The accounting expertise disaster is altering how companies deal with their funds. With the US market needing 340,000 new accountants and 45% of corporations struggling to draw expertise, extra firms 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 just lately labored with one such supplier who processed over 50,000 payments and invoices month-to-month for his or her shoppers. As extra firms 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 received to some extent the place they needed to flip down new shoppers.
Let me take you thru how the service supplier applied automated bill processing and located a option to bulk-process payments and invoices with out continually including extra employees.
What occurs when rising bill and invoice quantity breaks doc processing
The expense administration supplier in query makes a speciality of serving to organizations optimize their working expenditure. As a Enterprise Course of Outsourcing (BPO) companion, they deal with every part from utility and telecom bills to IT prices—processing payments, validating expenses, and offering detailed analytics. They assist AP groups in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and authorities organizations cut back their workload whereas delivering value financial savings via higher expense administration.
Nonetheless, as this supplier’s enterprise grew quickly, dealing with near 50,000 utility payments and invoices month-to-month turned greater than only a processing problem. It uncovered basic operational constraints that threatened their capacity to scale and ship worth to shoppers.
Here is what occurred:
1. Guide processing turned a bottleneck: Their staff relied on guide knowledge entry and will solely course of about 100 invoices per particular person 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 turned more and more troublesome and costly. This made it tougher to scale their staff and meet rising calls for.
3. Consumer service suffered in consequence: Processing inaccuracies and inefficiencies meant delays, errors, and, finally, sad shoppers. In addition they struggled to satisfy consumer deadlines, resulting in potential penalties.
4. Revenue margins had been squeezed: Elevated labor prices and SLA penalties minimize into their profitability, making it tougher to spend money on progress and innovation.
5. Development alternatives had been restricted: They could not effectively onboard new shoppers or tackle new enterprise alternatives. It put them on the again foot in opposition to opponents with higher programs.
They wanted to keep up a big staff of information entry clerks always to key within the sheer quantity of payments and invoices. Whereas they had been in a position to outsource a few of it, the inherent limitations of guide 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 turned sophisticated
Check out a typical utility invoice, it’d look like a easy doc to course of. However it could actually rapidly change into a headache while you’re processing 1000’s of them in bulk every month. Extra so while you’re aiming for the accuracy and element wanted for efficient expense administration.
Every bill comprises essential knowledge factors that must 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 totally different
- Lots of of utility firms, every with distinctive bill codecs—some even utilizing 7-8 totally different layouts
- Some utility firms ship day by day payments, others month-to-month
- Single invoices can run from 1 to 372+ pages
- Every format wants particular dealing with
- Billing data is not easy
- A number of meter readings for various companies (electrical energy, fuel, water) could possibly be scattered throughout the doc
- Service addresses for multi-location shoppers may 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 expenses would possibly seem a number of occasions on a single bill, requiring guide revisions
- Accuracy necessities are strict
- Meter readings should match their corresponding expenses
- 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 guide processing or primary OCR options, which frequently battle with inconsistent layouts and sophisticated knowledge relationships, wouldn’t be sufficient. They wanted an answer that might not solely deal with excessive quantity but additionally 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 turned unimaginable. Nonetheless, 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 through the transition.
That is when their CFO found Nanonets. Our one-shot studying, customizable validation flows, hands-on help for advanced vendor setups, and skill 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. Somewhat than disrupting their whole workflow directly, we began with a vendor-by-vendor strategy to validate accuracy and construct confidence.
In the present day, 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 staff collects invoices all through the day via 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 chosen SharePoint folder
- The SharePoint folder construction can go as much as 3 ranges deep (e.g., primary folder → vendor folder → date folder)
- Nanonets checks the SharePoint folders each 3-5 minutes for brand new information
- When new information are detected, Nanonets routinely imports them
Be aware: Backup strategies embrace direct add via the Nanonets interface, e-mail forwarding to a devoted mannequin e-mail tackle, 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
- Cost phrases and dates
- Constructed-in validation checks the payments for:
- Area completeness
- Date format accuracy
- Quantity validity
- Required data presence
Be aware: Their staff adopted an end-of-day batch add strategy, permitting our system to course of every part in a single day. This ensures all paperwork uploaded through the day are processed and prepared for overview the subsequent morning.
3. Error dealing with and high quality management
Error dealing with entails automated checks, adopted by guide opinions for corrections.
A few of the automated checks completed by Nanonets:
- Flags lacking fields
- Identifies mismatched meter readings
- Catches incorrect cost descriptions
- Tracks accuracy charges by vendor
The processing staff then opinions error logs and output day by day for:
- Cost descriptions within the mistaken columns
- Service addresses throughout a number of places
- Meter readings matching their expenses accurately
When points are discovered, the staff investigates the foundation 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 keep excessive accuracy charges throughout all distributors.
Be aware: Every day error reporting was applied to stop points from bleeding via your complete week.
4. Put up-processing and output
As soon as paperwork cross validation:
- System applies customized formatting guidelines to extracted knowledge
- Standardizes cost descriptions throughout distributors
- Knowledge is exported in customized CSV/Excel format
- Information are organized by vendor and date
- Knowledge is imported into the service supplier’s billing system
Be aware: The staff processes 15,000-20,000 pages month-to-month this fashion, 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 staff identifies areas for enchancment and gives suggestions, whereas we constantly improve the AI mannequin’s accuracy. This entails:
- Common mannequin updates based mostly on their processing staff’s suggestions
- Targeted enhancements in advanced areas like cost descriptions
- Gradual onboarding of recent distributors to make sure steady efficiency
- Utilizing our analytics dashboard to watch and optimize efficiency
This collaborative strategy helps keep excessive accuracy charges whereas steadily increasing processing capabilities.
The impression 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 30 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 activity that might’ve required hours of guide knowledge entry.
However the impression 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 via SharePoint integration
- Bulk in a single day processing of 500 invoices day by day
Operational enhancements
- Employees free of guide knowledge entry to give attention to higher-value duties like consumer reporting and evaluation
- Quicker turnaround on consumer deliverables and assembly SLAs
- Extra constant processing high quality, with fewer errors and guide 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 present 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 totally different utility firms 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 answer
- Automating error corrections the place potential to cut back guide overview time
- Constructing a extra strong integration between Nanonets and their in-house options
Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of shoppers?
▼
Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of shoppers?
See how automation may also help you develop with out including headcount. Guide a demo to see how we may also help automate your expense administration service.
