of human error to infinitesimal levels. The less systems depend on data entry, the better — both from an operational standpoint and the perspective of security. When your invoicing is handled in a mostly closed system, you protect the accuracy of data and prevent accidental or intentional tampering. The multiple touch points present for manual data entry — invoice creation, customer payment, reconciliation — increase margin of error, but reducing these steps to a single initialization helps minimize risk of error.
Greater compliance
E-invoices also make it easier to comply with government regulations and to manage global tax issues when operating in more than one country, according to Gartner. When processes are automated, steps don’t get skipped and data can be better secured.
Easier payments
An e-invoice makes paying faster and easier on the payee. A secure link can be sent via email, for one-click-access and fast, efficient payment processing. Once a payment is complete, the system automatically marks it as paid, reconciles the books and closes the transaction file. Leveraging tools like email makes the payment process more user-friendly and effective, and can reduce time to payment.
Lower environmental impact
Shifting away from paper invoicing can decrease your business’s footprint and create opportunities for positive public relations. By slashing the amount of paper, ink, toner and other printing-related materials you use, you can “green” your company and improve your organization’s relationship with the environment.
Shifting to electronic invoicing can positively impact multiple areas of your business and provide a way to support and improve how your business records the movements of money. Electronic Invoice Presentment from ePay Advantage takes your accounting department to a higher level of optimization. Contact us to learn more today.
