Vendor Invoice Management Software
Vendor invoice management software is technology that helps organizations digitize, store, route, and approve invoices from service providers and other third parties. Effectively utilizing invoice management software can unlock efficiencies for accounts payable teams and expedite payments to vendors.
Invoice Management at Financial Institutions
Banks and credit unions employ a variety of digital techniques for managing vendor invoices. Common examples include:
- Email Attachments: One of the most prevalent (and least efficient) workflows involves routing PDF files as email attachments. Emails can be easily overlooked by team members, leading to delays and oversights. In addition, email-based processes cause the same document to be stored in multiple users’ inboxes.
- Network Drives: Saving invoices in a unified location on the financial institution’s network drive reduces some confusion compared to email. However, network drives often lack consistency in file naming, which inhibits document classification and utilization. Configuring automated invoice routing workflows may be difficult or impossible.
- Dedicated Vendor Management Software: A basic web search returns numerous software applications that specialize in vendor and invoice management. Such systems offer comprehensive suites of invoice-related features, such as advanced workflows for complex approval scenarios. Unfortunately, implementing a dedicated platform for vendor invoice management represents an incremental cost that may be difficult to justify.
- Multi-Purpose ECM Software: Some ECM (enterprise content management) systems, such as FASTdocs from Alogent, offer a mix of document management capabilities to support multiple workflows—including vendor invoices.
Using ECM Software for Vendor Invoice Management
At Alogent, we believe leveraging existing ECM capabilities is usually the best approach for invoice management. For example, users of our FASTdocs system enjoy:
- Intuitive Document Classification: FASTdocs can automatically identify documents as invoices and extract important metadata, thereby reducing manual data entry and accelerating document classification.
- Easy Access to Vendor Invoices: Invoices in FASTdocs are organized in a “single view” folder, enabling multiple users to simultaneously access the same document. Using “in process” and “paid” folders offers a straightforward solution for tracking progress.
- Pre-Configured Workflows: The FASTdocs Workflow Library, a collection of pre-configured workflows, supports basic invoice routing. Mutli-step invoice routing is also possible for cross-department approvals. Automated emails remind approvers to take action in FASTdocs.
Contact us to discuss Alogent’s invoice management solution for banks and credit unions.
