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The Invoice Reconciliation and
 Payment Benchmark Report




             June 2006


          — Sponsored by —
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report


                                           Executive Summary



        I   nvoice Reconciliation and Payment (IR&P) is more than simply processing invoices
            and paying bills. It is the foundation into gaining real-time visibility into costs and
            supplier performance. In an economic environment with wild price-swings in busi-
            ness costs, IR&P should be providing information on spend and costs to manage the
        enterprise and maintain competitive position.
        AberdeenGroup received survey responses from approximately 150 industry executives
        and managers to gain further insight on IR&P processes, strategies, processes, chal-
        lenges, and successes. This report identifies the current priorities, top pressures, and spe-
        cific strategies Best in Class enterprises are implementing to increase the business value
        delivered from IR&P activities.

        Key Business Findings
        Aberdeen’s 2006 Invoice Reconciliation and Payment Benchmark Report reveals that
        enterprises are seeking to reduce their costs through
        maximizing liquidity and cash flow and headcount           More than two-thirds, or 69%, of enter-
        reductions. A key area of focus is improved visibil-       prises report they have limited-to-no
        ity into spending. Gaps in the source-to-pay lifecy-       visibility into spending.
        cle include processes where critical information is
        not collected, data is poorly organized, systems are
        not well integrated and information is not centrally collected for reporting, spend analy-
        sis, and business intelligence. This results in problems gaining real-time visibility into
        business costs and supplier performance. Only 4% of the enterprises in this benchmark
        have real-time visibility into this critical financial information; 27% reported they had
        good visibility into spending, and 69% report they have no visibility or limited visibility
        to spending. (See Figure 1)

        Figure 1: Visibility into Spending

           80%
                             69%
           70%
           60%
           50%
           40%
           30%                                        27%

           20%
           10%                                                                      4%
            0%
                    Limited to No Visibility      Good Visibility                Real Time



                                                                             Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006




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AberdeenGroup • i
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




    Implications and Analysis
    Lack of visibility into spend is alarming given that enterprises face an environment in
    which costs have become less predictable. Staying competitive in the marketplace re-
    quires access and visibility to costs and programs to manage these costs.

    One of the challenges in gaining visibility into supplier performance is the large volume
    of paper-based transactions and variety in the types of billing processed. Paper remains
    stubbornly entrenched in the billing process. This benchmark reveals most billing (83%
    domestic and 86% for international) is received in paper format.
    Figure 2: Paper Invoices vs. Electronic Billing

        Domestic          17%                           83%



     International        14%                       86%


                     0%           20%           40%           60%           80%        100%

                                    Electronic                      Paper

                                                                       Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006
    Most enterprises are not able to get the data from different systems organized and inte-
    grated into one repository. Nearly one-third, or 34%, of the respondents in our survey
    report that they have three or more systems to manage invoice processing, reconciliation,
    and payment. An additional 10% of the respondents do not know how many systems they
    are using.
    Few enterprises have realized the potential to effectively leverage data from the IR&P
    process. The process and data extracted from it are not well-integrated with sourcing,
    procurement, and ERP systems. To maintain competitiveness in an environment where
    supply costs are rapidly changing, enterprises must improve their IR&P processes to im-
    prove visibility into spend and drive cost reductions.
    Recommendations for Action
        •    Automate labor-intensive invoice processing.
        •    Manage payment terms and capture cash discounts.
        •    Increase use of financial institutions’ trade services and working capital solutions.
        •    Work toward a fully visible, integrated environment for the source-to-pay life cy-
             cle.
        •    Develop supplier score cards for improved cost management.




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                                                                                                      ii • AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report



                                                           Table of Contents
                       Executive Summary .............................................................................................. i
                          Key Business Findings ................................................................................... i
                          Implications and Analysis................................................................................ii
                          Recommendations for Action..........................................................................ii

                       Chapter One: Issue at Hand.................................................................................3
                          Pressures of the IR&P Process ..................................................................... 3
                          Enterprises are Crushed by a Mountain of Paper Bills .................................. 4

                       Chapter Two: Key Business Value Findings .........................................................6
                          IR&P Challenges ........................................................................................... 6
                          How are Companies Responding to these Challenges?................................ 8
                          Enterprise Approaches to Managing the IR&P Process............................... 10

                       Chapter Three: Implications & Analysis............................................................. 12

                       Chapter Four: Recommendations for Action ...................................................... 16
                          Laggard Steps to Success........................................................................... 16
                          Industry Average Steps to Success ............................................................. 17
                          Best in Class Next Steps ............................................................................. 17

                       Featured Sponsors............................................................................................. 19

                       Sponsor Directory .............................................................................................. 21

                       Authors’ Profiles ................................................................................................. 22

                       Appendix A: Research Methodology .................................................................. 23
                          Demographics of the Surveyed Population.................................................. 23

                       Appendix B: PACE Methodology ........................................................................ 24

                       Appendix C: Invoice Payment & Reconciliation Process.................................... 27

                       Appendix D: Related Aberdeen Research & Tools ............................................. 28

                       About AberdeenGroup ...................................................................................... 29




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AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




                                                                   Figures

                       Figure 1: Visibility into Spending ........................................................................... i

                       Figure 2: Paper Invoices vs. Electronic Billing...................................................... ii

                       Figure 3: Top Pressures of the IR&P Process ......................................................3

                       Figure 4: Enterprise Visibility for Pricing, Discounts & Supplier Performance ......6

                       Figure 5: Invoice Billing Errors .............................................................................7

                       Figure 6: Estimated Percent of Projected Procurement Savings Booked.............8

                       Figure 7: Current and Planned Use of IR&P Automation......................................9

                       Figure 8: IR&P Overall Is Centrally-Managed .................................................... 10

                       Figure 9: Outsourcing of the IR&P Process........................................................ 11

                       Figure 10: Systems used to Manage IR&P ........................................................ 11


                                                                    Tables
                       Table 1: The Impact of Paper & Labor-Intensive Billing Processes ......................4

                       Table 2: IR&P PACE.............................................................................................5

                       Table 3: IR&P Competitive Framework............................................................... 13

                       Table 4: PACE (Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, Enablers)............................... 25




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AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report


                                                                  Chapter One:
                                                                 Issue at Hand

                             • Enterprises are seeking to maximize cash flow, lower their costs for processing invoices,
                                and improve visibility into spending to manage their competitive position.
         Key Takeaways




                             • The invoice process and accounts payable function remains a highly labor-intensive
                                function with too much paper and a jumble of systems with limited integration and poor
                                visibility into spend.
                             • These challenges provide significant opportunity to streamline processes with integrated
                                systems to capture new process efficiencies in the IR&P process.




         G
                  aps in the source-to-pay cycle include processes where critical information is not
                  collected, data is poorly organized, systems are not well integrated and informa-
                  tion is not centrally collected for reporting, spend analysis, and business intelli-
                  gence. This results in problems gaining real-time visibility into business costs
        and supplier performance. Considering that an enterprise spends nearly half of every dol-
        lar that it earns on external goods and services and between 60% to 80% of the cost of a
        final product for manufacturers comes from external suppliers, this information is critical
        to manage the enterprise’s competitive position and profitability.
        Pressures of the IR&P Process
        Aberdeen research identified five market pressures that are driving enterprises to gain
        visibility into their costs and properly manage their expenses. Three of the pressures cited
        by survey respondents are linked directly to visibility:
                         •     Reduction of cycle times to post expenses
                         •     More timely recognition of costs
                         •     Rising supplier costs impacting the enterprise.
        The other two priorities are tied to the theme of cost control. Respondents indicate they
        face pressures to lower IR&P processing costs and improve audits to identify billing er-
        rors, fraud and abuse. Automation is critical to address these challenges.
        Figure 3: Top Pressures of the IR&P Process

                  Reduce time to post expenses in internal systems                                                               52%


                                          More timely recognition of costs                                                45%


                                                         Lower IR&P costs                                                 44%


                              Audit to identify billing errors, fraud & abuse                                   34%


                                         Rising supplier/commodity costs                                      30%


                                                                                0%   10%       20%      30%         40%    50%         60%

                                                                                                     Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006

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3 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




    Enterprises are Crushed by a Mountain of Paper Bills
    IR&P is more than simply processing a few invoices that are not captured by Enterprise
    Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Most of the bills are coming in paper format (83%
    domestically and 86% overseas). Despite continued adoption of P-Cards and Corporate
    Cards for many “one-time transactions,” paper remains stubbornly entrenched in most
    enterprises. All of this paper must be processed, otherwise most enterprises would come
    to a grinding halt.
    With paper, critical information is difficult to access in a timely fashion. The survey re-
    sponses show no visibility or limited visibility to spending is an obstacle to managing the
    enterprises for 69% of the respondents (Figure 1). The table below highlights key issues
    and quantifies some of the costs with paper bills.
    Table 1: The Impact of Paper & Labor-Intensive Billing Processes
    Issue                        Impact on the Enterprise                                      Cost
                                 • Delays in posting expenses
    Long cycle time to
                                 • Inability to maximize cash flow through timing payments     1% to 5% of
    process invoices                                                                           transaction
                                     to just prior to expiration of cash discounts
                                 • Late payment penalties                                      value
                                 • Over payments for billing errors                            12%-15%
    No program to vali-
                                 • Duplicate payments                                          error rate
    date billing
                                 • Tax errors
                                                                         Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006


    Pressures, Actions, Capabilities,                   PACE Key — For a more detailed
    Enablers (PACE)                                     description, see Appendix A
    Pressure to post expenses faster, recog-            Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark re-
    nize expenses, and manage rising sup-               search that evaluates business pressures, actions,
    plier/commodity costs are increasing the            capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corpo-
    need for enhanced visibility and control.           rate behavior in specific business processes. These
    These are the leading factors fueling the           terms are defined as follows:
    drive for IR&P improvements among en-               Pressures — external forces that impact an organiza-
    terprises. Table 2 highlights the actions,          tion’s market position, competitiveness, or business
    internal capabilities, and technology en-           operations
    ablers that enterprises have prioritized to         Actions — the strategic approaches that an organiza-
    address these pressures and accelerate              tion takes in response to industry pressures
    improvements in invoice processing rec-             Capabilities — the business process competencies
    onciliation and bill payment.                       required to execute corporate strategy
    These prioritized actions, capabilities, and        Enablers — the key functionality of technology solu-
    enablers are examined in more detail in             tions required to support the organization’s enabling
    the next chapter.                                   business practices




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The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report

        Table 2: IR&P PACE

         Prioritized               Prioritized                 Prioritized                    Prioritized
         Pressures                  Actions                    Capabilities                   Enablers
                             • Automate manual           • Scan bills at the front    • Enhance visibility and
         Reduction of
                                 steps in IR&P proc-         end of processing            access to physical cop-
         cycle times to
                                 ess to reduce head-         and consider Optical         ies of bills or electronic
         post expenses           count                       Character (OCR)              facsimile
         More timely rec-    • Adopt P-cards and             technology               • Utilize alert system to flag
                                 Corporate cards to      • Migrate paper bills to         bills awaiting approval
         ognition of costs
                                 eliminate paper from        electronic media         • Procure services through
                                 non-recurring trans-    • Automate expense ap-           electronic marketplaces
         Lower IR&P              actions                     proval and routing           with P.O. flip
         costs               • Use rule based work-      • Increase collaboration     • Improve visibility into bill-
                                 flow for routing of         between stakeholders         ing dashboards
                                 invoice approvals
                             • Leverage IR&P data to     • Better align finance and   • Improve supplier cost
         Rising supplier
                                 improve volume dis-         procurement to allow         monitoring, benchmark-
         costs impacting
                                 counts, sourcing,           for more collaboration       ing and reporting
         the enterprise          and capture of fluc-        and sharing of data
                                 tuating costs
                             • Improve visibility and    Automated audit for          • Integration of processing
         Audit to identify
                                 auditability of proc-   • Elimination of duplicate        systems, pricing, and
         billing errors,
                                 ess                         payments                      contract data
         fraud & abuse
                             • Centralize billing into   • Validation of taxes        • Identify off contract pur-
                                 one repository          • Fraud detection for high        chases
                                                             risk transactions
                                                                               Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006




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5 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




                                              Chapter Two:
                                       Key Business Value Findings

                        • Managers should have visibility into their expenses through their invoices. Unfortunately,
    Key Takeaways




                          data is either not captured or poorly organized and not available to manage business
                          costs and track supplier performance.
                        • Billing errors are also a problem with few systems to reconcile contracts with invoices.
                          This benchmark found error rates in the range of 10-15% of the total.
                        • Many enterprises are not leveraging the data in their invoices to manage their business.




    E       nterprises have limited-to-no visibility of contract pricing during reconciliation of
            billing, capture of early payment discounts, and supplier performance (Figure 5).
            This creates serious challenges in auditing bills, timing of payments to maximize
    float while capturing cash discounts, and accessing the data on costs to manage the enter-
    prise. These are critical elements that are needed to maintain competitiveness in an envi-
    ronment where supply costs are rapidly changing.

    Figure 4: Enterprise Visibility for Pricing, Discounts & Supplier Performance

          Contract pricing during
                                                              57%                                28%           15%
              reconciliation



                     Capture of early                       54%                                   32%          14%
                    payment discounts



                Ability to monitor
                                                                  69%                                    27%         4%
              supplier performance

                                              Limited to No Visibility         Good Visibility          Real Time
                                                                                     Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006


    IR&P Challenges
                    •     Long cycle time to process invoices ─ Eighty-three percent of domestic in-
                          voices and 86% of international invoices are received in paper format. Entry of
                          invoices can be a slow process. Our survey results found, on average, it takes
                          27.6 days to process an invoice. Laggards have an average cycle time of 49 days
                          whereas the Best in Class’ average cycle time to process and invoice is 7 days.
                          Faster cycle times mean less cost to process invoices, cash discounts can be
                          taken, and better supplier relationships can be built.


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The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report



             •      Problems identifying missing bills ─ Lack of automation and poor visibility
                    (Figure 5) into invoices means firms do not have systems to flag missing bills. At
                    most enterprises, invoice processing is a series of disparate and largely manual
                    activities. Aberdeen’s benchmark found that 34% have three or more systems to
                    process bills and another 10% don’t know how many systems they use. Missing
                    bills lead to added cost to track the lost invoice, late payment penalties, delays in
                    future orders, and risk with duplicate payments if the bill is located.
             On average, 12% to 14% of billing is believed to contain errors. This represents er-
             rors that respondents have actually identified. The error rate is likely to underre-
             ported because some errors are never found. The most common billing error was
             pricing that did not match contracted rates. It is surprising that tax errors and dupli-
             cate invoices were not cited more often in the survey pool.

        Figure 5: Invoice Billing Errors


           Pricing does not match contract                                                               64%
                  Incomplete documentation                           21%
                                 Shortages               5%
                               Late delivery         3%
                                     Quality         3%
                 Noncompliant transportation        2%
              Mislabeling or packing errors         2%
                                  Damages           1%

                                               0%        10%   20%      30%      40%      50%      60%      70%
                                                                               Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006

             •      No automated program to validate billing ─ The majority, 57%, of enterprises
                    have little-to-no visibility into their contracts for bill validation. Aberdeen’s
                    March The Contract Management Benchmark Report: Procurement Contracts
                    found that nearly half of companies continue to store at least a portion of their
                    contracts in paper format or in disparate systems/databases, limiting their ability
                    to locate contracts or validate billing. Challenges in performing audits prior to
                    payment add additional costs with financial adjustments, system updates, and
                    tracking of these transactions after the payment has cleared. Aberdeen’s bench-
                    mark report on The CFO’s View on Procurement showed that CFOs believe that
                    only 34% of projected procurement savings, on average, are realized, whereas
                    sourcing and procurement managers believe that 77% of the savings are realized.
                    This leaves nearly a quarter of the savings, or 23%, that managers feel are never
                    realized. An automated program that links contracts to billing would address the
                    leakage in procurement price concessions.




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The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




    Figure 6: Estimated Percent of Projected Procurement Savings Booked

                                               100%

                  Procurement Savings Booked
                                                                                  Leakage
                                                                                                          77%
                                               75%

                                                                                  Estimating
                                               50%                                & Tracking
                                                                34%

                                               25%


                                                0%
                                                      CFOs & Financial Managers                Sourcing Managers & Buyers
                                                                           Functional Estimate



                                                         Source: AberdeenGroup, The CFO’s View on Procurement, September 2005

         •   No system/portal for supplier queries ─ Only 34% of the survey respondents
             report that they have implemented an online system for supplier queries. Enter-
             prises have opportunities to gain headcount efficiencies by providing a portal for
             suppliers to view the status of their disbursements and provide access to other
             time consuming queries.
         •   No repository for centralized management of invoices ─ ERP systems are not
             well integrated with manual processing of bills. In effect, IR&P fills the chasm
             that exists between automated ERP processing of EDI billing and volumes of pa-
             per bills that need to be manually processed. Poor visibility into invoices and
             compliance-tracking makes it difficult to manage costs. Lack of visibility into
             spending is alarming given that enterprises face an environment in which costs
             are unpredictable and these costs are critical to maintain competitiveness and
             profitability. Enterprises need to strive towards achieving a fully visible inte-
             grated environment for their managers.

    How are Companies Responding to these Challenges?
    Enterprises of all sizes and in all industries face the external pressures cited in Chapter
    One. Enterprises are seeking to manage their expenses through reduction of cycle times
    to post expenses, more timely recognition of costs, and manage rising supplier costs. The
    other two priorities are tied to the theme of cost control with survey respondents striving
    to lower their IR&P processing costs and improve audits to identify billing errors, fraud
    and abuse.
    To respond to these pressures, benchmark participants prioritized the following actions
    for improving IR&P efficiency and performance:




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                                                                                                                                 8 • AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report


        Figure 7: Current and Planned Use of IR&P Automation



                 39%                                                              40%           38%
                       34%                              34%                                           34%
                                                                            32%

                                    23%                       23%

                                          17%




             Electronic receipt OCR scanning of       E-documents &          Payment         Payment status
             of invoices (XML,     line items for    digital signatures     scheduling          tracking
                    EDI)        invoice processing       for invoice
                                                          approvals

                                  Plan to automate in 12 months                    In use
                                                                             Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006

             •    Migration to electronic receipt of invoices was cited as a primary action by
                  39% of the survey pool. Since more then 80% of the invoices are received in a
                  paper format there is room for improvement. Aberdeen’s examination of IR&P
                  programs consistently finds that many enterprises are lagging in their use of EDI
                  and other electronic billing media.
             •    OCR scanning of line items for invoice processing proves to be of value and
                  can streamline processes. We found that 23% of the enterprises represented in
                  our survey plan to increase their adoption of OCR scanning. In the past, the tech-
                  nology was not mature and early adopters paid a price. Recent advances in OCR
                  scanning help to explain there is renewed interest. This approach includes scan-
                  ning the line item details and cross-indexing common fields for searching and
                  structuring data for integration with other systems and spend analysis. Like the
                  moves to HTML and electronic transactions, more complete OCR scanning of
                  line item detail helps to address the inefficiencies of manual search and retrieval
                  of filed documents; the cost of lost and misfiled documents, transit costs to move
                  paper, and operational costs to handle paper-based invoices. Additional benefits
                  include reduced storage costs for filed hard copies and long-term storage through
                  digital copies. In addition, digital electronic storage can be an efficient approach
                  to disaster recovery contingency planning.
             •    Deployment of E-documents and digital signatures for invoice approvals is
                  vital if companies want to improve their cycle times for approving bills and cap-
                  turing early payment discounts. With this approach integrated programs route
                  billing for approval based on a structured workflow. Alerts and escalations help
                  to monitor invoice approval status. Managers are able to view all the details
                  online through links to scanned images or electronic facsimiles of bills. Our
                  benchmark found 39% of the survey respondents are using paper-based approval
                  routing forms. Aside from being extremely inefficient, this approach provides lit-
                  tle control and archival tracking for fraud controls and Section 404 internal con-
                  trols to support Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
             •    Payment scheduling is ranked as an area that 32% of the enterprises plan to ad-
                  dress over the next 12 months because it provides more secure and efficient fi-

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9 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




             nancial processes. Enterprises are deploying this approach to decrease their cycle
             time and accelerate their accounting processes. Respondents that are employing
             electronic payment scheduling are able to reduce the cost of third-party payments
             and capture early payment cash discounts by more effectively managing the tim-
             ing of their payments.
         •   Payment status tracking provides a good target for cost take-out and it is listed
             as an area that is being pursued to reduce costs associated with manual searches
             for payment information.

    Enterprise Approaches to Managing the IR&P Process
    Centralization is important in establishing consistency in how documents are processed
    and compressing timeframes to process invoices. Most enterprises have adopted a cen-
    tralized approach to processing invoices. The breakout above (Figure 7) shows a number
    of different approaches to managing invoices. The findings indicate most enterprises or
    69% have adopted a central approach to IR&P. A small portion or 14% are totally decen-
    tralized and 17% have a hybrid approach where invoices are processed at decentralized
    locations, but paid centrally (Figure 8).

    Figure 8: IR&P Overall Is Centrally-Managed


                             Hybrid:
                                                               Decentralized, 14%
                         Decentralized
                            receipt &
                          reconciliation
                           Centralized:
                        Payment, 17%




                                                  Centralized, 69%    Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006



    Enterprises show a preference not to outsource management of the entire IR&P process
    to third parties (Figure 9). IR&P may not be a core competency for most firms, but enter-
    prises appear to be reluctant to completely outsource monitoring of invoice charges and
    payments. Instead of full outsourcing, these functions are being performed through hy-
    brid models of SaaS or ASP approaches where a solution provider loads the paper and
    enterprises manage selected part of the process.




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The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report
        Figure 9: Outsourcing of the IR&P Process



              Invoice Receipt & Sorting    13%         13%                          74%




                 Invoice Reconciliation    9%     9%                             82%




                     Accounts Payable       12%   10%                              78%



                                                       Outsourced   Plan to Outsource    No Plans to Outsource


                                                                                Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006



        A final challenge identified in the benchmark highlights that 34% of the enterprises use
        three or more systems to manage invoices. These disparate systems contribute to the in-
        tegration problems that make gaining access to data difficult.

        Figure 10: Systems Used to Manage IR&P




                                          56%                                       34%                     10%


                              1 to 2 Systems                 3 or more systems                 Don't know

                                                                                Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006




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11 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




                                             Chapter Three:
                                        Implications & Analysis

                    • Best in Class organizations capture data from their IR&P process in a highly organized
                       manner and integrate it with their ERP systems to provide real-time visibility into spend.
    Key Takeaways




                    • Best in Class enterprises are able to process invoices faster at lower costs.
                    • In top-performing organizations, business practices and technology solutions are unified
                       (they may be decentralized), but data is processed consistently in a controlled environ-
                       ment across the enterprise.




    E
           nterprises need to benchmark what constitutes accept-
                                                                                       Competitive Framework
           able business performance and set “stretch” goals to                                 Key
           continually improve their rankings. Automating paper-
           centric processes may require reengineering and sig-                       The Aberdeen Competitive
                                                                                      Framework defines enter-
    nificant rethinking in what it will take to improve collabora-
                                                                                      prises as falling into one of
    tion with vendors.                                                                the following three levels of
    This report has benchmarked industry averages, however, the                       practices and performance:
    metrics for costs of processing an invoice and time to com-                       Best in Class (20%)
    plete the cycle will vary based on the number of line items                       Practices that are the best
    and complexity of the billing.                                                    currently being employed
                                                                                      and significantly superior to
    The table below defines levels of performance and practices
                                                                                      the industry norm
    in the IR&P process against the respondents in Aberdeen’s
    survey pool (Table 3). Benchmark participants fall into one of                    Industry Average (50%)
    three categories – Laggard, Industry Average, or Best in                          Practices that represent the
    Class, based on their characteristics and performance metrics                     average or norm
    in four categories:                                                               Laggards (30%)
                                                                                      Practices that are signifi-
                      1. Process
                                                                                      cantly behind the average of
                            a. Macro                                                  the industry
                            b. Invoice handling
                            c. Invoice reconciliation/audit
                            d. Routing and approval
                            e. Disbursement planning
                            f. Payment creation and delivery, and customer service for vendor que-
                                 ries
                      2. Technology: Automation levels and integration of systems
                      3. Performance metrics: Costs and cycle times to process invoices
                      4. Visibility: Access to IR&P data.




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                                                                                                                12 • AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report
        Table 3: IR&P Competitive Framework


                      Laggards                         Industry Average                      Best in Class

        Process:      Manual process generally de-     Dissemination of controlled pro-      Consistent application of
        Macro         fined by P.O. or non-P.O.-       cedures and high compliance.          controlled procedures and
                      based procedures and dollar-                                           work flow.
                                                       Significant emphasis on EDI.
                      limit authority.
                                                                                             Supplier portal for EIPP.
                                                       OCR scanning of paper invoices.
                      Primarily paper-based work
                                                                                             EDI for with largest vol-
                      flow with some office equip-     Use of Credit/P-cards limited
                                                                                             ume suppliers.
                      ment solutions for image         consistency/control over use.
                      scanning.                                                              OCR imaging to eliminate
                                                                                             paper-based invoice work
                      ERP entry/reporting capabili-
                                                                                             flow and archival.
                      ties.
                                                                                             P-card deployed for spe-
                                                                                             cific categories.
        Process:      Numerous points of invoice       Elaborate mix of P.O. box remit       “Virtual” centralization of
        Invoice       receipt and data validation.     to and dedicated fax lines.           invoice receipts with im-
        handling                                                                             mediate header creation.
                      Manual entry of summary in-      Localized imaging and bar-code
                      formation.                       solutions.                            EIPP for majority of indi-
                                                                                             rect suppliers.
                      System and paper catalog         Extensive use of EDI with top
                      header information validation.   suppliers.                            Extensive use of OCR im-
                                                                                             aging to eliminate paper
                                                       Limited OCR scanning of paper
                                                                                             invoice work flow, archiv-
                                                       invoices.
                                                                                             ing and disaster recovery.
        Process:      Reactive approach to auditing    Limited audit for duplicate billing   Detailed audit for duplicate
        Invoice       after bills have been paid.      and variances in billing.             billing, fraud and special
        reconcilia-                                                                          contract pricing.
                      Historical audits performed on   More detailed audits require
        tion and
                      annual or semiannual basis.      manual processes.                     Reconciliation performed
        audit
                                                                                             prior to bill payment.
                      No automation to flag errors     Manual filing and tracking of
                      or duplicate payments.           claims.                               Automated filing and track-
                                                                                             ing of claims.
        Process:      Manual data verification.        Mix-mode paper and electronic         Data validation via auto-
        Routing                                        form work flow for A/P function.      mated checks and online
                      Frequent duplication of in-
        and ap-                                                                              distribution, category, ven-
                      voices/payment owing to cop-     System recorded cycle time by
        proval                                                                               dor catalogues.
                      ies sent to multiple stake-      major activity.
                      holders.                                                               Rules-based work flow ap-
                                                       Exception-based approval rout-
                                                                                             proval routing with elec-
                      Form, telephone, or e-mail       ings and procedures.
                                                                                             tronic signatures.
                      approval process.
                                                       Limited tracking of approvals.
                                                                                             Tracking and escalations
                                                                                             for delays in approval.
                                                                                             Comprehensive electronic
                                                                                             documentation of invoice
                                                                                             approval for internal con-
                                                                                             trols and SOX compliance.



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13 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




                  Laggards                                Industry Average                       Best in Class

    Process:      No visibility to total liabilities,     Period (monthly/weekly) or             Total liabilities report in-
    Disburse-     discounts available or penal-           batch-specific total liabilities re-   cludes planned and actual
    ment Plan-    ties owed.                              ports against P.O. or invoice en-      liabilities.
    ning                                                  tered.
                                                                                                 Posting based on contract
                                                          Alerts for accelerated payment         terms, payment method,
                                                          discounts.                             and supplier performance.
                                                          General policy on accelerated or
                                                          deferred payment schedules.
    Process:                                              Consolidated batch check print-        Centralized disbursements
    Create and Decentralized check-processing.            ing.                                   function.
    delivery
                                                          Localized special “check” provi-       EFT for majority of suppli-
    payment
                                                          sions.                                 ers.
                                                          Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)        ACH for select services
                                                          for top suppliers.                     and lease equipment sup-
                                                                                                 pliers.
    Process:      Calls routed to A/P depart-             Dedicated A/P call line.               Supplier portal for informa-
    Vendor        ment.                                                                          tion, e-forms, record main-
                                                          Systems invoice status update if
    queries                                                                                      tenance, and invoice
                  Time consuming manual                   invoice received and header en-
                                                                                                 status inquiries.
                  search for records.                     tered.
                                                          Some supplier self-service pro-
                                                          cedures based on
                                                          trust/necessity.
    Visibil-      Disparate systems limited col-          Invoice status for a few P.O.          Tracking and status from
    ity/Access    lection of data.                        types and major steps (i.e.: re-       requisition or header entry
    to IR&P                                               ceived, pending, approved)             through disbursement ac-
                  P.O.-based invoice reporting
    Spend                                                                                        knowledgment.
                  only.                                   Payment terms.
    Data
                                                                                                 Visibility across contract
                  Limited visibility into total li-       Discounts, rebates, and other
                                                                                                 terms, payment method,
                  abilities.                              terms via system notes or
                                                                                                 and supplier performance.
                                                          manually provided by buyer.
                  Cash management via
                                                                                                 Knowledge of total com-
                  spreadsheet.                            Periodic (batch/weekly) cash
                                                                                                 mitted liabilities, including
                                                          management reports.
                                                                                                 planned disbursements.
    Technology    Dedicated fax between sites.            Office-based imaging, bar-code         Supplier e-portal.
                                                          solutions, and storage solutions.
                  EDI for three-way match di-                                                    P-card data feeds.
                  rects.                                  Limited use of EDI.
                                                                                                 Rules-based work flow
                  Little to no integration with           Some OCR scanning.                     with electronic signatures.
                  ERP system.
                                                          Uploads and exports to/from            Good integration with ERP
                                                          ERP system tables.                     System.




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                      Laggards                         Industry Average                  Best in Class

        Perform-      Invoice-processing cycle time:   Cycle-time: 10 to 30 days.        Cycle-time: < seven days.
        ance met-     30 to 60 days.
                                                       Cost per invoice: $3+ to $34.     Cost per invoice: >$3.00.
        rics
                      Cost per invoice: $34+.
                                                       Percentage payments via paper     Percentage payments via
                      Percentage payments via pa-      check: 66%.                       paper check: < 25%.
                      per check: 90%.

                                                                             Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006

        The information in this grid is provided to help enterprises benchmark themselves against
        the findings of this research and assist them in prioritizing which strategies to pursue in
        optimizing their performance.
        There are significant savings and ROI for investments in automating the IR&P process.
        Savings categories include:
             •   Optimization of IR&P staffing personnel (head count reduction).
             •   Operational savings through reduced search expenses for misfiled and lost bill-
                 ing.
             •   Reduced transit costs for routing of paper.
             •   Streamlined approval process and internal control.
             •   Reduced storage, archiving and disaster recovery costs from scanning of paper to
                 electronic media and conversion of paper billing processes to EDI.
             •   Capture of early payment discounts and avoidance of late payment penalties to
                 maximize liquidity and cash flow.
             •   Greater visibility and control of expenses.
             •   Reduction of overpayments through improved audit and fraud reduction.




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                                           Chapter Four:
                                     Recommendations for Action

                      • Complete a thorough review of your IR&P processes and the technology to determine
    Key Takeaways




                         which steps manual steps can be automated to streamline the process and reduce
                         costs.
                      • Increase collaboration with procurement and IT.
                      • Position changes to the IR&P process as a strategic initiative to gain internal support and
                         shift from the tactical approach of simply processing invoices.




    F                 ew enterprises have realized the potential to effectively leverage data from the
                      IR&P process. While managers have a renewed focus on reducing IR&P process-
                      ing costs, there is recognition that these programs can contribute strategic value.
    Aberdeen recommends that enterprises focus on the following actions for Laggard, In-
    dustry Average, and Best in Class performers.

    Laggard Steps to Success
                    1. Thoroughly review your IR&P processes and the technology used. Determine
                       which manual steps cause the biggest delays and cost the most money.
                    2. Automate labor-intensive invoice processing. Processing of bills can be auto-
                       mated by adopting Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning. Look to in-
                       crease use of HTML and electronic transactions through:
                            a. Partnering with IT to establish a new initiative to improve the use of
                               electronic billing. Ensure EDI or other electronic formats are used with
                               vendors that have large volumes of invoices.
                            b. Adopting Corporate/P-cards and establish a policy to identify specific
                               categories for which they should be used to establish consistency and
                               control.
                    3. Review your IR&P technology. If you are using multiple systems, compare the
                       costs of integrating these systems with evaluations of newer integrated ap-
                       proaches. The goal is to find an approach that will enable the enterprise to collect
                       critical information, organize the data, integrate it with the ERP program or re-
                       porting, spend analysis, and business intelligence.
                    4. Establish a stronger proactive audit capability for bills. Work towards establish-
                       ing more automated audits for duplicate payments and fraud detection.
                    5. Review your payment programs. Are you tracking cash discounts? How can you
                       improve timing of payments through electronic payment programs to improve
                       cash flow and liquidity to maximize cash discounts?



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        Industry Average Steps to Success
             1. Complete a thorough review of your IR&P processes and the technology used.
             2. Ensure EDI and other electronic formats are used with vendors that have large
                volumes of invoices.
             3. Leverage P-cards for one-time transactions. Review trends in purchasing by de-
                partment to determine if there are “quick-hit” areas where P-Cards can reduce
                paper transactions.
             4. Review electronic marketplaces. Are you currently in a program? How many of
                your suppliers are in the program? Enlist the procurement team to place more fo-
                cus on doing business with vendors that participate in electronic marketplaces.
                Work with procurement to enlist vendors that are not participating to join the
                network. Participation in electronic market places with P.O. flips that tie paper-
                less procurement initiatives to electronic billing are also key to automation and
                cost savings.
             5. Determine where your current applications will allow you to perform proactive
                audits when bills are received. If the current applications do not have this func-
                tionality, look at upgrades or new solutions that can be added to your current sys-
                tems.
             6. Partner with procurement to receive access to contracts. Work towards getting
                within the root cause of billing errors. Establish a feedback loop with procure-
                ment to let them know the billing accuracy of suppliers.
             7. Review your IR&P ERP reports. Determine how the data can be integrated into
                streamlined reporting.
             8. Identify the top obstacles to capturing cash discounts. If it is getting the invoices
                approved, determine how you can establish an alert system with escalations to
                get bills approved on time. If it is bill-cycle time, find out where the bottlenecks
                are.
             9. Manage payment terms and capture cash discounts. Automated electronic invoic-
                ing and disbursement programs can help maximize liquidity by timing payments
                to maximize float while ensuring they are made in time to capture cash discounts.
                These programs can enhance suppliers’ fiscal health and vendor relations while
                lowering product purchasing costs and increasing cash flow for the enterprise.
             10. Determine who handles vendor queries for payment status. What is the frequency
                 of calls and what is it costing the enterprise? Can a portal or web post enable you
                 to eliminate inquiries?

        Best in Class Next Steps
             1. Create an easy to measure score card for the costs in processing bills, time to
                process an invoice, audit findings, costs to pay invoices and volume of transac-
                tions in terms of bills and dollars being managed. Use these measurements as
                your benchmark to manage IR&P and empower line managers to help improve
                the ratings.
             2. Increase use of financial institutions’ trade services and working capital solu-
                tions. Trade services can provide lower transaction costs, help to smooth cash
                flow, and reduce check fraud. Working capital solutions allocate risk and access

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17 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




             to capital by leveraging a strong buyer’s credit to secure supplier payments at
             lower cost. In effect, with this approach a weaker supplier does not have to mark-
             up their goods and services to reflect their higher costs of financing. Buyers con-
             tinue to maximize their Days Payable Outstanding (DPOs) by using a third party
             financial intermediary.
         3. Work toward a fully visible, integrated environment for sourcing, ordering, in-
            voice processing, ERP systems, and payment processes. This will help minimize
            processing expenses, automate back-office financial processes and reduce in-
            voice disputes. Moreover, visibility will help operations reduce inventory levels
            and maximize cash liquidity.
         4. Empower others with the data collected during the source-to-pay process. Proac-
            tively capture, cleanse, and segment information. Providing visibility into order-
            ing, terms, pricing, and payment cycle information to line business managers as
            well as purchasing and treasury staff empowers others to manage the business
            more effectively and improve competitive position.
         5. Develop supplier score cards for total cost management. Supplier score cards
            should provide near real-time modeling of costs. Score cards should factor lead
            times, product quality, labeling, delivery and other factors that could require
            stockpiling of larger inventories. These measures and other supplier performance
            metrics can be used to maximize company profit. This approach will enable
            IR&P professionals and their procurement counterparts to provide the CFO
            greater visibility and control over the cost of goods and services and corporate
            profitability.
    In conclusion, a business case for action must address the broader source-to-pay process.
    The business goals for the IR&P program may start with the cost and time to process an
    invoice, but IR&P can contribute to enterprises, by providing real-time visibility into
    spending; improving negotiation leverage, ensuring the use of volume discounts and re-
    bates, preventing overcharges and duplicate payments, monitoring supplier costs, and
    making the most timely use of cash. The key is to establish a strategic business case link-
    ing purchasing and treasury goals. Source-to-pay processes are a cornerstone of total cost
    management (TCM), which helps to optimize management and control of the total cost of
    doing business.




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                                        Sponsor Directory

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                                      Authors’ Profiles

    Joe Basili
    Research Director
    Global Supply Management
    AberdeenGroup, Inc.
    Joe Basili is a researcher, writer, and consultant for invoice reconciliation, payment, and
    total telecommunications cost management. Through fact-based research reports, public
    speaking, and advisory meetings he provides best practices on how organizations can
    optimize their information technology (IT) systems, telecommunications network costs,
    operations, and procurement. His experience includes leadership of marketing teams in
    the TTCM space and range of marketing, sales and operational roles with Frito-Lay,
    Honey Fashions and Crown-Zellerbach/James River.
    Sudy Bharadwaj,
    Vice President and Practice Director
    Global Supply Management
    AberdeenGroup, Inc.
    Sudy Bharadwaj oversees research programs, products, and services, as well as client
    development related to supply chain issues, including sourcing, spend management, con-
    tract management, procurement, and category-specific strategies. Prior to joining Aber-
    deenGroup, Bharadwaj was vice president of Solution Delivery, Marketing and Presales
    for MindFlow Technologies, a leading strategic sourcing vendor. He has also led sales
    consulting teams at i2 Technologies and held other marketing and program management
    positions at Hewlett-Packard.

    Rick Saia
    Analyst/Editor
    Global Supply Research
    AberdeenGroup, Inc.
    Rick Saia focuses on the use of technology in the global supply management arena and
    most recently assisted in the development of research in Aberdeen’s Information Tech-
    nology practice area, especially the recent SOA in IT Benchmark Report, and current sur-
    veys on enterprise applications and network application processing. He has extensive
    experience writing and editing on information technology topics. His experience includes
    senior-level editorial positions at Computerworld and Cutter Consortium.




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                                         Appendix A:
                                    Research Methodology



        I    n May and June 2006, AberdeenGroup examined the question of technology use and
             plans in middle-market enterprises. Aberdeen supplemented this online survey effort
             with further research on a subset of respondents.

        Demographics of the Surveyed Population
        Responding enterprises included the following:
             •   Job title/function: The research sample consisted of respondents with the follow-
                 ing job titles: 38% senior management (CxO), 6% executive management, 7%
                 VP-level management, 40% directors or managers, 8% individual contributors,
                 and one administrator.
             •   Industry: The research sample included respondents from a wide variety of in-
                 dustries. Thirty-one percent were from high technology or software companies,
                 7% industrial equipment manufacturing, 4% each in automotive, distribution,
                 education, finance/banking/accounting or retail. Three percent each were from
                 consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical manufacturing, public sector, and
                 transportation/logistics. Others were from aerospace and defense, chemicals,
                 construction/architecture/engineering, health/medical/dental services, medical
                 devices, mining/oil/gas, publishing/media, telecommunications services, travel,
                 utilities, and wholesale.
             •   Geography: Sixty-three percent of the respondents were from North America,
                 19% were from EMEA, 12% from Asia/Pacific, 3% from South/Central America
                 and Caribbean, and 3% from South America.
             •   Company size: Employee headcount in participating companies is shown in
                 Figure 25: The greatest numbers of respondents were from mid-market
                 companies.




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23 AberdeenGroup
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                                         Appendix B:
                                      PACE Methodology

    PACE Key

    Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark research that evaluates the business pressures, actions,
    capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corporate behavior in specific business processes. These
    terms are defined as follows:
    Pressures — external forces that impact an organization’s market position, competitiveness, or business
    operations (e.g., economic, political and regulatory, technology, changing customer preferences, competi-
    tive)
    Actions — the strategic approaches that an organization takes in response to industry pressures (e.g., align
    the corporate business model to leverage industry opportunities, such as product/service strategy, target
    markets, financial strategy, go-to-market, and sales strategy)
    Capabilities — the business process competencies required to execute corporate strategy (e.g., skilled
    people, brand, market positioning, viable products/services, ecosystem partners, financing)
    Enablers — the key functionality of technology solutions required to support the organization’s enabling
    business practices (e.g., development platform, applications, network connectivity, user interface, training
    and support, partner interfaces, data cleansing, and management)




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        Table 4: PACE (Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, Enablers)


        Priorities
        Prioritized        Better manage and        Reduction of operat-    Create an aggres-       Beef up current
        Pressures          service customers        ing costs (92%)         sive plan for future    business capabilities
                           (95%)                                            viability and suc-      to become more
                                                                            cessful growth          competitive (90%)
                                                                            (91%)
        Prioritized        Focus on growing         Review current          Enhancing and inte-     A tie for fourth
        Actions            revenue instead of       technology in use       grating current         place:
                           cutting operational      (90%)                   technology to better
                                                                                                    1.   Eliminate a
                           costs (91%)                                      address the entire
                                                                                                         fragmented in-
                                                                            business cycle
                                                                                                         frastructure and
                                                                            (85%)
                                                                                                         applications
                                                                                                         technology ar-
                                                                                                         chitecture
                                                                                                         (77%)
                                                                                                    2.   Update or add
                                                                                                         new applica-
                                                                                                         tions to existing
                                                                                                         installed appls.
                                                                                                         (77%)
                                                                                                    3.   Benchmark
                                                                                                         your competi-
                                                                                                         tiveness in a
                                                                                                         global market
                                                                                                         (77%)
        Prioritized        Internal and external    Ability to accurately   Align performance       Better funding for
        Capabilities       communication of         determine and plan      with rewards; re-       corporate strategies
                           key corporate            for customer de-        align metrics that do   and initiatives
                           strategies and initia-   mand                    not sufficiently in-
                           tives                                            cent employees to
                                                                            support/achieve
                                                                            corporate goals
        Prioritized        Consolidation: using     Integration: gluing     Suite over best of      Hiring management:
        Enablers           a single instance of     together disparate      breed: Moving from      Total business
                           core software            business applica-       disparate software      process capabilities
                           across all the enter-    tions                   application to an       that link to retention
                           prise                                            integrated ERP suite    best practices
                                                                               Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006




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25 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




    Relationship between PACE and Competitive Framework
    PACE and Competitive Framework — How They Interact

    Aberdeen research indicates that companies that identify the most impactful pressures and take the most
    transformational and effective actions are most likely to achieve superior performance. The level of com-
    petitive performance that a company achieves is strongly determined by the PACE choices that it makes
    and how well those decisions are executed.




    Competitive Framework Key

    The Aberdeen Competitive Framework defines enterprises as falling into one of three levels of mid-market
    ERP practices and performance:
    Laggard — Mid-market ERP practices that are significantly behind the average of the industry, and result in
    below average performance
    Industry Average — Mid-market ERP practices that represent the average or norm, and result in average
    industry performance.
    Best in Class — Mid-market ERP practices that are the best currently being employed and significantly
    superior to the industry norm, and result in the top industry performance.




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                                                                                                          26 • AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report


                                Appendix C:
                  Invoice Payment & Reconciliation Process

             1. Invoice Receipt: Includes paper media, electronic media (i.e. EDI, .xml, .csv, or
                other file formats), P-Card, and credit card transactions. With paper, the steps can
                include receipt, sorting and inserting separator pages, manual entry into a system,
                scanning of invoices image and manual data entry of information, or more auto-
                mated scanning with data entry through Optical Character Recognition (OCR),
                Optical Mark Recognition (OMR), or Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR).
             2. Invoice Archiving and Storage: Electronic billing and scanning of all paper re-
                moves paper at the front-end when billing comes to the enterprise. Archiving and
                storage of records may be part of this step if there is conversion to electronic me-
                dia. An integral part of data entry is indexing key fields to enable searches, re-
                trieval of invoices. Alternatively back-end document capture calls for scanning
                the invoices after they have been manually routed through the enterprise for ap-
                proval and payment.
             3. Approval and Inquiry: Includes rule-based routing with a structured workflow
                that follows business rules for individuals’ roles and approval hierarchies. Man-
                agers receive automatic notification of invoices that need to be approved, and the
                system tracks approval status, provides access to billing images. Common fea-
                tures include reminders and escalations to ensure that bills are approved in a
                timely fashion.
             4. Validation and Reconciliation: Includes proactive audits for duplicate invoices,
                fraud (i.e. billing to residential, prison or other high risk locations, undocumented
                suppliers, etc.) comparing variances (spikes) in previous amounts billed, calcula-
                tion errors, taxes, special contract pricing. It should also have capabilities to cre-
                ate dispute notices, track claims, and monitor escalations. Finally, it should track
                short payments, help calculate and allocate credits back to business units or cost
                centers, help track activities for regulatory audits and provide reporting on audit
                activities.
             5. Settlement (Payment): Includes the selection of the most efficient payment
                method to disburse funds such as check, wire, EFT, ACH, and card networks. In
                addition to improved security and transaction costs, this function helps to opti-
                mize cash flow, ensure tax compliance, capture discounts, and provide trade fi-
                nancing.




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27 AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report




                               Appendix D:
                    Related Aberdeen Research & Tools

    Related Aberdeen research that forms a companion or reference to this report includes:
         •   The Contract Management Benchmark Report: Procurement Contracts (March
             2006)
         •   The CFO’s View on Procurement (September 2005)

    Information on these and any other Aberdeen publications can be found at
    www.aberdeen.com.




                                               All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006.
                                                                                                       28 • AberdeenGroup
The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report


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Aberdeen Group: Invoice Reconciliation & Payment Benchmark Report

  • 1. The Invoice Reconciliation and Payment Benchmark Report June 2006 — Sponsored by —
  • 2. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Executive Summary I nvoice Reconciliation and Payment (IR&P) is more than simply processing invoices and paying bills. It is the foundation into gaining real-time visibility into costs and supplier performance. In an economic environment with wild price-swings in busi- ness costs, IR&P should be providing information on spend and costs to manage the enterprise and maintain competitive position. AberdeenGroup received survey responses from approximately 150 industry executives and managers to gain further insight on IR&P processes, strategies, processes, chal- lenges, and successes. This report identifies the current priorities, top pressures, and spe- cific strategies Best in Class enterprises are implementing to increase the business value delivered from IR&P activities. Key Business Findings Aberdeen’s 2006 Invoice Reconciliation and Payment Benchmark Report reveals that enterprises are seeking to reduce their costs through maximizing liquidity and cash flow and headcount More than two-thirds, or 69%, of enter- reductions. A key area of focus is improved visibil- prises report they have limited-to-no ity into spending. Gaps in the source-to-pay lifecy- visibility into spending. cle include processes where critical information is not collected, data is poorly organized, systems are not well integrated and information is not centrally collected for reporting, spend analy- sis, and business intelligence. This results in problems gaining real-time visibility into business costs and supplier performance. Only 4% of the enterprises in this benchmark have real-time visibility into this critical financial information; 27% reported they had good visibility into spending, and 69% report they have no visibility or limited visibility to spending. (See Figure 1) Figure 1: Visibility into Spending 80% 69% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 27% 20% 10% 4% 0% Limited to No Visibility Good Visibility Real Time Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. AberdeenGroup • i
  • 3. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Implications and Analysis Lack of visibility into spend is alarming given that enterprises face an environment in which costs have become less predictable. Staying competitive in the marketplace re- quires access and visibility to costs and programs to manage these costs. One of the challenges in gaining visibility into supplier performance is the large volume of paper-based transactions and variety in the types of billing processed. Paper remains stubbornly entrenched in the billing process. This benchmark reveals most billing (83% domestic and 86% for international) is received in paper format. Figure 2: Paper Invoices vs. Electronic Billing Domestic 17% 83% International 14% 86% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Electronic Paper Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 Most enterprises are not able to get the data from different systems organized and inte- grated into one repository. Nearly one-third, or 34%, of the respondents in our survey report that they have three or more systems to manage invoice processing, reconciliation, and payment. An additional 10% of the respondents do not know how many systems they are using. Few enterprises have realized the potential to effectively leverage data from the IR&P process. The process and data extracted from it are not well-integrated with sourcing, procurement, and ERP systems. To maintain competitiveness in an environment where supply costs are rapidly changing, enterprises must improve their IR&P processes to im- prove visibility into spend and drive cost reductions. Recommendations for Action • Automate labor-intensive invoice processing. • Manage payment terms and capture cash discounts. • Increase use of financial institutions’ trade services and working capital solutions. • Work toward a fully visible, integrated environment for the source-to-pay life cy- cle. • Develop supplier score cards for improved cost management. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2005 ii • AberdeenGroup
  • 4. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Table of Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................. i Key Business Findings ................................................................................... i Implications and Analysis................................................................................ii Recommendations for Action..........................................................................ii Chapter One: Issue at Hand.................................................................................3 Pressures of the IR&P Process ..................................................................... 3 Enterprises are Crushed by a Mountain of Paper Bills .................................. 4 Chapter Two: Key Business Value Findings .........................................................6 IR&P Challenges ........................................................................................... 6 How are Companies Responding to these Challenges?................................ 8 Enterprise Approaches to Managing the IR&P Process............................... 10 Chapter Three: Implications & Analysis............................................................. 12 Chapter Four: Recommendations for Action ...................................................... 16 Laggard Steps to Success........................................................................... 16 Industry Average Steps to Success ............................................................. 17 Best in Class Next Steps ............................................................................. 17 Featured Sponsors............................................................................................. 19 Sponsor Directory .............................................................................................. 21 Authors’ Profiles ................................................................................................. 22 Appendix A: Research Methodology .................................................................. 23 Demographics of the Surveyed Population.................................................. 23 Appendix B: PACE Methodology ........................................................................ 24 Appendix C: Invoice Payment & Reconciliation Process.................................... 27 Appendix D: Related Aberdeen Research & Tools ............................................. 28 About AberdeenGroup ...................................................................................... 29 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. AberdeenGroup
  • 5. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Figures Figure 1: Visibility into Spending ........................................................................... i Figure 2: Paper Invoices vs. Electronic Billing...................................................... ii Figure 3: Top Pressures of the IR&P Process ......................................................3 Figure 4: Enterprise Visibility for Pricing, Discounts & Supplier Performance ......6 Figure 5: Invoice Billing Errors .............................................................................7 Figure 6: Estimated Percent of Projected Procurement Savings Booked.............8 Figure 7: Current and Planned Use of IR&P Automation......................................9 Figure 8: IR&P Overall Is Centrally-Managed .................................................... 10 Figure 9: Outsourcing of the IR&P Process........................................................ 11 Figure 10: Systems used to Manage IR&P ........................................................ 11 Tables Table 1: The Impact of Paper & Labor-Intensive Billing Processes ......................4 Table 2: IR&P PACE.............................................................................................5 Table 3: IR&P Competitive Framework............................................................... 13 Table 4: PACE (Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, Enablers)............................... 25 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. AberdeenGroup
  • 6. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Chapter One: Issue at Hand • Enterprises are seeking to maximize cash flow, lower their costs for processing invoices, and improve visibility into spending to manage their competitive position. Key Takeaways • The invoice process and accounts payable function remains a highly labor-intensive function with too much paper and a jumble of systems with limited integration and poor visibility into spend. • These challenges provide significant opportunity to streamline processes with integrated systems to capture new process efficiencies in the IR&P process. G aps in the source-to-pay cycle include processes where critical information is not collected, data is poorly organized, systems are not well integrated and informa- tion is not centrally collected for reporting, spend analysis, and business intelli- gence. This results in problems gaining real-time visibility into business costs and supplier performance. Considering that an enterprise spends nearly half of every dol- lar that it earns on external goods and services and between 60% to 80% of the cost of a final product for manufacturers comes from external suppliers, this information is critical to manage the enterprise’s competitive position and profitability. Pressures of the IR&P Process Aberdeen research identified five market pressures that are driving enterprises to gain visibility into their costs and properly manage their expenses. Three of the pressures cited by survey respondents are linked directly to visibility: • Reduction of cycle times to post expenses • More timely recognition of costs • Rising supplier costs impacting the enterprise. The other two priorities are tied to the theme of cost control. Respondents indicate they face pressures to lower IR&P processing costs and improve audits to identify billing er- rors, fraud and abuse. Automation is critical to address these challenges. Figure 3: Top Pressures of the IR&P Process Reduce time to post expenses in internal systems 52% More timely recognition of costs 45% Lower IR&P costs 44% Audit to identify billing errors, fraud & abuse 34% Rising supplier/commodity costs 30% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 3 AberdeenGroup
  • 7. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Enterprises are Crushed by a Mountain of Paper Bills IR&P is more than simply processing a few invoices that are not captured by Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Most of the bills are coming in paper format (83% domestically and 86% overseas). Despite continued adoption of P-Cards and Corporate Cards for many “one-time transactions,” paper remains stubbornly entrenched in most enterprises. All of this paper must be processed, otherwise most enterprises would come to a grinding halt. With paper, critical information is difficult to access in a timely fashion. The survey re- sponses show no visibility or limited visibility to spending is an obstacle to managing the enterprises for 69% of the respondents (Figure 1). The table below highlights key issues and quantifies some of the costs with paper bills. Table 1: The Impact of Paper & Labor-Intensive Billing Processes Issue Impact on the Enterprise Cost • Delays in posting expenses Long cycle time to • Inability to maximize cash flow through timing payments 1% to 5% of process invoices transaction to just prior to expiration of cash discounts • Late payment penalties value • Over payments for billing errors 12%-15% No program to vali- • Duplicate payments error rate date billing • Tax errors Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, PACE Key — For a more detailed Enablers (PACE) description, see Appendix A Pressure to post expenses faster, recog- Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark re- nize expenses, and manage rising sup- search that evaluates business pressures, actions, plier/commodity costs are increasing the capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corpo- need for enhanced visibility and control. rate behavior in specific business processes. These These are the leading factors fueling the terms are defined as follows: drive for IR&P improvements among en- Pressures — external forces that impact an organiza- terprises. Table 2 highlights the actions, tion’s market position, competitiveness, or business internal capabilities, and technology en- operations ablers that enterprises have prioritized to Actions — the strategic approaches that an organiza- address these pressures and accelerate tion takes in response to industry pressures improvements in invoice processing rec- Capabilities — the business process competencies onciliation and bill payment. required to execute corporate strategy These prioritized actions, capabilities, and Enablers — the key functionality of technology solu- enablers are examined in more detail in tions required to support the organization’s enabling the next chapter. business practices All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 4 • AberdeenGroup
  • 8. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Table 2: IR&P PACE Prioritized Prioritized Prioritized Prioritized Pressures Actions Capabilities Enablers • Automate manual • Scan bills at the front • Enhance visibility and Reduction of steps in IR&P proc- end of processing access to physical cop- cycle times to ess to reduce head- and consider Optical ies of bills or electronic post expenses count Character (OCR) facsimile More timely rec- • Adopt P-cards and technology • Utilize alert system to flag Corporate cards to • Migrate paper bills to bills awaiting approval ognition of costs eliminate paper from electronic media • Procure services through non-recurring trans- • Automate expense ap- electronic marketplaces Lower IR&P actions proval and routing with P.O. flip costs • Use rule based work- • Increase collaboration • Improve visibility into bill- flow for routing of between stakeholders ing dashboards invoice approvals • Leverage IR&P data to • Better align finance and • Improve supplier cost Rising supplier improve volume dis- procurement to allow monitoring, benchmark- costs impacting counts, sourcing, for more collaboration ing and reporting the enterprise and capture of fluc- and sharing of data tuating costs • Improve visibility and Automated audit for • Integration of processing Audit to identify auditability of proc- • Elimination of duplicate systems, pricing, and billing errors, ess payments contract data fraud & abuse • Centralize billing into • Validation of taxes • Identify off contract pur- one repository • Fraud detection for high chases risk transactions Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 5 AberdeenGroup
  • 9. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Chapter Two: Key Business Value Findings • Managers should have visibility into their expenses through their invoices. Unfortunately, Key Takeaways data is either not captured or poorly organized and not available to manage business costs and track supplier performance. • Billing errors are also a problem with few systems to reconcile contracts with invoices. This benchmark found error rates in the range of 10-15% of the total. • Many enterprises are not leveraging the data in their invoices to manage their business. E nterprises have limited-to-no visibility of contract pricing during reconciliation of billing, capture of early payment discounts, and supplier performance (Figure 5). This creates serious challenges in auditing bills, timing of payments to maximize float while capturing cash discounts, and accessing the data on costs to manage the enter- prise. These are critical elements that are needed to maintain competitiveness in an envi- ronment where supply costs are rapidly changing. Figure 4: Enterprise Visibility for Pricing, Discounts & Supplier Performance Contract pricing during 57% 28% 15% reconciliation Capture of early 54% 32% 14% payment discounts Ability to monitor 69% 27% 4% supplier performance Limited to No Visibility Good Visibility Real Time Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 IR&P Challenges • Long cycle time to process invoices ─ Eighty-three percent of domestic in- voices and 86% of international invoices are received in paper format. Entry of invoices can be a slow process. Our survey results found, on average, it takes 27.6 days to process an invoice. Laggards have an average cycle time of 49 days whereas the Best in Class’ average cycle time to process and invoice is 7 days. Faster cycle times mean less cost to process invoices, cash discounts can be taken, and better supplier relationships can be built. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 6 • AberdeenGroup
  • 10. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report • Problems identifying missing bills ─ Lack of automation and poor visibility (Figure 5) into invoices means firms do not have systems to flag missing bills. At most enterprises, invoice processing is a series of disparate and largely manual activities. Aberdeen’s benchmark found that 34% have three or more systems to process bills and another 10% don’t know how many systems they use. Missing bills lead to added cost to track the lost invoice, late payment penalties, delays in future orders, and risk with duplicate payments if the bill is located. On average, 12% to 14% of billing is believed to contain errors. This represents er- rors that respondents have actually identified. The error rate is likely to underre- ported because some errors are never found. The most common billing error was pricing that did not match contracted rates. It is surprising that tax errors and dupli- cate invoices were not cited more often in the survey pool. Figure 5: Invoice Billing Errors Pricing does not match contract 64% Incomplete documentation 21% Shortages 5% Late delivery 3% Quality 3% Noncompliant transportation 2% Mislabeling or packing errors 2% Damages 1% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 • No automated program to validate billing ─ The majority, 57%, of enterprises have little-to-no visibility into their contracts for bill validation. Aberdeen’s March The Contract Management Benchmark Report: Procurement Contracts found that nearly half of companies continue to store at least a portion of their contracts in paper format or in disparate systems/databases, limiting their ability to locate contracts or validate billing. Challenges in performing audits prior to payment add additional costs with financial adjustments, system updates, and tracking of these transactions after the payment has cleared. Aberdeen’s bench- mark report on The CFO’s View on Procurement showed that CFOs believe that only 34% of projected procurement savings, on average, are realized, whereas sourcing and procurement managers believe that 77% of the savings are realized. This leaves nearly a quarter of the savings, or 23%, that managers feel are never realized. An automated program that links contracts to billing would address the leakage in procurement price concessions. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 7 AberdeenGroup
  • 11. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Figure 6: Estimated Percent of Projected Procurement Savings Booked 100% Procurement Savings Booked Leakage 77% 75% Estimating 50% & Tracking 34% 25% 0% CFOs & Financial Managers Sourcing Managers & Buyers Functional Estimate Source: AberdeenGroup, The CFO’s View on Procurement, September 2005 • No system/portal for supplier queries ─ Only 34% of the survey respondents report that they have implemented an online system for supplier queries. Enter- prises have opportunities to gain headcount efficiencies by providing a portal for suppliers to view the status of their disbursements and provide access to other time consuming queries. • No repository for centralized management of invoices ─ ERP systems are not well integrated with manual processing of bills. In effect, IR&P fills the chasm that exists between automated ERP processing of EDI billing and volumes of pa- per bills that need to be manually processed. Poor visibility into invoices and compliance-tracking makes it difficult to manage costs. Lack of visibility into spending is alarming given that enterprises face an environment in which costs are unpredictable and these costs are critical to maintain competitiveness and profitability. Enterprises need to strive towards achieving a fully visible inte- grated environment for their managers. How are Companies Responding to these Challenges? Enterprises of all sizes and in all industries face the external pressures cited in Chapter One. Enterprises are seeking to manage their expenses through reduction of cycle times to post expenses, more timely recognition of costs, and manage rising supplier costs. The other two priorities are tied to the theme of cost control with survey respondents striving to lower their IR&P processing costs and improve audits to identify billing errors, fraud and abuse. To respond to these pressures, benchmark participants prioritized the following actions for improving IR&P efficiency and performance: All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 8 • AberdeenGroup
  • 12. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Figure 7: Current and Planned Use of IR&P Automation 39% 40% 38% 34% 34% 34% 32% 23% 23% 17% Electronic receipt OCR scanning of E-documents & Payment Payment status of invoices (XML, line items for digital signatures scheduling tracking EDI) invoice processing for invoice approvals Plan to automate in 12 months In use Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 • Migration to electronic receipt of invoices was cited as a primary action by 39% of the survey pool. Since more then 80% of the invoices are received in a paper format there is room for improvement. Aberdeen’s examination of IR&P programs consistently finds that many enterprises are lagging in their use of EDI and other electronic billing media. • OCR scanning of line items for invoice processing proves to be of value and can streamline processes. We found that 23% of the enterprises represented in our survey plan to increase their adoption of OCR scanning. In the past, the tech- nology was not mature and early adopters paid a price. Recent advances in OCR scanning help to explain there is renewed interest. This approach includes scan- ning the line item details and cross-indexing common fields for searching and structuring data for integration with other systems and spend analysis. Like the moves to HTML and electronic transactions, more complete OCR scanning of line item detail helps to address the inefficiencies of manual search and retrieval of filed documents; the cost of lost and misfiled documents, transit costs to move paper, and operational costs to handle paper-based invoices. Additional benefits include reduced storage costs for filed hard copies and long-term storage through digital copies. In addition, digital electronic storage can be an efficient approach to disaster recovery contingency planning. • Deployment of E-documents and digital signatures for invoice approvals is vital if companies want to improve their cycle times for approving bills and cap- turing early payment discounts. With this approach integrated programs route billing for approval based on a structured workflow. Alerts and escalations help to monitor invoice approval status. Managers are able to view all the details online through links to scanned images or electronic facsimiles of bills. Our benchmark found 39% of the survey respondents are using paper-based approval routing forms. Aside from being extremely inefficient, this approach provides lit- tle control and archival tracking for fraud controls and Section 404 internal con- trols to support Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. • Payment scheduling is ranked as an area that 32% of the enterprises plan to ad- dress over the next 12 months because it provides more secure and efficient fi- All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 9 AberdeenGroup
  • 13. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report nancial processes. Enterprises are deploying this approach to decrease their cycle time and accelerate their accounting processes. Respondents that are employing electronic payment scheduling are able to reduce the cost of third-party payments and capture early payment cash discounts by more effectively managing the tim- ing of their payments. • Payment status tracking provides a good target for cost take-out and it is listed as an area that is being pursued to reduce costs associated with manual searches for payment information. Enterprise Approaches to Managing the IR&P Process Centralization is important in establishing consistency in how documents are processed and compressing timeframes to process invoices. Most enterprises have adopted a cen- tralized approach to processing invoices. The breakout above (Figure 7) shows a number of different approaches to managing invoices. The findings indicate most enterprises or 69% have adopted a central approach to IR&P. A small portion or 14% are totally decen- tralized and 17% have a hybrid approach where invoices are processed at decentralized locations, but paid centrally (Figure 8). Figure 8: IR&P Overall Is Centrally-Managed Hybrid: Decentralized, 14% Decentralized receipt & reconciliation Centralized: Payment, 17% Centralized, 69% Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 Enterprises show a preference not to outsource management of the entire IR&P process to third parties (Figure 9). IR&P may not be a core competency for most firms, but enter- prises appear to be reluctant to completely outsource monitoring of invoice charges and payments. Instead of full outsourcing, these functions are being performed through hy- brid models of SaaS or ASP approaches where a solution provider loads the paper and enterprises manage selected part of the process. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 10 • AberdeenGroup
  • 14. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Figure 9: Outsourcing of the IR&P Process Invoice Receipt & Sorting 13% 13% 74% Invoice Reconciliation 9% 9% 82% Accounts Payable 12% 10% 78% Outsourced Plan to Outsource No Plans to Outsource Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 A final challenge identified in the benchmark highlights that 34% of the enterprises use three or more systems to manage invoices. These disparate systems contribute to the in- tegration problems that make gaining access to data difficult. Figure 10: Systems Used to Manage IR&P 56% 34% 10% 1 to 2 Systems 3 or more systems Don't know Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 11 AberdeenGroup
  • 15. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Chapter Three: Implications & Analysis • Best in Class organizations capture data from their IR&P process in a highly organized manner and integrate it with their ERP systems to provide real-time visibility into spend. Key Takeaways • Best in Class enterprises are able to process invoices faster at lower costs. • In top-performing organizations, business practices and technology solutions are unified (they may be decentralized), but data is processed consistently in a controlled environ- ment across the enterprise. E nterprises need to benchmark what constitutes accept- Competitive Framework able business performance and set “stretch” goals to Key continually improve their rankings. Automating paper- centric processes may require reengineering and sig- The Aberdeen Competitive Framework defines enter- nificant rethinking in what it will take to improve collabora- prises as falling into one of tion with vendors. the following three levels of This report has benchmarked industry averages, however, the practices and performance: metrics for costs of processing an invoice and time to com- Best in Class (20%) plete the cycle will vary based on the number of line items Practices that are the best and complexity of the billing. currently being employed and significantly superior to The table below defines levels of performance and practices the industry norm in the IR&P process against the respondents in Aberdeen’s survey pool (Table 3). Benchmark participants fall into one of Industry Average (50%) three categories – Laggard, Industry Average, or Best in Practices that represent the Class, based on their characteristics and performance metrics average or norm in four categories: Laggards (30%) Practices that are signifi- 1. Process cantly behind the average of a. Macro the industry b. Invoice handling c. Invoice reconciliation/audit d. Routing and approval e. Disbursement planning f. Payment creation and delivery, and customer service for vendor que- ries 2. Technology: Automation levels and integration of systems 3. Performance metrics: Costs and cycle times to process invoices 4. Visibility: Access to IR&P data. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 12 • AberdeenGroup
  • 16. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Table 3: IR&P Competitive Framework Laggards Industry Average Best in Class Process: Manual process generally de- Dissemination of controlled pro- Consistent application of Macro fined by P.O. or non-P.O.- cedures and high compliance. controlled procedures and based procedures and dollar- work flow. Significant emphasis on EDI. limit authority. Supplier portal for EIPP. OCR scanning of paper invoices. Primarily paper-based work EDI for with largest vol- flow with some office equip- Use of Credit/P-cards limited ume suppliers. ment solutions for image consistency/control over use. scanning. OCR imaging to eliminate paper-based invoice work ERP entry/reporting capabili- flow and archival. ties. P-card deployed for spe- cific categories. Process: Numerous points of invoice Elaborate mix of P.O. box remit “Virtual” centralization of Invoice receipt and data validation. to and dedicated fax lines. invoice receipts with im- handling mediate header creation. Manual entry of summary in- Localized imaging and bar-code formation. solutions. EIPP for majority of indi- rect suppliers. System and paper catalog Extensive use of EDI with top header information validation. suppliers. Extensive use of OCR im- aging to eliminate paper Limited OCR scanning of paper invoice work flow, archiv- invoices. ing and disaster recovery. Process: Reactive approach to auditing Limited audit for duplicate billing Detailed audit for duplicate Invoice after bills have been paid. and variances in billing. billing, fraud and special reconcilia- contract pricing. Historical audits performed on More detailed audits require tion and annual or semiannual basis. manual processes. Reconciliation performed audit prior to bill payment. No automation to flag errors Manual filing and tracking of or duplicate payments. claims. Automated filing and track- ing of claims. Process: Manual data verification. Mix-mode paper and electronic Data validation via auto- Routing form work flow for A/P function. mated checks and online Frequent duplication of in- and ap- distribution, category, ven- voices/payment owing to cop- System recorded cycle time by proval dor catalogues. ies sent to multiple stake- major activity. holders. Rules-based work flow ap- Exception-based approval rout- proval routing with elec- Form, telephone, or e-mail ings and procedures. tronic signatures. approval process. Limited tracking of approvals. Tracking and escalations for delays in approval. Comprehensive electronic documentation of invoice approval for internal con- trols and SOX compliance. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 13 AberdeenGroup
  • 17. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Laggards Industry Average Best in Class Process: No visibility to total liabilities, Period (monthly/weekly) or Total liabilities report in- Disburse- discounts available or penal- batch-specific total liabilities re- cludes planned and actual ment Plan- ties owed. ports against P.O. or invoice en- liabilities. ning tered. Posting based on contract Alerts for accelerated payment terms, payment method, discounts. and supplier performance. General policy on accelerated or deferred payment schedules. Process: Consolidated batch check print- Centralized disbursements Create and Decentralized check-processing. ing. function. delivery Localized special “check” provi- EFT for majority of suppli- payment sions. ers. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) ACH for select services for top suppliers. and lease equipment sup- pliers. Process: Calls routed to A/P depart- Dedicated A/P call line. Supplier portal for informa- Vendor ment. tion, e-forms, record main- Systems invoice status update if queries tenance, and invoice Time consuming manual invoice received and header en- status inquiries. search for records. tered. Some supplier self-service pro- cedures based on trust/necessity. Visibil- Disparate systems limited col- Invoice status for a few P.O. Tracking and status from ity/Access lection of data. types and major steps (i.e.: re- requisition or header entry to IR&P ceived, pending, approved) through disbursement ac- P.O.-based invoice reporting Spend knowledgment. only. Payment terms. Data Visibility across contract Limited visibility into total li- Discounts, rebates, and other terms, payment method, abilities. terms via system notes or and supplier performance. manually provided by buyer. Cash management via Knowledge of total com- spreadsheet. Periodic (batch/weekly) cash mitted liabilities, including management reports. planned disbursements. Technology Dedicated fax between sites. Office-based imaging, bar-code Supplier e-portal. solutions, and storage solutions. EDI for three-way match di- P-card data feeds. rects. Limited use of EDI. Rules-based work flow Little to no integration with Some OCR scanning. with electronic signatures. ERP system. Uploads and exports to/from Good integration with ERP ERP system tables. System. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 14 • AberdeenGroup
  • 18. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Laggards Industry Average Best in Class Perform- Invoice-processing cycle time: Cycle-time: 10 to 30 days. Cycle-time: < seven days. ance met- 30 to 60 days. Cost per invoice: $3+ to $34. Cost per invoice: >$3.00. rics Cost per invoice: $34+. Percentage payments via paper Percentage payments via Percentage payments via pa- check: 66%. paper check: < 25%. per check: 90%. Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 The information in this grid is provided to help enterprises benchmark themselves against the findings of this research and assist them in prioritizing which strategies to pursue in optimizing their performance. There are significant savings and ROI for investments in automating the IR&P process. Savings categories include: • Optimization of IR&P staffing personnel (head count reduction). • Operational savings through reduced search expenses for misfiled and lost bill- ing. • Reduced transit costs for routing of paper. • Streamlined approval process and internal control. • Reduced storage, archiving and disaster recovery costs from scanning of paper to electronic media and conversion of paper billing processes to EDI. • Capture of early payment discounts and avoidance of late payment penalties to maximize liquidity and cash flow. • Greater visibility and control of expenses. • Reduction of overpayments through improved audit and fraud reduction. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 15 AberdeenGroup
  • 19. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Chapter Four: Recommendations for Action • Complete a thorough review of your IR&P processes and the technology to determine Key Takeaways which steps manual steps can be automated to streamline the process and reduce costs. • Increase collaboration with procurement and IT. • Position changes to the IR&P process as a strategic initiative to gain internal support and shift from the tactical approach of simply processing invoices. F ew enterprises have realized the potential to effectively leverage data from the IR&P process. While managers have a renewed focus on reducing IR&P process- ing costs, there is recognition that these programs can contribute strategic value. Aberdeen recommends that enterprises focus on the following actions for Laggard, In- dustry Average, and Best in Class performers. Laggard Steps to Success 1. Thoroughly review your IR&P processes and the technology used. Determine which manual steps cause the biggest delays and cost the most money. 2. Automate labor-intensive invoice processing. Processing of bills can be auto- mated by adopting Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning. Look to in- crease use of HTML and electronic transactions through: a. Partnering with IT to establish a new initiative to improve the use of electronic billing. Ensure EDI or other electronic formats are used with vendors that have large volumes of invoices. b. Adopting Corporate/P-cards and establish a policy to identify specific categories for which they should be used to establish consistency and control. 3. Review your IR&P technology. If you are using multiple systems, compare the costs of integrating these systems with evaluations of newer integrated ap- proaches. The goal is to find an approach that will enable the enterprise to collect critical information, organize the data, integrate it with the ERP program or re- porting, spend analysis, and business intelligence. 4. Establish a stronger proactive audit capability for bills. Work towards establish- ing more automated audits for duplicate payments and fraud detection. 5. Review your payment programs. Are you tracking cash discounts? How can you improve timing of payments through electronic payment programs to improve cash flow and liquidity to maximize cash discounts? All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 16 • AberdeenGroup
  • 20. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Industry Average Steps to Success 1. Complete a thorough review of your IR&P processes and the technology used. 2. Ensure EDI and other electronic formats are used with vendors that have large volumes of invoices. 3. Leverage P-cards for one-time transactions. Review trends in purchasing by de- partment to determine if there are “quick-hit” areas where P-Cards can reduce paper transactions. 4. Review electronic marketplaces. Are you currently in a program? How many of your suppliers are in the program? Enlist the procurement team to place more fo- cus on doing business with vendors that participate in electronic marketplaces. Work with procurement to enlist vendors that are not participating to join the network. Participation in electronic market places with P.O. flips that tie paper- less procurement initiatives to electronic billing are also key to automation and cost savings. 5. Determine where your current applications will allow you to perform proactive audits when bills are received. If the current applications do not have this func- tionality, look at upgrades or new solutions that can be added to your current sys- tems. 6. Partner with procurement to receive access to contracts. Work towards getting within the root cause of billing errors. Establish a feedback loop with procure- ment to let them know the billing accuracy of suppliers. 7. Review your IR&P ERP reports. Determine how the data can be integrated into streamlined reporting. 8. Identify the top obstacles to capturing cash discounts. If it is getting the invoices approved, determine how you can establish an alert system with escalations to get bills approved on time. If it is bill-cycle time, find out where the bottlenecks are. 9. Manage payment terms and capture cash discounts. Automated electronic invoic- ing and disbursement programs can help maximize liquidity by timing payments to maximize float while ensuring they are made in time to capture cash discounts. These programs can enhance suppliers’ fiscal health and vendor relations while lowering product purchasing costs and increasing cash flow for the enterprise. 10. Determine who handles vendor queries for payment status. What is the frequency of calls and what is it costing the enterprise? Can a portal or web post enable you to eliminate inquiries? Best in Class Next Steps 1. Create an easy to measure score card for the costs in processing bills, time to process an invoice, audit findings, costs to pay invoices and volume of transac- tions in terms of bills and dollars being managed. Use these measurements as your benchmark to manage IR&P and empower line managers to help improve the ratings. 2. Increase use of financial institutions’ trade services and working capital solu- tions. Trade services can provide lower transaction costs, help to smooth cash flow, and reduce check fraud. Working capital solutions allocate risk and access All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 17 AberdeenGroup
  • 21. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report to capital by leveraging a strong buyer’s credit to secure supplier payments at lower cost. In effect, with this approach a weaker supplier does not have to mark- up their goods and services to reflect their higher costs of financing. Buyers con- tinue to maximize their Days Payable Outstanding (DPOs) by using a third party financial intermediary. 3. Work toward a fully visible, integrated environment for sourcing, ordering, in- voice processing, ERP systems, and payment processes. This will help minimize processing expenses, automate back-office financial processes and reduce in- voice disputes. Moreover, visibility will help operations reduce inventory levels and maximize cash liquidity. 4. Empower others with the data collected during the source-to-pay process. Proac- tively capture, cleanse, and segment information. Providing visibility into order- ing, terms, pricing, and payment cycle information to line business managers as well as purchasing and treasury staff empowers others to manage the business more effectively and improve competitive position. 5. Develop supplier score cards for total cost management. Supplier score cards should provide near real-time modeling of costs. Score cards should factor lead times, product quality, labeling, delivery and other factors that could require stockpiling of larger inventories. These measures and other supplier performance metrics can be used to maximize company profit. This approach will enable IR&P professionals and their procurement counterparts to provide the CFO greater visibility and control over the cost of goods and services and corporate profitability. In conclusion, a business case for action must address the broader source-to-pay process. The business goals for the IR&P program may start with the cost and time to process an invoice, but IR&P can contribute to enterprises, by providing real-time visibility into spending; improving negotiation leverage, ensuring the use of volume discounts and re- bates, preventing overcharges and duplicate payments, monitoring supplier costs, and making the most timely use of cash. The key is to establish a strategic business case link- ing purchasing and treasury goals. Source-to-pay processes are a cornerstone of total cost management (TCM), which helps to optimize management and control of the total cost of doing business. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 18 • AberdeenGroup
  • 22. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Featured Sponsors 170 Systems 170 Systems is the proven leader in delivering software solutions that manage and opti- mize financial processes for the world’s largest companies. 170 MarkView embeds best practices in the end-to-end automation of financial processes, including Accounts Pay- able, Expense Management, Procurement, Accounts Receivable, Asset Management, General Ledger and Project Re-Billing. The result is cost-effective and timely manage- ment of all transactions via a consistent process so that finance organizations can reduce operating costs, strengthen internal controls, improve service levels and maximize cash flow. 170 MarkView is tightly integrated with ERP systems, including Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications, and mySAP ERP Financials. ADP Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE: ADP), with over $8.0 billion in revenues and more than 600,000 clients worldwide, is one of the largest providers of a broad range of premier, mission-critical, cost-effective transaction processing and information-based business solutions. ADP® Employer Services (ES), a division of ADP, offers the widest range of HR, payroll, and benefit administration solutions from a single source, to meet the extensive business needs of employers worldwide. Built with more than 50 years of industry experience, ADP ES' cost-effective, easy-to-use solutions provide superior value to companies of all sizes. Approximately 540,000 companies rely on ADP ES for unpar- alleled service and compliance expertise, allowing them to focus on other core activities. For more information about ADP ES or to contact a local ADP sales office, reach us at 1- 800-225-5237 or visit the company's Web site at www.ADP.com. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 19 AberdeenGroup
  • 23. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report AnyBill Anybill provides accounts payable software and services that help our clients reduce back-office costs and improve efficiency without significant investment of time or capi- tal. Our business process automation and workflow solutions easily incorporate into any organization. The Anybill Invoice Reconciliation & Payment (IR&P) solution identifies invoice discrepancies through a matching process then manages them through resolution. The software runs external to your financial systems and data is available via our report- ing module or can be exported for further analysis. The Anybill IR&P solution was de- signed to be an automated and transparent process that fits with most software and ser- vices-oriented architectures. EMC EMC accounts payable (AP) solutions enable organizations to streamline the entire ac- counts payable process, from invoice capture through approval and archiving. Invoices are automatically captured, classified and key data is extracted and validated against back-end systems. After documents are captured, they are put to work for significant time and cost savings. Process queues are established so that the right AP employee will al- ways work on the highest priority and vendor payments are much more predictable and consistent. Processed invoices are then securely archived and available for quick re- trieval. As a result, organizations streamline the AP process, maximize resources, im- prove vendor responsiveness and reduce costs. For details visit: www.software.emc.com. Razorsight Razorsight is the market leader in Financial Business Intelligence Solutions. Razorsight's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provides a new level of visibility into corporate expenditures through our leading, patent-pending technology. Razorsight frees your finance team from costly, error prone manual processing removes all paper from your supply chain and automates the receipt, validation and audit of any invoice using a robust analytics engine and dashboard for unparalleled cost management. Razorsight's world- class, web-based, AIM (automated invoice management) SaaS offering, is easy to install, highly scalable, requires no capital investment and guarantees a ROI in less than one year while enhancing your SOX compliance. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 20 • AberdeenGroup
  • 24. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Sponsor Directory 170 Systems 36 Crosby Dr. Bedford MA 01730 781-743-1900 www.170systems.com email: acarney@170systems.com ADP 400 Covina Blvd San Dimas, CA 91773 www.adp.com email: info@ugs.com Anybill Financial Services 4550 Montgomery Avenue Suite 500, North Lobby One Bethesda, MD, 20814 877.426.9245 www.anybill.com email: mailto:info@anybill.com EMC Corporation 176 South Street Hopkinton, MA 01748 www.emc.com/index.jsp Razorsight Corporation 3926 Pender Drive, Suite 200 Fairfax, VA 22030 703-995-5900 www.razorsight.com email: Info@verticalnet.com All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 21 AberdeenGroup
  • 25. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Authors’ Profiles Joe Basili Research Director Global Supply Management AberdeenGroup, Inc. Joe Basili is a researcher, writer, and consultant for invoice reconciliation, payment, and total telecommunications cost management. Through fact-based research reports, public speaking, and advisory meetings he provides best practices on how organizations can optimize their information technology (IT) systems, telecommunications network costs, operations, and procurement. His experience includes leadership of marketing teams in the TTCM space and range of marketing, sales and operational roles with Frito-Lay, Honey Fashions and Crown-Zellerbach/James River. Sudy Bharadwaj, Vice President and Practice Director Global Supply Management AberdeenGroup, Inc. Sudy Bharadwaj oversees research programs, products, and services, as well as client development related to supply chain issues, including sourcing, spend management, con- tract management, procurement, and category-specific strategies. Prior to joining Aber- deenGroup, Bharadwaj was vice president of Solution Delivery, Marketing and Presales for MindFlow Technologies, a leading strategic sourcing vendor. He has also led sales consulting teams at i2 Technologies and held other marketing and program management positions at Hewlett-Packard. Rick Saia Analyst/Editor Global Supply Research AberdeenGroup, Inc. Rick Saia focuses on the use of technology in the global supply management arena and most recently assisted in the development of research in Aberdeen’s Information Tech- nology practice area, especially the recent SOA in IT Benchmark Report, and current sur- veys on enterprise applications and network application processing. He has extensive experience writing and editing on information technology topics. His experience includes senior-level editorial positions at Computerworld and Cutter Consortium. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 22 • AberdeenGroup
  • 26. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Appendix A: Research Methodology I n May and June 2006, AberdeenGroup examined the question of technology use and plans in middle-market enterprises. Aberdeen supplemented this online survey effort with further research on a subset of respondents. Demographics of the Surveyed Population Responding enterprises included the following: • Job title/function: The research sample consisted of respondents with the follow- ing job titles: 38% senior management (CxO), 6% executive management, 7% VP-level management, 40% directors or managers, 8% individual contributors, and one administrator. • Industry: The research sample included respondents from a wide variety of in- dustries. Thirty-one percent were from high technology or software companies, 7% industrial equipment manufacturing, 4% each in automotive, distribution, education, finance/banking/accounting or retail. Three percent each were from consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical manufacturing, public sector, and transportation/logistics. Others were from aerospace and defense, chemicals, construction/architecture/engineering, health/medical/dental services, medical devices, mining/oil/gas, publishing/media, telecommunications services, travel, utilities, and wholesale. • Geography: Sixty-three percent of the respondents were from North America, 19% were from EMEA, 12% from Asia/Pacific, 3% from South/Central America and Caribbean, and 3% from South America. • Company size: Employee headcount in participating companies is shown in Figure 25: The greatest numbers of respondents were from mid-market companies. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 23 AberdeenGroup
  • 27. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Appendix B: PACE Methodology PACE Key Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark research that evaluates the business pressures, actions, capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corporate behavior in specific business processes. These terms are defined as follows: Pressures — external forces that impact an organization’s market position, competitiveness, or business operations (e.g., economic, political and regulatory, technology, changing customer preferences, competi- tive) Actions — the strategic approaches that an organization takes in response to industry pressures (e.g., align the corporate business model to leverage industry opportunities, such as product/service strategy, target markets, financial strategy, go-to-market, and sales strategy) Capabilities — the business process competencies required to execute corporate strategy (e.g., skilled people, brand, market positioning, viable products/services, ecosystem partners, financing) Enablers — the key functionality of technology solutions required to support the organization’s enabling business practices (e.g., development platform, applications, network connectivity, user interface, training and support, partner interfaces, data cleansing, and management) All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 24 • AberdeenGroup
  • 28. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Table 4: PACE (Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, Enablers) Priorities Prioritized Better manage and Reduction of operat- Create an aggres- Beef up current Pressures service customers ing costs (92%) sive plan for future business capabilities (95%) viability and suc- to become more cessful growth competitive (90%) (91%) Prioritized Focus on growing Review current Enhancing and inte- A tie for fourth Actions revenue instead of technology in use grating current place: cutting operational (90%) technology to better 1. Eliminate a costs (91%) address the entire fragmented in- business cycle frastructure and (85%) applications technology ar- chitecture (77%) 2. Update or add new applica- tions to existing installed appls. (77%) 3. Benchmark your competi- tiveness in a global market (77%) Prioritized Internal and external Ability to accurately Align performance Better funding for Capabilities communication of determine and plan with rewards; re- corporate strategies key corporate for customer de- align metrics that do and initiatives strategies and initia- mand not sufficiently in- tives cent employees to support/achieve corporate goals Prioritized Consolidation: using Integration: gluing Suite over best of Hiring management: Enablers a single instance of together disparate breed: Moving from Total business core software business applica- disparate software process capabilities across all the enter- tions application to an that link to retention prise integrated ERP suite best practices Source: AberdeenGroup, June 2006 All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 25 AberdeenGroup
  • 29. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Relationship between PACE and Competitive Framework PACE and Competitive Framework — How They Interact Aberdeen research indicates that companies that identify the most impactful pressures and take the most transformational and effective actions are most likely to achieve superior performance. The level of com- petitive performance that a company achieves is strongly determined by the PACE choices that it makes and how well those decisions are executed. Competitive Framework Key The Aberdeen Competitive Framework defines enterprises as falling into one of three levels of mid-market ERP practices and performance: Laggard — Mid-market ERP practices that are significantly behind the average of the industry, and result in below average performance Industry Average — Mid-market ERP practices that represent the average or norm, and result in average industry performance. Best in Class — Mid-market ERP practices that are the best currently being employed and significantly superior to the industry norm, and result in the top industry performance. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 26 • AberdeenGroup
  • 30. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Appendix C: Invoice Payment & Reconciliation Process 1. Invoice Receipt: Includes paper media, electronic media (i.e. EDI, .xml, .csv, or other file formats), P-Card, and credit card transactions. With paper, the steps can include receipt, sorting and inserting separator pages, manual entry into a system, scanning of invoices image and manual data entry of information, or more auto- mated scanning with data entry through Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Optical Mark Recognition (OMR), or Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR). 2. Invoice Archiving and Storage: Electronic billing and scanning of all paper re- moves paper at the front-end when billing comes to the enterprise. Archiving and storage of records may be part of this step if there is conversion to electronic me- dia. An integral part of data entry is indexing key fields to enable searches, re- trieval of invoices. Alternatively back-end document capture calls for scanning the invoices after they have been manually routed through the enterprise for ap- proval and payment. 3. Approval and Inquiry: Includes rule-based routing with a structured workflow that follows business rules for individuals’ roles and approval hierarchies. Man- agers receive automatic notification of invoices that need to be approved, and the system tracks approval status, provides access to billing images. Common fea- tures include reminders and escalations to ensure that bills are approved in a timely fashion. 4. Validation and Reconciliation: Includes proactive audits for duplicate invoices, fraud (i.e. billing to residential, prison or other high risk locations, undocumented suppliers, etc.) comparing variances (spikes) in previous amounts billed, calcula- tion errors, taxes, special contract pricing. It should also have capabilities to cre- ate dispute notices, track claims, and monitor escalations. Finally, it should track short payments, help calculate and allocate credits back to business units or cost centers, help track activities for regulatory audits and provide reporting on audit activities. 5. Settlement (Payment): Includes the selection of the most efficient payment method to disburse funds such as check, wire, EFT, ACH, and card networks. In addition to improved security and transaction costs, this function helps to opti- mize cash flow, ensure tax compliance, capture discounts, and provide trade fi- nancing. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 27 AberdeenGroup
  • 31. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report Appendix D: Related Aberdeen Research & Tools Related Aberdeen research that forms a companion or reference to this report includes: • The Contract Management Benchmark Report: Procurement Contracts (March 2006) • The CFO’s View on Procurement (September 2005) Information on these and any other Aberdeen publications can be found at www.aberdeen.com. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 28 • AberdeenGroup
  • 32. The Invoice Reconciliaiton & Payment Benchmark Report About AberdeenGroup Our Mission To be the trusted advisor and business value research destination of choice for the Global Business Executive. Our Approach Aberdeen delivers unbiased, primary research that helps enterprises derive tangible busi- ness value from technology-enabled solutions. Through continuous benchmarking and analysis of value chain practices, Aberdeen offers a unique mix of research, tools, and services to help Global Business Executives accomplish the following: • IMPROVE the financial and competitive position of their business now • PRIORITIZE operational improvement areas to drive immediate, tangible value to their business • LEVERAGE information technology for tangible business value. Aberdeen also offers selected solution providers fact-based tools and services to em- power and equip them to accomplish the following: • CREATE DEMAND, by reaching the right level of executives in companies where their solutions can deliver differentiated results • ACCELERATE SALES, by accessing executive decision-makers who need a so- lution and arming the sales team with fact-based differentiation around business impact • EXPAND CUSTOMERS, by fortifying their value proposition with independent fact-based research and demonstrating installed base proof points Our History of Integrity Aberdeen was founded in 1988 to conduct fact-based, unbiased research that delivers tangible value to executives trying to advance their businesses with technology-enabled solutions. Aberdeen's integrity has always been and always will be beyond reproach. We provide independent research and analysis of the dynamics underlying specific technology- enabled business strategies, market trends, and technology solutions. While some reports or portions of reports may be underwritten by corporate sponsors, Aberdeen's research findings are not influenced by sponsors. All print and electronic rights are the property of AberdeenGroup © 2006. 29 AberdeenGroup
  • 33. THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR ELECTRONIC DELIVERY ONLY The following acts are strictly prohibited: • Reproduction for Sale • Transmittal via the Internet Copyright © 2006 AberdeenGroup, Inc. Boston, Massachusetts Terms and Conditions Upon receipt of this electronic report, it is understood that the user will and must fully comply with the terms of purchase as stipulated in the Purchase Agreement signed by the user or by an authorized representative of the user’s organization. Aberdeen has granted this client permission to post this report on its Web site. This publication is protected by United States copyright laws and international treaties. Unless otherwise noted in the Purchase Agreement, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc., and may not be reproduced, stored in another retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the publisher. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this publication, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent necessary to protect the rights of the publisher. The trademarks and registered trademarks of the corporations mentioned in this publication are the property of their respective holders. All information contained in this report is current as of publication date. Information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources Aberdeen believes to be reliable, but is not warranted by the publisher. Opinions reflect judgment at the time of publication and are subject to change without notice. Usage Tips Report viewing in this PDF format offers several benefits: • Table of Contents: A dynamic Table of Contents (TOC) helps you navigate through the report. Simply select “Show Bookmarks” from the “Windows” menu, or click on the bookmark icon (fourth icon from the left on the standard toolbar) to access this feature. The TOC is both expandable and collapsible; simply click on the plus sign to the left of the chapter titles listed in the TOC. This feature enables you to change your view of the TOC, depending on whether you would rather see an overview of the report or focus on any given chapter in greater depth. • Scroll Bar: Another online navigation feature can be accessed from the scroll bar to the right of your document window. By dragging the scroll bar, you can easily navigate through the entire document page by page. If you continue to press the mouse button while dragging the scroll bar, Acrobat Reader will list each page number as you scroll. This feature is helpful if you are searching for a specific page reference. • Text-Based Searching: The PDF format also offers online text-based searching capabilities. This can be a great asset if you are searching for references to a specific type of technology or any other elements within the report. • Reader Guide: To further explore the benefits of the PDF file format, please consult the Reader Guide available from the Help menu.