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The future of invoice processing in SSC: why automate now?
Shared Services Centers (SSC) face constant pressure from a high volume of operational functions. Regardless of business area, SSCs have to complete daily tasks faster and more efficiently to maintain consistent accuracy across all departments. Factors that might prevent these facilities from achieving optimal efficiency include high operational costs and process slowdowns.
One of the most resource-intensive processes in SSCs is invoice processing. The tasks involved in invoice management such as invoice data extraction, format standardization and approval workflows can seem difficult to track, let alone analyze and automate. What definitely can help shed light on ‘as-is’ processes and improve them is detailed action-level analytics provided by Task Mining.
In this article we’ll cover invoice processing issues and how automation of the process becomes a game-changer with Task Mining.
The challenges of manual invoice processing
Let’s take a deep dive into the issues caused by manual invoice processing
1. Loss of time and money
Invoice processing consists of lots of steps, from invoice creation to final approval and payment execution. First, employees extract invoice data, initiating a series of manual actions. The data must be extracted from one document and then manually entered into ERP or AP systems. If invoices are sent in different formats, the ERP systems will require reformatting to match the requirements. Moreover, if there isn’t enough information, it will provoke back-and-forth communication between finance teams and suppliers, leading to delayed payments and financial losses due to missed discounts.
2. High risk errors
What can really help to prevent high risk errors from happening is implementing process analytics and target routine manual tasks like data extraction and entry for automation. In the recent Deloitte report on data management improvement, it states that integrating automation can reduce manual data management tasks by 45%. The optimization of this sort not only minimizes the probability of human error but also leads to fewer costly reworks and therefore more financial savings.
Yet, achieving seamless automation starts with knowing exactly where inefficiencies lie. Identifying friction points and determining which tasks require automation is crucial – but not always straightforward. This is where Task Mining comes in.
How invoice processing can be optimized in SSC with Task Mining
Consider the case of an SSC that implemented Operavix Task Mining. Previously, the company had attempted to address the issues with process visibility and even sought process analysis. However, the method they used didn’t bring substantial results.
The reason? The manual nature of process analytics.
To analyze all business processes, the company organized a series of interviews with employees and process experts. However, the traditional approach to process analytics proved to be slow and challenging, requiring significant time and effort. Due to the reliance on manual input, the results lacked accuracy and depth, making it difficult to obtain a clear and detailed picture of process execution.
The moment the SSC realized that the traditional manual process analytics hadn’t worked out, they decided to find an advanced tool to unfold their ‘as-is’ processes and make them better.
Operavix Task Mining came in and drilled down to the SSC’ business processes.
First, we deployed Task Mining Clients on employees’ PCs, and they collected user interaction data. Then Operavix extracted ‘as-is’ tasks and let the SSC identify routine manual ones with the highest automation potential.
By implementing Operavix Task Mining the SSC managed to:
- analyze task execution and detect routine manual tasks
- identify 63 high-impact automation opportunities
- save more than 200,000 working hours for 380 employees annually