The accounting expertise disaster is altering how companies deal with their funds. With the US market needing 340,000 new accountants and 45% of corporations struggling to draw expertise, extra firms are turning to specialised expense administration suppliers to deal with their accounting operations.
However this is the catch: These service suppliers face the identical expertise scarcity.
We lately labored with one such supplier who processed over 50,000 payments and invoices month-to-month for his or her purchasers. As extra firms got here to them for assist, they bumped into the identical impediment: they could not rent sufficient individuals to maintain up with the workload. It received to some extent the place they needed to flip down new purchasers.
Let me take you thru how the service supplier applied automated bill processing and located a approach to bulk-process payments and invoices with out continuously including extra employees.
What occurs when rising quantity breaks doc processing
The expense administration supplier in query makes a speciality of serving to organizations optimize their working expenditure. As a Enterprise Course of Outsourcing (BPO) associate, they deal with every little thing from utility and telecom bills to IT prices—processing payments, validating expenses, and offering detailed analytics. They assist AP groups in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and authorities organizations scale back the workload whereas delivering value financial savings via higher expense administration.
Nevertheless, as this supplier’s enterprise grew quickly, dealing with near 50,000 utility payments and invoices month-to-month turned greater than only a processing problem. It uncovered elementary operational constraints that threatened their capability to scale and ship worth to purchasers.
This is what occurred:
1. Handbook processing turned a bottleneck: Their crew relied on handbook information entry and will solely course of about 100 invoices per particular person per day. It created a rising backlog and restricted their capability.
2. Expertise scarcity worsened issues: Discovering and retaining certified in-house accounting analysts to supervise the method and guarantee accuracy turned more and more tough and costly. This made it more durable to scale their crew and meet rising calls for.
3. Shopper service suffered consequently: Processing inaccuracies and inefficiencies meant delays, errors, and, in the end, sad purchasers. Additionally they struggled to satisfy shopper deadlines, resulting in potential penalties.
4. Revenue margins have been squeezed: Elevated labor prices and SLA penalties reduce into their profitability, making it more durable to put money into development and innovation.
5. Development alternatives have been restricted: They could not effectively onboard new purchasers or tackle new enterprise alternatives. It put them on the again foot in opposition to rivals with higher methods.
They wanted to keep up a big crew of knowledge entry clerks always to key within the sheer quantity of payments and invoices. Whereas they have been capable of outsource a few of it, the inherent limitations of handbook processing remained.
The tipping level was when the service supplier began turning down new enterprise as a result of their operations couldn’t scale to serve them.
Why utility bill processing will get sophisticated at scale
Check out a typical utility invoice. It’d appear to be a easy doc to course of. However, it will possibly shortly turn into a headache if you’re processing 1000’s of them each month, particularly when aiming for the accuracy and element wanted for efficient expense administration.
Every bill comprises crucial information factors that must be extracted and validated: account numbers, service addresses, meter readings, utilization information, cost descriptions, and cost phrases.
This is a fast glimpse into how sophisticated the utility invoice processing workflow was:
- Each utility firm is completely different
- A whole lot of utility firms, every with distinctive bill codecs—some even utilizing 7-8 completely different layouts
- Some utility firms ship day by day payments, others month-to-month
- Single invoices can run from 1 to 372+ pages
- Every format wants particular dealing with
- Info is not easy
- A number of meter readings for various providers (electrical energy, fuel, water) could possibly be scattered throughout the doc
- Service addresses for multi-location purchasers may be unfold throughout pages, or buried inside tables
- Cost descriptions lacked consistency (“Buyer Cost” in a single invoice and “Cust. Chg.” in one other)
- Similar expenses would possibly seem a number of instances on a single bill, requiring handbook revisions
- Accuracy necessities are strict
- Meter readings should match their corresponding expenses
- Information wants validation earlier than system import
- Errors might result in incorrect shopper experiences, flawed monetary insights, and missed optimization alternatives
- Processing delays result in SLA penalties
These complexities meant handbook processing or primary OCR options, which regularly battle with inconsistent layouts and sophisticated information relationships, wouldn’t be sufficient. They wanted an answer that would not solely deal with excessive quantity but additionally adapt to the intricate particulars and variations of their purchasers’ utility payments.
How the service supplier applied automated bill processing for top volumes
The expense administration supplier knew they wanted to automate bill processing earlier than development turned not possible. Nevertheless, with 50,000+ month-to-month invoices, advanced validation necessities, and strict shopper SLAs, they could not afford any drops in accuracy or service high quality through the transition.
That is when their CFO found Nanonets. Our one-shot studying, customizable validation flows, hands-on assist for advanced vendor setups, and skill to deal with multi-page tables satisfied them that we might meet their particular wants:
- Distinctive doc layouts
- Advanced information extraction wants like a number of meter readings and repair addresses
- Excessive-volume processing with constant accuracy
- Validation necessities for his or her system import
Working with the supplier, we took a scientific method to automation. Relatively than disrupting their whole workflow without delay, we began with a vendor-by-vendor method to validate accuracy and construct confidence.
Immediately, their automated workflow processes a good portion of their 50,000 month-to-month payments and invoices. Right here’s the way it works:
1. Doc consumption
- Their crew collects invoices all through the day via a number of channels (mail, shopper emails, utility firm portals, and bodily invoices)
- On the finish of every workday, they place all collected invoices into a delegated SharePoint folder
- The SharePoint folder construction can go as much as 3 ranges deep (e.g., principal folder → vendor folder → date folder)
- Nanonets checks the SharePoint folders each 3-5 minutes for brand spanking new information
- When new information are detected, Nanonets routinely imports them
Word: Backup strategies embody direct add via the Nanonets interface, electronic mail forwarding to a devoted mannequin electronic mail handle, and different cloud storage choices (Google Drive, Dropbox)
2. Preliminary processing
- As soon as imported, Nanonets’ AI mannequin begins extraction instantly
- System identifies and processes:
- A number of meter readings as desk constructions
- Advanced cost descriptions
- Service addresses throughout pages
- Fee phrases and dates
- Constructed-in validation checks the payments for:
- Discipline completeness
- Date format accuracy
- Quantity validity
- Required info presence
Word: Their crew adopted an end-of-day batch add method, permitting our system to course of every little thing in a single day. This ensures all paperwork uploaded through the day are processed and prepared for overview the subsequent morning.
3. Error dealing with and high quality management
Error dealing with entails automated checks, adopted by handbook evaluations for corrections.
Among the automated checks achieved by Nanonets:
- Flags lacking fields
- Identifies mismatched meter readings
- Catches incorrect cost descriptions
- Tracks accuracy charges by vendor
The processing crew then evaluations error logs and output day by day for:
- Cost descriptions within the fallacious columns
- Service addresses throughout a number of areas
- Meter readings matching their expenses accurately
When points are discovered, the crew investigates the basis trigger, corrects extraction errors straight within the Nanonets interface, and updates the AI Mannequin’s coaching information if wanted to enhance future accuracy. This steady suggestions loop helps preserve excessive accuracy charges throughout all distributors.
Word: Every day error reporting was applied to forestall points from bleeding via the complete week.
4. Publish-processing and output
As soon as paperwork go validation:
- System applies customized formatting guidelines to extracted information
- Standardizes cost descriptions throughout distributors
- Information is exported in customized CSV/Excel format
- Information are organized by vendor and date
- Information is imported into the service supplier’s billing system
Word: The crew processes 15,000-20,000 pages month-to-month this manner, which may scale to 30,000+ pages.
5. Steady enchancment
We work with the service supplier to keep up and enhance processing high quality. Their crew identifies areas for enchancment and offers suggestions, whereas we constantly improve the AI mannequin’s accuracy. This entails:
- Common mannequin updates based mostly on their processing crew’s suggestions
- Centered enhancements in advanced areas like cost descriptions
- Gradual onboarding of latest distributors to make sure steady efficiency
- Utilizing our analytics dashboard to observe and optimize efficiency
This collaborative method helps preserve excessive accuracy charges whereas steadily increasing processing capabilities.
The affect of automation on bulk bill processing
Inside three months of implementing Nanonets, the supplier noticed vital outcomes. They scaled their automated processing from zero to 12,000 pages month-to-month, demonstrating the system’s capability to deal with their high-volume wants.
For utility invoices from recognized distributors, the AI mannequin achieved processing speeds of 173-174 invoices in simply 5 minutes — a process that will’ve required hours of handbook information entry.
However the affect went past simply pace.
Processing effectivity
- Nanonets can now course of 46 out of fifty distributors shared by the client
- Just one consultant file required per vendor for AI mannequin coaching
- Automated doc consumption via SharePoint integration
- Bulk in a single day processing of 500 invoices day by day
Operational enhancements
- Employees free of handbook information entry to concentrate on higher-value duties like shopper reporting and evaluation
- Sooner turnaround on shopper deliverables and assembly SLAs
- Extra constant processing high quality, with fewer errors and handbook corrections
- Higher dealing with of advanced invoices with a number of meter readings and repair addresses
The trail ahead
The supplier’s journey into automated bill processing continues to be in its early phases. With solely ~20% of their whole invoice quantity presently automated, there’s vital room for development. However extra importantly, it has laid the inspiration for a major transformation of their operations.
Their subsequent steps concentrate on:
Increasing automation protection
- Processing telecom invoices (estimated 10,000 month-to-month)
- Scaling to deal with ~30,000 payments and invoices month-to-month
- Persevering with to onboard new invoice codecs from completely different utility firms effectively
- Constructing on their profitable utility bill automation
Technical integration
- Implementing API integration by summer time 2025 to allow direct information movement between Nanonets and their expense administration answer
- Automating error corrections the place doable to scale back handbook overview time
- Constructing a extra sturdy integration between Nanonets and their in-house software program
Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of purchasers?
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Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of purchasers?
See how automation may also help you develop with out including headcount. E-book a demo to see how we may also help automate your expense administration service.
