Inworks

We live in a commercial world where Amazon and other big Internet players process orders and payments seamlessly online. At the same time, we’re also seeing legions of people paying their bills on the Web each and every day.

All of this digital activity is exciting and expanding. It’s paving the way as we deploy AP automation in an effort to replace traditional systems—manual processes, paper—on a more widespread basis in the B2B environment.

Achieving this objective is definitely complex. But it’s absolutely necessary—and it can be expedited and facilitated.

But what’s the point? What’s the value? Hospitals face a myriad array of pressures, whether it be operating expenses or health information management. A burdensome AP department shouldn’t be one of them. Why not take the same intensely-managed processes and rigorous standards required for the handling of patient-related documents, and apply them to invoice processing?

If you think that sounds sensible, so do we. That’s one of the reasons why we help hospitals by automating their invoice processing. We receive their paper invoices directly from their vendors; apply structured, consistent data capture to convert the paper invoice to an e-invoice; use proprietary technology to validate, transform and route the data to AP’s ERP environment; and set up electronic check requests. The entire process is intensely managed by our human operators, and adheres to HIPPA-compliant standards.

With those standards, we achieve the goal of having 80-90 percent of all vendor invoices avoiding the AP department; and, at the same time, we give AP access, visibility and control of the invoices.

This will help free the AP department from low-value work, and allow it to focus on higher-value and higher-priority jobs like managing and improving vendor relationships; zeroing in on spend management; addressing seemingly intractable problem resolution issues; and concentrating on vendor consolidation, a critical issue today that can yield pricing discounts, extra service and increased collaboration.

There’s just so much that AP departments can do beyond vouchering invoices.

I say this with confidence, because, in my view, AP departments are filled with knowledge workers—not production workers. And the knowledge workers in AP departments are best at doing subjective work. We can do the objective work on the outside, establishing and managing all the necessary rules and processes to take raw invoice data and automate it so AP doesn’t have to.

As a result, in a perfect world, AP would only need to look at 10-15 percent of the invoices, handling knowledge-requiring situations like credit resolution with vendors.

But we would deal with—and automate—most of the vexing up-front AP issues that consume time and money, and degrade efficiency.

Matching vendor numbers; normalizing tax or payment information; identifying the proper first approver; ensuring that pricing is consistent between purchase orders and invoices; and accommodating auto-accrual—these are tasks that we can automate, perform accurately, and take off of AP’s plate.

AP departments are increasingly being asked to add more value to their organizations, and this approach helps liberate them to do this.

It also helps them join the future sooner by easing them down the road to automation.

And, at the end of the day, it will help us establish the many-to-many networks that we need in order to allow the efficient and free-flowing digital transmission of invoices and payments between buyers and sellers.

About Scan One

Established in 1983 and a wholly-owned subsidiary of CorVel Corporation, Scan One is a leading provider of data capture and workflow automation services. It has combined Inworks’ groundbreaking payment automation technology with its invoice automation services to offer the first fully integrated AP automation program that provides healthcare institutions with a comprehensive, efficient and cost-effective process for electronic invoice and payment processing.

Contact Information

Matthew Carlson
VP of Sales and Marketing
866.986.1684
mcarlson@inworks.com