Accounting Document Automation – How to Automate Your Accounting Documents Using Envoice

Wall-to-wall filing cabinets that house client data may finally be a thing of the past. Thanks to Envoice!

Businesses are rethinking their document management since keeping paper files is more expensive and impractical than storing digital files in a virtual cabinet. 

Finding information takes too much time; worse, they take up real estate. The typical accounting firm uses about a quarter of its office space to store client documents and business files. If you’re paying €10,000 for your office, you’re spending about €2,500 monthly for document storage.  

But the bigger issue lies with processing paper files. With increasing rental and labor costs, it’s time to rethink document management systems and processes.

Is Paperless Accounting Possible?

Traditional accounting relies heavily on paper-based processes, so it’s almost impossible to disassociate accounting from paper. Anyone familiar with “working papers” may conjure images of large stacks of business documents needed to prepare financial statements and management reports. But technology is changing things.

Now, accounting professionals can perform their work without getting buried under piles of paper. 

Third-party providers like Envoice use OCR features and artificial intelligence to convert invoices, approvals, and other business documents into digital format. 

While it is impossible for many accounting firms and companies to fully eradicate paper documents due to existing tax laws, government policies, and industry regulations, document automation can eliminate most paper documents generated in accounting departments.

Manual Systems Hold Back Your Accounting Team

Keeping a copy of source documents like invoices and receipts protects your business. When owners suspect internal fraud, for instance, they can verify the correctness and accuracy of their accounting data by checking the related invoice and other supporting documents. 

Ideally, a company’s invoice-related documents should be organized and audit-ready. Automated software can help you achieve this.

But that’s not all. 

Expense data plays an important role in the decision-making process. Business owners, for instance, may require instant access to source documents like goods orders from different vendors to find the most cost-effective supplier. 

Unfortunately, manual systems prevent your AP team from providing this information quickly. 

Information retrieval is tedious and time-consuming when finding information from hard copies. About 24% of employees use 8 hours a week scouring for information they need to serve customers.[3]

Envoice helps you improve your digital file storage system by reading and capturing data from digitized invoices and receipts. 

In addition, it acts like an accounting document management system that stores your invoice data. Built-in tools integration features within the system reduce data entry, speed up data flow, and increase accuracy.

Improve Accounting Document Management With Envoice

Companies using paper-based accounting systems struggle with document management. 28% of companies consider too much paper to be one of the top three hurdles in their accounts payable departments. [1]

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Manual invoice approval, for instance, becomes complicated and harder to control without accounting document management software that allows automatic invoice tracking. Audits also become a nightmare for auditors and the accounting department when documents are in paper format. 

Envoice eliminates these problems by providing an accounting document management system that automates invoice processing. With the app, you can pull information from scanned documents, automatically create invoices, store documents, and automate workflows. 

What Can Envoice Do?

Envoice provides accounts payable solutions that reduce the workload for your accounting team. Here are some of the most useful Envoice features. 

• Collect all your invoices in one system to simplify expense management. You can snap a photo of the invoice with a mobile app, upload a document, or send the attachment to a dedicated email address. 
• Sync data uploaded in Envoice to your accounting software. Envoice allows integration with popular cloud-based accounting systems like QuicBooks, Xero, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Business Central
• Search and access digital invoices and receipts with ease. 
• Route invoices through an automated approval workflow. 
• View invoice status in real time through the Envoice dashboard. 

How Envoice Automates Accounting Documentation

Accounting document automation happens in three steps within the Envoice app.

Intelligent Data Extraction

Automation starts with capturing data from a source document, such as an invoice, a bill, or a receipt. 

With Envoice, you can collect all supplier invoices in one place for comprehensive archiving. The process starts by sending a copy of the invoice to Envoice for processing. 

You can do that in three ways.

1. Send Invoices to a Dedicated Invoice Inbox

Who’s not fed up with jumping from one mailbox to another to find a supplier invoice? 

Envoice reduces inbox-hopping by creating an inbox dedicated to all supplier invoices. You get a dedicated email address where suppliers can send their invoices and users can forward all invoice-related information to that email address. Having one inbox for all invoices means less time spent searching different email inboxes to find documents. 

Data entry is not a problem either, Envoice automatically captures data from invoices sent as email attachments. 

A few minutes after sending the email to your Envoice inbox, expect to see a new invoice requiring action on the dashboard. 

2. Snap Photos of Invoices Using the Smartphone App

Data entry tops are the most hated task in the world for a reason. [2] It takes valuable time away from important tasks and core responsibilities and delays invoice processing. 

In busy companies, invoices could sit on the accountant’s desk for days or weeks. With Envoice, AP teams can process all incoming invoices faster by snapping a photo of a receipt or invoice with a smartphone app. 

Companies can also reduce invoice processing time since data from captured images auto-populates in the Envoice form and employees can set invoices for immediate processing. 

Since the app is available for smartphones, even employees in the field or on business trips can submit invoice approval requests while they’re away. Allowing employees to submit photos of their expenses through an app reduces issues with missing, lost, or damaged invoices and receipts. 

3. Upload Invoices from Your Device 

Aside from the smartphone app and the dedicated inbox, users can upload a receipt or invoice through a computer or tablet. 

Sending an email, snapping a photo, or uploading a copy of the invoice allows users to get started with the accounting document automation process. 

Extract Key Information Automatically 

Envoice improves efficiency in the accounting process by eliminating manual data entry – or at least most of it – with SmartExtract. SmartExtract refers to the intelligent technology that captures key information from invoices added to the workflow. 

Capturing data using AI tools leads to fewer mistakes and typographical errors. 

Companies requiring a higher level of data accuracy can use ExactExtract from Envoice. This enterprise-grade service adds human validation to achieve a 99.99% confidence in the line item extraction process.

Automated Approval Workflows

Envoice reads multiple lines from your invoices and receipts and this digital copy of the invoice enters the approval workflow automatically. 

Aside from invoices, your employees can submit expense reports– this saves time and effort for employees requesting reimbursement and your accounting team. The expense report tool allows employees to request partial reimbursement – this way, they can subtract personal expenses from an invoice.

Once an invoice or reimbursement request is ready for review, users can send a request for approval with the click of a button. There’s no need to send a separate email or deliver hard copies of the approval request to a manager or supervisor.

Accounting teams and managers designated as approvers can view all invoices requiring their attention from the Envoice dashboard. The app improves task management in the invoice processing workflow by sending automatic email notifications, so approvers know that an invoice needs their attention.

If there are questions about an invoice, users can leave a comment or request additional information. 

All communication happens within Envoice, so everyone is on the same page. 

For recurring expenses, Envoice comes with a feature called smart rules. Users can create rules and set up approval limits to automate the approval of some transactions, like regular monthly expenses.  

For instance, a company pays a monthly retainer fee of €‎1,000. With smart rules, you can add a rule to automatically approve the monthly invoice for the retainer fee as long as the amount doesn’t exceed €‎1,000. If the invoice for the retainer fee enters the Envoice workflow, the request gets approved without human intervention. 

Sync Invoices to Your Accounting System

Accounting document automation wouldn’t be complete without pushing data to your accounting software. Your accounting team doesn’t have to re-enter data into your accounting software manually since Envoice supports integration with popular accounting systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365, QuickBooks, and Xero. 

Electronic data transfer ensures faster processing time and higher accuracy than manual data entry. Since all invoices enter a single workflow, you also gain full visibility into the status of all invoices and bills. 

Reimagine Operations, Automate Invoice Processing

Intelligent technology is the key to having an efficient accounting team. Automation lets your accounting teams work smarter by eliminating unnecessary tasks. 

Here’s how Envoice uses technology to modernize the accounting process and improve productivity and work-life balance for busy accounting teams.

• Speed Up Financial Report Processing

Automated accounting documentation reduces the workload of your accounting department. By leaving pre-accounting tasks and repetitive processes to intelligent technology, you can reduce turnaround times for financial reports.

Investing in automation lets your accounting team focus on analyzing reports, planning, and strategizing rather than gathering information needed for monthly reports.

For accounting firms, this creates an opportunity to increase the number of clients without adding headcount. Growing companies can also leverage this technology to keep up with the increasing number of invoices without overworking their accounting team.

• Avoid errors and mistakes

Mistakes like transposition errors, wrong placement of the decimal point, or an extra zero can make your financial reports inaccurate and unreliable. When bots take care of data extraction, your employees can focus on reviewing data accuracy. 

• Promote workplace collaborations

Chat apps, e-mails, and phone calls make communication possible within the company but it’s not the most efficient way to relay information related to invoice approvals. Envoice comes with built-in tools where employees can leave comments and notes about an invoice – this makes it easier for everyone involved to understand the nature of an expense.

• Access powerful tools without going out of budget

Envoice subscription fees are based mainly on usage. There’s a monthly subscription fee, but the software’s overall cost is affordable even for small companies without hefty tech budgets. 

• Improve cash flow management

Almost always, unexpected expenses hurt business operations. With Envoice, companies have a clearer picture of current and expected outflows. Reports such as the intelligent expense analysis take expense tracking to a higher level. Getting deeper insights into the company’s spending patterns lead to better cash flow management strategies. 

Envoice is one of the best document management software for accountants – it comes with built-in tools to optimize the accounting process while reducing challenges in document management. 

But there’s more to come. 

Envoice is getting constant updates to keep up with the growing needs of the accounting industry. 

Expect more process automation features soon! 

Automate Accounting Documentation with Envoice

Envoice provides innovative solutions to reduce non-value-adding activities in accounting firms and departments. Create a better and less expensive way to manage accounting documentation, automate bookkeeping tasks, and increase productivity for your team.

Book your Envoice demo today and discover how automating accounting document processing boosts team productivity and work efficiency.