A new UK survey (link:  http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1076769/late-payment-gets-later/) has suggested that the issue of late payment of invoices is getting worse, especially in the SME sector.  The survey, by accounting software vendor Sage, found that more than a third of small business owners believe they are being paid later over the last six months than previously - and 30% say their cashflow situation has deteriorated as a result.

According to a similar survey by BACS in May, the average waiting time is now 39.5 days AFTER business' agreed terms for payment.  The worst culprits for pushing credit lines are bigger businesses, according to 35% of SMEs, and chasing up payment is now taking up an average of half a day per week.

As we’ve discussed before, late payment isn’t the most effective way of managing business cashflow, compared with the technique of early settlement, or dynamic discounting.  

Read more about this in our article, here:  http://spendmatters.co.uk/dynamic-discounts-reverse-factoring-bottom-line/

We’re growing our presence in Australia with a new partnership with business process outsourcing (BPO) and automation specialist, Converga. 

Converga will deploy the PaletteArena accounts payable suite to power hosted invoice automation and management services for its clients.  As an international provider of office solutions, Converga was looking for an AP and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) platform with true multi-tenancy capabilities.

Rachel Griffiths, Converga’s Solutions Director for P2P said:  “We needed a solution that was quick to deploy and high in functionality. We were seeing a lot of interest in outsourcing from customers with volumes ranging from 500 to more than 30,000 invoices per month. Palette exceeded our expectations by having the highest functionality of any solution of its kind.  The additional benefit of deployment in days rather than months makes it very affordable to all business sizes.  Palette’s functionally-rich Arena suite is a true P2P platform that meets all potential customers’ needs.”

Read the press release here:  http://www.it-analysis.com/technology/data_mgmt/news_release.php?rel=25618

The Purchasing Insight blog has taken a timely look at the issue of scanning accuracy percentages, and how claims of 99% scanning accuracy through OCR, are misleading.

As the blog post points out, all this means is that 99% of the characters are recognised:  it does not mean that they accurately interpreted.  It’s what happens after scanning that is the critical step in automation – for example, the ability to recognise and interpret a purchase order number, or a tax reference.

It is only this intelligent capability which is truly meaningful in the context of automation, enabling functions such as line matching.  It’s useful to have a reminder that we shouldn’t be blinded by data! 
read more at  http://purchasinginsight.com/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics-interpreting-accuracy-claims-for-scanning/ 

Although the European Digital Agenda, launched in 2010, has made a real impact in accelerating e-business processes, some countries have fallen well behind others within the EU – especially in areas including e-invoicing.

According to new statistics from the Digital Agenda Scoreboard, the UK trails its EU neighbours, sending and receiving 74% fewer e-invoices than the Union-wide average.  Furthermore, the UK is also 33% below the EU average for implementing electronic supply chain management systems, and use of e-procurement services is 14% below the average.

This is despite an improvement of over 60% in some cases, since 2009.  With the huge efficiencies possible through e-invoicing and e-business – the European Commission has set a target that by 2020 all invoices sent in Europe will be electronic, which would save €240bn within six years – it’s certainly time that some countries caught up! 

http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2074934/uk-trails-rest-eu-business