Invu has significant experience automating the accounts payable process using premises-based solutions and now has developed its first cloud-based automated accounts payable service: Verify.
The accounts payable process, taking a supplier invoice from the point of receipt to being approved and ready for payment, is often regarded as the sole responsibility of the accounts function. Yet, the responsibility for the budgets being managed often lies outside the accounting function.
To date, much of the focus for invoice automation software has been on the accounting part of the process: the capture and coding of an invoice and posting it to a finance system. These offerings do not address how the invoice arrives in the accounts department in an approved state.
Verify goes beyond this by additionally enabling the business to include a distributed approval process. The solution can be easily configured by the process owner to deliver either single- or multi-person approval, with financial limits across a range of departments or projects. Only those responsible for approval receive approval requests. Furthermore, there is also the capability of allowing delegation of the coding process where applicable.
Verify is currently integrates directly with Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Business Cloud Accounting, Xero and Quickbooks, but also integrates with other systems through text connectors.
Ian Smith, GM and Finance Director at Invu, said:
”Once a business reaches a certain scale, the approval of invoices is often delegated to managers who in turn can be spread across a wide range of locations. This introduces a whole new range of risks and delays into the process. These include visibility (where the invoice sits in the process), identity (who is signing it off), and authority (are the approvals applied consistently in accordance with the rules)."
”With Invu Verify, the managers can be certain they are consistently fed invoices they should be approving, see the related invoices, and take ownership of the coding. They no longer have to manage the documents in their in-tray or work out whether they should be the one to approve it. Nor do they have to feel they do not truly own the budgets for the departments or projects they are responsible for because Finance allocate everything.”
Finance departments are ready for this change. A new report by Invu found that 44% of finance workers think that automating processes would make them more productive, with one in five claiming they would welcome automation in their business.
Verify shifts the work away from mundane tasks like data entry and posting invoices, towards value-added activities like review and analysis and dealing with exceptions.
