Businesses across Europe are failing to exploit potential cost savings within their finance departments because they are unaware of the true cost of managing invoices, according to new research from information management firm Iron Mountain and YouGov, a leading research company.
The findings have been published to coincide with the launch of Iron Mountain’s new business process management (BPM) services.
Capable of handling as many as 60 billion accounts payable (AP) transactions per year, the services will be supported by a custom-built processing facility in Bratislava designed to help businesses tackle invoice management through Iron Mountain’s managed services. The new services will allow efficient processing of inbound invoices in multiple data formats whilst enabling seamless integration into legacy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
"Our research reveals that while many businesses feel they understand the overall costs of finance operations, almost half of respondents do not know how much it costs to process a single invoice," said Bettina Wonsag, general manager of the new BPM division at Iron Mountain. "Despite the huge savings possible, our research shows that many are not aware of the potential to reduce invoicing costs. Our new BPM services will take paper out of the process, save businesses money and improve efficiencies."
The total cost of processing an inbound invoice, including staff, IT systems and storage costs is considered acceptable by eight in ten respondents from France and Spain and all respondents from Germany. UK respondents are more cautious with only four in ten saying the cost is acceptable.
The new services offer secure, transparent and structured document management, from processing and automation, to storage and retrieval, and includes accounts payable specific services that help organisations take control of their largest document-centric process.
These new services offer a standardised approach, capable of handling invoice data across multiple countries and legal entities, in any format or language. Offerings range from taking over individual process steps, right through to a fully managed service.
"High speed information and document exchange is fundamental to business success," adds Wonsag. "As the volume of invoices grows, many finance systems reach their limit, requiring the company to invest heavily in new hardware and software."
"Our new BPM services reduce the risk associated with such capital investments whilst ensuring that compliance guidelines, statutory data protection requirements, and data and quality standards are fulfilled. By procuring BPM managed services from Iron Mountain, firms can hand over all these obligations to a highly experienced service provider and have quick, trouble-free access to their digitised data."
Iron Mountain’s BPM services can be integrated independently into an existing IT infrastructure, including finance or ERP systems, taking care of the data processing and the digitisation of documents into native formats. This eliminates all need for manual input and re-keying data, in order to reach the highest possible accuracy rate and free-up the time of accounts payable personnel. Authorised staff can access the data throughout the process and retrieve documents online or have the originals delivered by one of Iron Mountain’s secure delivery fleet vehicles.
"In order to survive lean times and be able to thrive as conditions improve, organisations need to balance cutting costs to improve operating efficiency with continuing to invest to develop their competitive position," said Peter Simons, technical specialist at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). "As Iron Mountain’s research confirms, most organisations are not even alert to the opportunity to reduce processing costs, the first step in finance transformation. Management accountants have important roles to play in helping their organisations to address these costs. Improving the efficiency of the finance function will provide them with an opportunity to make a greater contribution to their organisation’s success."
