• Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Rss
  • Savings Calculator
  • Get A Demo
  • Login
  • Contact
IntelliChief
  • Why IntelliChief?
      • The IntelliChief Difference
        • About IntelliChief
        • Best Practices Expertise

        • See how much you can save with AP Automation

          Find out exactly how much you're spending to process invoices with the IntelliChief Savings Calculator. Then, see how much you can save by implementing Enterprise Content Management and Process Automation for Accounts Payable. Savings Calculator >

    • Introducing IntelliChief
      Industry leaders choose IntelliChief to reduce costs and increase efficiency in: Accounts Payable, Order Management, HR, and more.
      Here's why:
      Watch
  • Solutions
      • Enterprise Content Management
      • Process Automation
        • AP Automation
        • Order Management
        • AR Automation
        • HR Automation
      • Solutions By Industry
        • Manufacturing
        • Distribution
        • Transportation
        • Construction
        • Logistics
  • Technology
      • OCR Capture
        Automatically capture and convert data from incoming documents.
      • Workflow
        Ensure that your business rules and processes are followed without error, every time.
      • Integration Link
        Connect IntelliChief to any ERP system (or multiple ERPs) to unlock advanced capabilities.
      • Digital Repository
        Archival made easy. Store and retrieve documents in seconds with full search capabilities.
      • Analytics
        Gain insight into your team’s productivity with customizable analytics dashboards.
      • Mobile Access
        Expand your operational footprint with reliable mobile solutions that integrate with your ERP system.
      • Email Import
        Automatically capture documents from emails to maximize touchless processing rates.
      • Retention Manager
        Manage Document Life Cycles, by securely storing, retrieving, and maintaining digital files.
  • ERP Integrations
    • What Does Integration Mean?
      • Oracle
      • JD Edwards
      • Infor
      • SAP
      • Other ERPs
  • Resources
      • Blog
      • FAQ
      • Events
      • Webinars
      • Case Studies
      • Guides
      • Product Sheets
      • Savings Calculator
      • Support
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Creating an AP Automation Project Justification Using Real-World Numbers

When Justifying Your AP Automation Project, Real-World Numbers Are Your Ally

Creating an AP Automation project justification is at the top of most organizations’ to-do lists. And while every organization has its own unique reasons for automating Accounts Payable, there are several well-documented benefits of Accounts Payable Automation that businesses are eager to take advantage of, including:

  • Reduce time spent performing manual data entry
  • Maximize early payment discounts
  • Eliminate late and duplicate payments
  • Increase process visibility
  • Control processing efficiency and accuracy
  • Reduce, reallocate, or defer resources

The competitive edge offered by AP Automation is unparalleled, but obtaining project approval requires more than a list of presumed benefits. You need real-world numbers that convey these improvements in terms that your company’s decision-makers will understand, respect, and embrace.

Forming Your Accounts Payable Automation Project Justification

When the time comes to deliver your justification for Accounts Payable Automation, vague reasons will pose a significant challenge. You want to be clear, confident, and prepared to show evidence to support your justification. Some common justifications include:

  • Saving Time and Money
  • Becoming More Efficient
  • Eliminating Paper

This a good start, but you should also be ready to take your justification one level deeper:

  • How much time and money do you project you can save?
  • How will increased efficiency positively affect your organization?
  • What is the ROI of eliminating paper?

If you can answer these types of questions with real-world numbers, your justification will be that much more compelling. But how do you gain access to real-world numbers to support your justification? We can help.

Browse Industry Studies, Whitepapers, and Webinars

Industries studies, whitepapers, and webinars are a great place to begin researching Accounts Payable Automation. They are helpful because they serve as a benchmark, provide direction and ideas, and provide access to metrics based on an analysis of other organizations. However, you can’t rely solely on these types of resources to make solidify your justification. Many of these resources are too general or don’t align with the needs of your organization. Furthermore, certain metrics may not be specific or relevant to your organization, especially if the organizations being studied are different than yours in terms of size, revenue, or invoice volume.

Talk to Your Preferred Vendor About Real-World Justification

Generally, when organizations start to compare AP solutions, they quickly identify a vendor that stands out. Needless to say, your first option is rarely your best option, but depending on who you select, you may be able to justify your project more easily by treating this vendor as a strategic partner. For example, our AP experts have helped hundreds of companies justify their Accounts Payable Automation projects. We weren’t the best fit in every instance, but our team is more than willing to share some justification tips for organizations interested in AP Automation.

What to Include When Justifying an AP Automation Project With Real-World Numbers

Your business case for AP Automation should include:

  • Your real-world metrics for AP processing
  • Hard dollar savings and efficiency savings
  • Projected savings over five years
  • Projected costs over five years
  • Realistic expectations

On a more granular level, you should be looking for:

Invoices

  • # of invoices processed per year
  • Average # of pages per invoice
  • Percentage of PO vs non-PO invoices
  • Percentage of PO-based invoices requiring exception handling
  • Percentage of email vs mail
  • The forecasted increase in volume per year over five years

Processors

  • # of AP processors
  • Salary, fully burdened, with the hourly rate
  • Percentage of expected salary increase over five years
  • # of processors expected to add each year over five years
  • # of processors expected to add each year over five years with AP Automation deployed

Costs

  • # of early payment discounts missed annually
  • # of late payment fees incurred annually
  • # of duplicate payments annually
  • Postage costs
  • The volume of related documents filed with paper cost
  • Cost of on/offsite storage over the next five years
  • Cost of current solution or outsource function (if applicable)

Activities

  • Printing and sorting invoices
  • Routing invoices for approval and exception handling
  • Data entry
  • Calculating conversions (i.e., unit of measure, pricing, etc.)
  • Finding and resolving duplicate payments
  • Manual filing
  • Tracking, reporting, and researching inquiries

What’s Next? Access the IntelliChief Accounts Payable Automation ROI Calculator

Our Accounts Payable Automation ROI Calculator is a great resource to help organizations crunch the numbers and forecast potential cost savings. Once your figures have been entered into the ROI Calculator, it generates the hard dollar savings in terms of cost and efficiency in the first five years of your project. With this helpful tool, you can compare your current costs to what they would be in an automated environment.

For your free Accounts Payable Automation ROI Calculator, contact IntelliChief today.

Webinar Library Resource Library

Next Steps:

Request Demo
Contact Us
Download Whitepaper
Watch Recorded Webinar

Experience IntelliChief

Request a customized demo to see how IntelliChief addresses your organization’s most pressing challenges. Simply provide some preliminary information about your project and our experts will handle the rest.

Get a Demo

World Headquarters

13095 Telecom Parkway N.
Tampa, FL 33637

813-971-9500

U.S. Headquarters

120 Forbes Boulevard
Mansfield, MA 02048

508-594-2800

info@intellichief.com

Getting Started

Why IntelliChief?
What is ECM?
Solutions
Technology
ERP Integrations
Customer Success Stories
FAQ

Resources

Blog
Case Studies
Whitepapers
Product Sheets
Webinars
Savings Calculator
Careers
Press

Copyright © 2022 IntelliChief™. All Rights Reserved.
Website Hosting by K.Tek Systems Inc.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use and Disclaimers | Sitemap | Support Portal

Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept Settings

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Accept SettingsHide Notification