Automating accounting: 7 tips for financial accounting

For some time, you’ve wanted to automate your accounting. After all, there are several advantages to this. When you have automated, unambiguous bookkeeping, you increase efficiency, significantly reduce the chance of error and keep a lot of time for more challenging tasks. Plus, you’ll always know exactly where an invoice is in the process. But where should you start in streamlining and optimizing your processes? Fortunately, this is much easier than it seems. In this blog, we share 7 tips on processing purchase invoices that will get you up and running quickly. If you are going to automate your accounting, be sure to read through them!

1. Unambiguous delivery

Every supplier delivers invoices differently. Some send them by mail, others by post. And some suppliers ask if you can download an invoice in a portal. It’s not convenient for administrative staff to work in such a scattered manner. That’s why it’s important to “educate” your suppliers. Insist that they submit invoices in the same way (for example, as a PDF attachment to an email), so you can set up the purchase invoice processing process accordingly. By creating uniformity right at the start of the process, you save a lot of time. Optionally, you can further automate the presorting and processing of incoming invoices by leaving this work to a handy tool.

2. Correct billing information

Is the invoice’s salutation incorrect (i.e., is the company name misspelled)? If so, do not correct the information yourself and then process the invoice. This is not allowed for VAT purposes, among other things. In addition, check whether items such as purchase order and project number are (correctly) listed on the invoice. If this is not the case, it is advisable to address this to your supplier. If you want to automate your bookkeeping, you can make it a lot easier on yourself. If you do not want to check all invoice data manually, smart OCR software offers a solution. It can perform automated checks on your receipts and invoices. If an invoice matches 100%, it can be posted. Very handy!

3. Uniform way of booking

Several people often work in a financial administration. Everyone handles the purchase invoice processing process in their own way. It is important that you ensure a uniform way of booking so that you have a clean administration. This saves time, helps you find your invoices easily and is enormously useful if you want to create reports, for example. So make sure you have smart OCR software, which uses logic to help you book invoices the same way. (Want to know more about OCR software? Read our blogs ‘ What is OCR?‘ and ‘How does OCR work?‘)

4. Clear, streamlined approval process.

Make sure it is clear internally who the responsibilities are in the approval process. For example, hold certain individuals responsible for a specific cost center or general ledger account. Next, choose good workflow software that can suggest approvers in a smart, automated way. In this way, you can automate your accounting, creating a streamlined approval process that is clear and smooth for everyone.

5. Digital archiving

Automating your bookkeeping means switching to digital invoice processing. In that case, you obviously don’t want to keep invoices physically. Make sure you have an ERP package in which you can store digital invoices and that there is an automated link between the entry, processing and archiving of your invoices. Smart OCR software ensures that an invoice automatically enters the accounting system. Afterwards, you can retrieve your entries and all related documents at the touch of a button. Study the rules about digital archiving! (Also read our blog ‘ Are you allowed to keep invoices digitally?‘)

6. Clear accounts payable

To properly check invoices for accounts payable data, you need to compare them with the data from your ERP system. After all, to avoid problems, it is important that all information is up-to-date. If you don’t want to check all this manually, choose the best OCR software that will alert you to any discrepancies and discrepancies. Again, if you automate your accounting, you will save time and work more efficiently!

7. Extrapolate with a reporting goal

Some organizations book invoices on many dimensions, but do not do so with a clearly defined goal. This does not make the process more efficient. So make sure you specify bookings with a purpose. Itemizing can be useful if you want to see costs by department. Or when you need a cost specification per project. For example, if you want to know exactly what each employee spent on fuel, it is useful to break down invoices by license plate. In short, think carefully about the reporting purpose of itemization before you use your scan and recognize-software.

Automating accounting and thus invoices: getting started?

Do you want to automate your accounting and get started with digital invoice processing? And would you find it useful to discuss how to put the 7 tips from this blog into practice for your organization? Feel free to contact us. We’ll be happy to tell you more about what benefits you can experience, so you’ll have more time and save costs!