Innovative credit professionals always dream that one day the world will wake up to paperless offices where everything is done electronically. Although this vision is still far from being a reality, the current innovations are progressively bringing it closer. The first major steps forward were workflow and imaging technology. However, the other innovation that is quickly taking roots in modern offices is electronic invoicing.
Electronic invoicing is simply delivery of invoices, especially over the internet to the accounts payable department of the customer in electronic format. All the transactions are made and recorded electronically without involving paperwork. After the accounts payable department receives the invoice, it forwards it through mail to the approving officer. All the information on the invoice can be used for data retrieval I a network without manual entry into the database. Officers can also combine this procedure with payment of electronic payments that can be forwarded to the vendor with no further keying.
Let’s see an example of an electronic invoice first:
Benefits of electronic invoicing
Accounts receivable experts around the world are quickly embracing electronic invoicing as a result of its wide range of advantages.
– Unlike traditional invoicing methods, electronic invoicing removes mistakes resulting from rekeyed information.
– It is a stand-alone process that deletes the current fears about the mail.
– It is very cost effective especially for big institutions
– It is not demanding in terms of routine approval
– It has some aspect of accountability in that people cannot throw blames to the mail for their own paper processing shortcomings
While electronic invoicing can be a highly beneficial process for companies, businesses that do not use it could be faced with a few obstacles:
– Its initial cost of set up and operational demands
– Budget constraints
– Fear of the unknown
Human resistance to change probably because of the mode of management:
– Fears about difficulties in signing up on service providers
– The implementation time for companies to fully embrace the process
