The accounting expertise disaster is altering how companies deal with their funds. With the US market needing 340,000 new accountants and 45% of companies struggling to draw expertise, extra corporations are turning to specialised expense administration suppliers to deal with their accounting operations.
However this is the catch: These service suppliers face the identical expertise scarcity.
We not too long ago labored with one such supplier who processed over 50,000 payments and invoices month-to-month for his or her shoppers. As extra corporations got here to them for assist, they bumped into the identical impediment: they could not rent sufficient individuals to maintain up with the high-volume workload. It acquired to some extent the place they needed to flip down new shoppers.
Let me take you thru how the service supplier carried out automated bill processing and located a technique to bulk-process payments and invoices with out consistently including extra employees.
What occurs when rising bill and invoice quantity breaks doc processing
The expense administration supplier in query focuses on serving to organizations optimize their working expenditure. As a Enterprise Course of Outsourcing (BPO) associate, they deal with all the pieces from utility and telecom bills to IT prices—processing payments, validating fees, and offering detailed analytics. They assist AP groups in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and authorities organizations scale back their workload whereas delivering price financial savings by higher expense administration.
Nevertheless, as this supplier’s enterprise grew quickly, dealing with near 50,000 utility payments and invoices month-to-month grew to become greater than only a processing problem. It uncovered elementary operational constraints that threatened their capacity to scale and ship worth to shoppers.
Here is what occurred:
1. Guide processing grew to become a bottleneck: Their group relied on handbook knowledge entry and will solely course of about 100 invoices per individual per day. It created a rising backlog and restricted their capability.
2. Expertise scarcity worsened issues: Discovering and retaining certified in-house accounting analysts to supervise the method and guarantee accuracy grew to become more and more troublesome and costly. This made it tougher to scale their group and meet rising calls for.
3. Shopper service suffered in consequence: Processing inaccuracies and inefficiencies meant delays, errors, and, in the end, sad shoppers. In addition they struggled to satisfy consumer deadlines, resulting in potential penalties.
4. Revenue margins have been squeezed: Elevated labor prices and SLA penalties reduce into their profitability, making it tougher to spend money on progress and innovation.
5. Progress alternatives have been restricted: They could not effectively onboard new shoppers or tackle new enterprise alternatives. It put them on the again foot in opposition to rivals with higher techniques.
They wanted to keep up a big group of knowledge entry clerks always to key within the sheer quantity of payments and invoices. Whereas they have been in a position to outsource a few of it, the inherent limitations of handbook processing remained.
The tipping level was when the service supplier began turning down new enterprise as a result of their operations couldn’t scale to serve them.
Why bulk bill processing grew to become sophisticated
Check out a typical utility invoice, it would seem to be a easy doc to course of. However it might probably shortly turn into a headache if you’re processing hundreds of them in bulk every month. Extra so if you’re aiming for the accuracy and element wanted for efficient expense administration.
Every bill incorporates essential knowledge factors that should be extracted and validated: account numbers, service addresses, meter readings, utilization knowledge, cost descriptions, and fee phrases.
Here is a fast glimpse into how sophisticated the utility invoice processing workflow was:
- Each utility invoice is completely different
- Lots of of utility corporations, every with distinctive bill codecs—some even utilizing 7-8 completely different layouts
- Some utility corporations ship each day payments, others month-to-month
- Single invoices can run from 1 to 372+ pages
- Every format wants particular dealing with
- Billing info is not simple
- A number of meter readings for various companies (electrical energy, fuel, water) may very well be scattered throughout the doc
- Service addresses for multi-location shoppers is likely to be unfold throughout pages, or buried inside tables
- Cost descriptions lacked consistency (“Buyer Cost” in a single invoice and “Cust. Chg.” in one other)
- Equivalent fees may seem a number of occasions on a single bill, requiring handbook revisions
- Accuracy necessities are strict
- Meter readings should match their corresponding fees
- Knowledge wants validation earlier than system import
- Errors may result in incorrect consumer stories, flawed monetary insights, and missed optimization alternatives
- Processing delays result in SLA penalties
These complexities imply handbook processing or primary OCR options, which frequently battle with inconsistent layouts and sophisticated knowledge relationships, wouldn’t be sufficient. They wanted an answer that would not solely deal with excessive quantity but in addition adapt to the intricate particulars and variations of their shoppers’ utility payments.
Reworking high-volume bill processing with AI and automation
The expense administration supplier knew they wanted to automate bill processing earlier than progress grew to become unattainable. Nevertheless, with 50,000+ month-to-month invoices, advanced validation necessities, and strict consumer SLAs, they could not afford any drops in accuracy or service high quality throughout the transition.
That is when their CFO found Nanonets. Our one-shot studying, customizable validation flows, hands-on assist for advanced vendor setups, and talent to deal with multi-page tables satisfied them that we may meet their particular wants:
- Distinctive doc layouts
- Advanced knowledge extraction wants like a number of meter readings and repair addresses
- Excessive-volume processing with constant accuracy
- Validation necessities for his or her system import
Working with the supplier, we took a scientific strategy to automation. Quite than disrupting their whole workflow directly, we began with a vendor-by-vendor strategy to validate accuracy and construct confidence.
At this time, their automated workflow processes a good portion of their 50,000 month-to-month payments and invoices. Right here’s the way it works:
1. Doc consumption
- Their group collects invoices all through the day by a number of channels (mail, consumer emails, utility firm portals, and bodily invoices)
- On the finish of every workday, they place all collected invoices into a delegated SharePoint folder
- The SharePoint folder construction can go as much as 3 ranges deep (e.g., foremost folder → vendor folder → date folder)
- Nanonets checks the SharePoint folders each 3-5 minutes for brand new information
- When new information are detected, Nanonets mechanically imports them
Word: Backup strategies embrace direct add by the Nanonets interface, e mail forwarding to a devoted mannequin e mail deal with, and different cloud storage choices (Google Drive, Dropbox)
2. Preliminary processing
- As soon as imported, Nanonets’ AI mannequin begins extraction instantly
- System identifies and processes:
- A number of meter readings as desk buildings
- Advanced cost descriptions
- Service addresses throughout pages
- Fee phrases and dates
- Constructed-in validation checks the payments for:
- Discipline completeness
- Date format accuracy
- Quantity validity
- Required info presence
Word: Their group adopted an end-of-day batch add strategy, permitting our system to course of all the pieces in a single day. This ensures all paperwork uploaded throughout the day are processed and prepared for assessment the following morning.
3. Error dealing with and high quality management
Error dealing with includes automated checks, adopted by handbook critiques for corrections.
Among the automated checks accomplished by Nanonets:
- Flags lacking fields
- Identifies mismatched meter readings
- Catches incorrect cost descriptions
- Tracks accuracy charges by vendor
The processing group then critiques error logs and output each day for:
- Cost descriptions within the unsuitable columns
- Service addresses throughout a number of places
- Meter readings matching their fees appropriately
When points are discovered, the group investigates the basis trigger, corrects extraction errors instantly within the Nanonets interface, and updates the AI Mannequin’s coaching information if wanted to enhance future accuracy. This steady suggestions loop helps preserve excessive accuracy charges throughout all distributors.
Word: Day by day error reporting was carried out to forestall points from bleeding by the complete week.
4. Publish-processing and output
As soon as paperwork go validation:
- System applies customized formatting guidelines to extracted knowledge
- Standardizes cost descriptions throughout distributors
- Knowledge is exported in customized CSV/Excel format
- Recordsdata are organized by vendor and date
- Knowledge is imported into the service supplier’s billing system
Word: The group processes 15,000-20,000 pages month-to-month this manner, which may scale to 30,000+ pages.
5. Steady enchancment
We work with the service supplier to keep up and enhance processing high quality. Their group identifies areas for enchancment and offers suggestions, whereas we repeatedly improve the AI mannequin’s accuracy. This includes:
- Common mannequin updates primarily based on their processing group’s suggestions
- Targeted enhancements in advanced areas like cost descriptions
- Gradual onboarding of latest distributors to make sure secure efficiency
- Utilizing our analytics dashboard to observe and optimize efficiency
This collaborative strategy helps preserve excessive accuracy charges whereas steadily increasing processing capabilities.
The influence of automation on bulk bill processing
Inside three months of implementing Nanonets, the supplier noticed vital outcomes. For starters, they managed to automate processing for ~12,000 invoices per thirty days. This highlights the system’s capacity to deal with their high-volume wants.
For utility invoices from recognized distributors, the AI mannequin achieved processing speeds of 173-174 invoices in simply 5 minutes — a job that may’ve required hours of handbook knowledge entry.
However the influence went past simply pace.
Processing effectivity
- Nanonets can now course of 46 out of fifty distributors shared by the shopper
- Just one consultant file required per vendor for AI mannequin coaching
- Automated doc consumption by SharePoint integration
- Bulk in a single day processing of 500 invoices each day
Operational enhancements
- Workers free of handbook knowledge entry to give attention to higher-value duties like consumer reporting and evaluation
- Sooner turnaround on consumer deliverables and assembly SLAs
- Extra constant processing high quality, with fewer errors and handbook corrections
- Higher dealing with of advanced invoices with a number of meter readings and repair addresses
The trail ahead
The implementation remains to be within the early levels. With solely ~20% of the supplier’s whole invoice quantity at the moment automated, there’s vital room for progress.
Their subsequent steps give attention to:
Increasing automation protection
- Processing telecom invoices (estimated 10,000 month-to-month)
- Scaling to deal with ~30,000 payments and invoices month-to-month
- Persevering with to onboard new invoice codecs from completely different utility corporations effectively
- Constructing on their profitable utility bill automation
Technical integration
- Implementing API integration by summer time 2025 to allow direct knowledge move between Nanonets and their expense administration resolution
- Automating error corrections the place potential to scale back handbook assessment time
- Constructing a extra sturdy integration between Nanonets and their in-house options
Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of shoppers?
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Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of shoppers?
See how automation can assist you develop with out including headcount. Guide a demo to see how we can assist automate your expense administration service.
