The SpendMatters blog has run an interesting piece, setting out a 5-step plan for how organisations can extend their AP function to cover their entire supply chain finance, in turn helping to better manage capital (through measures such as early settlement discounts) and create value for suppliers and buyers.

Fundamental to these steps are investing in an electronic invoice automation solution that enables AP staff to be reassigned to more strategic tasks than hunting down lost documents or chasing up POs.  It’s well worth a read for its no-nonsense approach: 

http://www.spendmatters.com/index.cfm/2011/9/2/Friday-Rant-A-FiveStep-Plan-to-Turning-Accounts-Payable-Into-Supply-Chain-Finance

It’s recently been announced that as part of President Obama’s “Campaign to Cut Waste” across the entire federal government, all Treasury Bureaus must implement an e-invoice processing solution by the end of next year, and starting in 2013 commercial vendors must submit their invoices electronically.

To help with fast roll-out, the US Treasury is working together with the Department of Defense to identify a single-entry point for all vendors to go paperless and follow one set of government standards for invoice submission instead of unique requirements for each agency.  The Department of Defense’s solution e-invoicing solution is already used by more than 92,000 vendors to submit more than 7 million invoices a year and is claimed to be saving taxpayers $250 million annually.

The wider Federal initiative is expected to cut costs for the taxpayer by nearly half a billion dollars per year.  Additional advantages are expected to be quicker payments for vendors and greater visibility of invoice statuses through use of online portals.

Stena Line, the world’s leading ferry operator, is using PaletteInvoice to automate its invoicing management cycle, and has almost halved the number of days taken to process unapproved, aged invoices.  The company handles over 160,000 complex, multipage invoices annually.

With 1200 people across the group using PaletteInvoice, the solution has also eliminated the paper trail between the company’s offices and ships, which has accelerated AP operations within the business.

As PaletteInvoice works smoothly over both ship-to-shore satellite links and conventional IP networks, the solution has automated invoice processing both on vessels and at Stena Line’s offices.  The company can now process both ship-borne transaction invoices for passenger retail sales and for vessels’ operational supplies, as well as invoices received at local offices. This gives closer control over its invoice workflow management, maximising staff productivity and streamlining operations across the Group.

The full case study is available at Shipping and Marine magazine:  http://www.shippingandmarine.co.uk/article-page.php?contentid=13597&issueid=412