What is the purpose of automation?

Generating invoices can be a long and tedious process when it is still done physically. According to a GS1 France survey (FR), the average cost of issuing or receiving an invoice can be divided by 4 by dematerializing the invoicing process.

Thanks to the recent deployment of new technologies that are now mature, it is possible to generate even greater cost savings by automating the dematerialization of paper invoices and the processing of electronic invoices.

The advantages of automation are not only financial. Indeed, it also allows to avoid re-entering errors, to centralize the company’s information in structured file formats or to multiply audits and automatic controls of invoices in order to better identify duplicates, frauds or documents that do not comply with the legislation.

For these reasons, the European Commission itself is encouraging the democratization of structured electronic formats (with the EDI format and now the Factur-X format), international formats that comply with European standards and facilitate exchanges between companies in different countries.

To facilitate dematerialization in compliance with these new standards, tools have been developed to manage electronic invoicing. This is the case of Generix Invoice Services which includes in particular :

• A collaborative platform integrating suppliers and customers to facilitate their document exchanges;
• Tools for centralizing and sharing company information, now accessible online by employees;
• Functionalities allowing a better management of the invoicing process, offering visibility on the different steps of the process and on the actions of each party.

But these management tools do not stop there and are being expanded as technologies progress. Generix Invoice Services has thus acquired a new solution, Generix AP Automation, which enables to automate many invoicing processes by taking into account recent innovations in artificial intelligence.

More mature technologies for richer functionality

For the processing of invoices in unstructured formats, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) techniques are now available. These processes, dedicated to the automatic translation of printed or typed text images into text files, allow the transformation of paper or printed invoice scans into electronic invoices in structured format.

Generix integrates a new generation OCR engine (Cognitive Data Capture) into its automation solution. This engine ensures a high recognition rate (without having to

The Generix AP Automation solution also guarantees the automatic processing of electronic invoices and integrates to this end several tools for :

• process EDI and Factur-X formats;
• When necessary, facilitate manual re-entry of documents using semi-automatic entry forms and POFLIP;
• Perform self-billing.

The last challenge of automation is also to facilitate the rest of invoice management: auditing, archiving, regulatory compliance… Thanks to its algorithms, Generix AP Automation offers partial or total automation of these crucial steps by ensuring :

• Multiple controls to detect duplication, fraud and non-compliance;
• Regulatory compliance in some 50 countries;
• Achiving of invoices with probative value;
• A reliable audit trail with automatic reconciliation of invoices, purchase orders, delivery notes or contracts – approval workflow depending on your company’s policy;
• Dashboards with numerous KPIs (transaction volume, types of disputes, OCR performance, supplier ranking, etc.) and recommendations for action in the event of deviation from company standards;
• Deployment of P2P transactions (purchase orders, shipments, receipts, forecasts, inventories, etc.);
• Automatic payment of invoices, including Early Payment Discount, thanks to the detection of discount and financing programs.

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