Security of data, especially financial information seems to be the biggest concern of business owners and leaders when it comes to employing cloud applications. Here are a couple of comments from professional accountants when asked if they would consider moving from their current on-premise applications to on-demand applications delivered on the internet.

1.             Get rid of the paper

2.             Reduce manual and ad-hoc processes

3.             Handle exceptions and discrepancies in a timely manner

4.             Gain incremental value

5.             Measure and benchmark performance

6.             Say NO to managing technology and YES to managing the AP process

The main reasons for moving from a manual AP process to an automated one are the problems associated with the manual invoice processing.

High per invoice cost

Low business controls

Cumbersome Invoice archiving

Penalties due to late payments 

 Missed opportunities for discounts

 Duplicate and erroneous payments

Slow turnaround time

No visibility into the status of invoices

 Reduce paper storage costs by 90%

Save 70% on staff costs

Improve processing efficiency and reduce errors

Enhance financial control and visibility

Reduce discrepancies and exceptions

Avoid late payment penalties

The StylusAP Accounts Payable Automation Solution includes everything you need to achieve the important benefits mentioned above.

Invoice Capture: Convert paper invoices to digital images at the point of receipt; capture inbound faxes and e-mails automatically; scan in batch or single-docu­ment scanning mode; eliminate manual data input with intelligent data recognition (IDR), auto-indexing and built-in data validation.

Invoice Storage, Organization and Retrieval: Create attributes groups to classify invoice information by ven­dor, type, location or any other criteria; use pre-defined folder structures to keep invoices organized for quick access; access documents from within your ERP/accounting application; find documents instantly using index values or full-text search; retrieve all documents related to a transaction at the touch of a button.

Invoice Approval Automation and Other Processes: Assign invoices manually or establish automatic alerts and reminders to streamline the process; speed pro­cessing with workflow timers; enable viewing of the entire transaction with single-click access to all related documents; improve accuracy and processing speed with two- or three-way matching; view each invoice by processing status (e.g. — new, pending, pay, paid); cre­ate a separate process for non-P.O. invoices.

Exception Handling: Set automated escalation pro­cedures based upon vendor, invoice amount or other attributes; streamline transaction processing by rout­ing exceptions based upon flexible business rules; use eForms to quickly resolve vendor disputes; send notifica­tions and reminders to keep transactions from stalling; efficiently balance workloads with queue management; prioritize invoices according to specific business needs; use secure Web-based vendor access for checking invoice status and resolving disputes.

Activity Monitoring and Performance Reporting: Use the process metrics dashboard to monitor payment status; create and enforce best practices with pre-configured status reports, Advanced Workflow and process activ­ity monitoring; visualize and improve your processes with user-friendly map diagrams; reduce the costs of compli­ance with the workflow audit trail.

Integration with Your ERP/Accounting System: Use single-step data entry (SSDE) to save valuable time — input data once to update both systems; provide access to invoices and all related documents from within the accounting system; integrate your accounting system through Web services or SOA; save steps in the process by automatically notifying the accounting system to pay invoices.

We have entered an era where business is getting impatient with the kind of IT support  it has been used to for well over a couple of decades now. With everything going 2.0 business needs more experimentation to achieve quick assembling of solutions, eliminate things which will not work and adapt what will fill the need. These need to be delivered in a highly responsive and flexible environment. Speed has become the essence of the game. Cloud computing or more simply software, services and/or infrastructure delivered on a pay per use mode over the internet, has an attractive value proposition.

1. You can try out a solution or a software or even a service (check out www.stylusap.com for a software and services combine)  without a commitment.
2. You have an immediate access to perform all the basic features on offer. Try it and justify later.
3. Use it and scale it as you go.
4. Forget all the earlier restrictions in the form of approvals, CIO endorsements etc that were required before an IT solution was pressed into service for your department.