Posts By :

Tim Robertson

Global Adoption of Electronic Invoices – Slowly But Surely
Global Adoption of Electronic Invoices – Slowly But Surely 150 150 Tim Robertson
electronic invoicing airport picture

E-Invoicing Growth Worldwide Does Not Reflect Potential Savings

A new survey on e-invoicing has emerged, highlighting the possible savings, and the current state of adoption of the technology globally.

The Billentis Report states that e-billing and invoicing solutions can help achieve per-invoice savings up to 80%, and that over 40 billion invoices will be issued globally this year – an impressive figure.  However, it’s still less than 10% of the estimated 500 billion invoices sent each year worldwide, which puts the data in perspective.

Despite this, the savings possible with paperless billing are still considerable:  the report states that e-invoicing adoption by the Danish Government saves Danish taxpayers €150 million a year, and businesses €50 million.  In Italy, the government’s adoption of an e-procurement system has realised even large savings, reducing costs by over €3 billion.
Companies can accelerate adoption of e-invoicing using solutions such as Palette’s e-Invoicing Services Portal, which enables users to invite customers and partners to quickly set up and benefit from the cost- and time-savings enabled by e-invoicing, without the need for complex implementation.  This also helps accelerate cost savings and efficiency benefits.  Find out more about how we can help here.
AP Automation Can Improve Supplier Relationships
AP Automation Can Improve Supplier Relationships 150 150 Tim Robertson
accounts payable automation and GM

GM and other North American automakers get a clunker rating for their supplier relationships. Photo credit – https://flic.kr/p/bv3RsA

The most recent North American Automotive – Tier 1 Supplier Working Relations Index Study has shed some light on the financial implications of having good supplier relationships. Can accounts payable automation help?

The study examined the automotive industry and how its suppliers view the major car manufacturers and their relationships…something that can be relevant to all industries.

General Motors, Ford, Nissan and FCA missed out on a total of $2 billion because of poor relationships with their suppliers. The author of the study found two main factors that affected this relationship.  The first had to do with how contracts are honoured and if the purchasing department worked to improve relations (procurement). The second related to buyers, and how they were active in resolving issues.

From the article:

This study highlights the importance and the tangible benefits of treating your suppliers fairly and honestly as valued partners. This may sound obvious, but with the problem of late payments continuing to plague SMEs in many countries, it’s clearly something that some buyers are not taking on board.

A key element of this relationship is timely payment, something that e-invoicing technology from Palette can help with by automating and speeding up the payment process. We have worked with a number of suppliers in the transport industry – including automotive components supplier US Farathane – to help them improve their purchase-to-payment processes and relationships with buyers. After all, business is all about successful and long-lasting relationships.”

The demand for accounts payable automation and accounts payable automation software is growing, as shown by sales growth of the PaletteArena purchase to pay platform, which has seen a 25% increase in sales in 2015 so far (see the article here). The accounts payable p2p cycle is being transformed by software that can match purchase orders and contracts to invoices, and increased use of electronic invoicing to reduce the costs of handling paper.

See the full article on the Palette blog here.

 

 

Purchase to Pay Integration with Netsuite
Purchase to Pay Integration with Netsuite 150 150 Tim Robertson

netsuite purchase to pay

EchoVera’s Purchase to Pay solution, ASAP, is powered by Palette’s automation platform integrated with NetSuite, the world’s fastest growing financial management system.

Palette helps businesses large and small to streamline and automate their financial processes from purchase to payment. Palette makes life easier for more than 2,000 companies in 50 countries, as the market leader in the purchase to pay process automation.

EchoVera’s ASAP purchase to pay solution gives customers complete visibility and control of the P2P process by linking purchases, invoices and contracts. The solution is fully web-based and flexible. You choose how and where you will be working.

Give your employees the opportunity to manage invoices wherever they are – on the web, in a mobile phone or via email.
Receive and send invoices in electronic form. It’s quicker, cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Pre-defined flow and accounting posting proposals determine how an invoice progresses through the system and is posted to accounts before being processed in full.

Take control of the purchasing process
Invoices can be matched to purchase orders at the line or total level, or to contracts. Palette offers a simplified ordering process that steers users to purchase the right goods, from the right supplier, at the right price. With all purchasing statistics available, you’ll have a solid basis for negotiating prices and terms

EchoVera ASAP:

  • Gives customers complete visibility and control of the purchase-to-pay process by linking purchases, invoices, contracts, purchase orders and employee expenses
  • Modular-based, allowing customers to pick and choose only those modules that are important to them
  • Customers can choose between an on-premise installation or cloud service (SaaS)
  • Seamless integration with NetSuite

Intelligent OCR for Netsuite:

  • Processes invoices directly from email – eliminating the need to print
  • Scans paper invoices, capturing relevant invoice fields
  • Gets high marks for ease of use and an intuitive interface
  • 95% accuracy rate for paper, 100% accuracy rate for electronic formats
  • Seamless integration with NetSuite
  • Most affordable OCR on the market today

More information about Purchase to Pay for Netsuite

More information about Intelligent OCR for Netsuite

 

Palette Purchase to Pay System Has 25% Increase in Sales for 2015
Palette Purchase to Pay System Has 25% Increase in Sales for 2015 150 150 Tim Robertson
Purchase-to-Pay-Graphic

Purchase To Pay Automation Firm – Palette – Enjoys Increased Sales

Palette Software, the accounts payable automation and purchase to pay software company, has seen strong growth in the first half of 2015 with a 25% increase in sales during the first six months of the year, building on growth of 20% in 2014.

From the Palette company blog that discusses where the growth is coming from, and the nature of commitments to date:

The success follows on from the release of PaletteArena 6.3, the latest version of the company’s core solution suite, earlier this year and Palette’s expansion in several territories including Finland, Denmark, USA, Canada, Australia, Africa and Asia, through the development of partner agreements and subsidiary organisations.

Palette’s CEO, Lars Ola Petters, commented: “In the past 18 months we have seen growing interest in our solutions as more and more businesses realise the benefits, and return on investment, that e-invoicing and automated payments deliver. Palettes e-invoicing has grown 55% over the last 12 month and as we have grown internationally we have maintained our close customer focus, ensuring we continue to deliver market leading solutions and customer service.”

In the first six months of 2015 the Purchase to Pay automation company has picked up clients across several industries, including Clas Ohlson, Fläkt Woods, Autolink and Universal Robots, Flügger, a major airplane manufacturer. EchoVera, the master distributor of Palette in Canada, has signed ClubLink Corporation, a golf course owner which offers its members access to some of Canada’s top golf courses.

EchoVera has also introduced PaletteArena to the Boston Globe, the Toronto Star, and Canadian North, as companies across North America are realizing the value of Purchase to Pay automation solutions. Solutions include intelligent OCR scanning, PaletteInvoice, CloudTrade, and connectors to ERP systems such as NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics. More announcements will be forthcoming from the Canadian operation.

More on the Palette blog here.

CloudTrade Joins Forces with Palette for E-invoicing Solution
CloudTrade Joins Forces with Palette for E-invoicing Solution 150 150 Tim Robertson

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 12.35.26 PM
Palette Group have become CloudTrade’s latest partner in a move that will strengthen Palette’s position as a market leader of AP automation and P2P payment software.

CloudTrade’s patented e-invoicing technology will enable Palette to offer customers a paper-free alternative, meeting a growing demand for high adoption and fast delivery. By further expanding their existing product offering, Palette has ensured that they remain innovative and lead the development of increasingly flexible solutions. With CloudTrade’s supplier adoption rate averaging an impressive 90%, Palette expect to see both an increase in new business and additional revenue from current customers

Palette Group, established in 1993, has offices worldwide and a web of clients stretching throughout Europe, America, Asia and Australia. London based CloudTrade was founded in 2010 by a team with over 25 years’ experience in e-invoicing, aiming to remove all barriers to adoption and usage. This partnership marks the formalisation of a relationship spanning over 5 years, involving a network of shared end-users and channel partners.

Both CloudTrade and Palette have pre-existing ties with Converga, a leader in advanced information logistics and Echovera, who offer document automation solutions. Richard Manson, Commercial Director of CloudTrade described the latest developments; “CloudTrade has entered a period of exceptional growth, having doubled its revenue continuously for the past 3 years. This new endeavour with Palette is the latest in a series of partnerships for us and it’s great to see our technology continuously complement and enhance existing services and solutions”.

Palette have traditionally focused on a combination of OCR and EDI to support the delivery of their P2P suite of applications, which depend on e-invoice technology. However OCR involves scanning documents and converting into data, which can require constant quality control measures to ensure consistency.

CloudTrade’s solution has removed the reliance on OCR and provided a paper-free option that can accommodate any existing systems. Current economic and environmental factors have increased the desire for the removal of paper in favour of more cost-effective, cutting edge practices. Through this partnership Palette are set to widen their existing customer base and strengthen their position among the competition.

Press Contact(s):
Elesha Bentley – elesha.bentley@cloud-trade.com
Petra Hagman – petra.hagman@palettegroup.com

About CloudTrade:
CloudTrade is one of the fastest growing e-invoice and e-document networks. Electronically connecting over 100 organisations to thousands of their trading partners across numerous sectors and regions across the globe. Founded in 2010 to offer a fresh approach to e- invoicing, CloudTrade enables companies to evolve past their reliance on paper and trade electronically with their suppliers, irrespective of size or technical maturity. Possessing unique, patented technology CloudTrade can offer services not widely seen in the market, in a cost effective way. Visit www.cloudtradenetwork.com

About Palette:
Palette is a market leader in solutions for enterprise purchase-to-pay and automated processing of supplier invoices. The company’s accounts payable product suite, PaletteArena, offers the most automated approach to supplier invoice matching and straight-through-processing. This helps customers achieve significant, measurable cost savings and efficiency gains across their accounting and business operations. Palette was founded in Sweden in 1993, and has sales offices across Europe and in the US, with 2000 customers in 50 countries. Visit www.palettegroup.com

EchoVera Integrates PaletteArena With NetSuite
EchoVera Integrates PaletteArena With NetSuite 150 150 Tim Robertson

EchoVera has released NetSuite Connect, an integration module that allows PaletteArena to integrate seamlessly with the world’s fastest growing financial management system. It uses the Celigo Integrator – PRLog.com has press release with all of the details, here is a snippet from the release:

“EchoVera has released EchoVera NetSuite Connect, an integration module that integrates NetSuite with PaletteArena, one of the leading Purchase to Pay platforms. Utilizing the Celigo Integrator, EchoVera has made it possible for enterprises to take advantage of PaletteArena’s electronic invoicing and AP automation features while integrating with NetSuite, the world’s fastest growing financial management system.”

 

Accounts Payable Automation, Intelligent OCR for Netsuite
Accounts Payable Automation, Intelligent OCR for Netsuite 150 150 Tim Robertson

Netsuite.Integrator….
EchoVera
has announced that their Intelligent OCR solution, their electronic invoicing platform, and their accounts payable automation suite called ASAP, integrate completely with NetSuite.

Each of the solutions support finance departments in reducing paperwork, increasing efficiency, and cutting the costs of handling supplier invoices. Invoice data capture software is used to handle paper invoices, including PDFs that are scans of paper invoices. Electronic invoicing software is employed to process PDF invoices that are generated from a system like NetSuite. And Purchase to Pay automation is used to workflow the invoice data for coding and approval.

Find out more about AP Automation for NetSuite.


Intelligent OCR
is an Intelligent Document Recognition OCR Software that automates the capture of PDFs that have been sent directly from a suppliers accounting system, or PDFs that are scans of paper invoices the supplier has issued.

Find out more about Intelligent OCR for NetSuite.


The Intelligent OCR solution takes a PDF or multiple page PDF document invoice sent directly from a supplier and turns the information into data.

The ASAP automation solution streamlines all of an organization’s business flows, invoices, contracts, purchase orders and employee expenses. It’s a software service in the cloud that allows managers to code and approve supplier invoices quickly, boosting efficiency and providing  executives with more visibility into where their payables stand at any time, 24/7.

OCR Invoice Software That Saves You Work
OCR Invoice Software That Saves You Work 150 150 Tim Robertson

ocr invoice softwareocr invoice softwareMost OCR invoice software on the market today can be relied upon to locate data on an invoice and enter it into the appropriate field according to a user’s preferences. Even though this is a step up in the automation of invoice capture, it is still time consuming to go through every invoice that needs to be scanned and designate the proper placement of the data.

Intelligent OCR uses context to locate the required data, and compensates for poor quality images and misspellings, matching the data against internal sources. While this feature is available in some products, Intelligent OCR allows you to search most typical values from any document using a built-in Intelli-Tag database.

This additional feature allows you speed up your data capture applications without document templates. As well, you can create and/or customize your own Intelli-Tag database to improve your documents recognition or adapt to specific applications.

Intelligent OCR is capable of automatically and intuitively detecting/learning unique vendor invoices based on their respective layouts, allowing the scanning and/or importing of data from emailed or paper invoices with more efficiency. Intelligent OCR also intuitively performs field mapping and data collection.

  • Scans paper invoices (from your browser), capturing header and line item invoice fields
  • Easy-to-use and intuitive, browser-based interface
  • Gets high marks for ease of use and an intuitive interface
  • 95% accuracy rates
  • Integrates seamlessly with your ERP

Intelligent OCR captures invoice data from electronic document formats such as PDF, XML, EDI, Word, TIFF, JPG, HTML and more. Our data capture service is free for suppliers and they incur no cost to send invoices to your Accounts Payable system. The process is very straightforward – they simply send their invoices to a designated email account.

Book a demo of Intelligent OCR.

Royal Ravintoloihin is a new Palette customer
Royal Ravintoloihin is a new Palette customer 150 150 Tim Robertson

rr-logoRoyal Ravintoloihin is the largest private corporate entity in Finland. The company includes of the parent company of Royal Restaurants Oy and its subsidiaries Oy Union Hotels and Konseptiravintolat Oy. The group contains of 33 restaurants in 26 locations, 15 Hanko Sushi restaurants and 1 Hotel across Finland. The Palette products bought by Royal Ravintoloihin will be implemented in all locations.

55% of Companies Planning to Adapt Electronic Invoicing in 2015
55% of Companies Planning to Adapt Electronic Invoicing in 2015 150 150 Tim Robertson

electronic invoicingE-invoicing has been steadily growing worldwide over the last few years, and it looks like its growth could accelerate even further this year with the European Union looking to make e-invoicing mandatory for government procurement. The U.S Government has also mandated e-invoicing for government departments in order to lower processing costs and save an expected $450m.

According to research from e-invoicing consultancy and market analyst Billentis, a company can save up to nearly 80% by implementing automated invoicing processes.

But cost reduction is not the only reason why more and more governments and businesses are switching from paper to electronic invoicing. E-invoicing helps organisations to improve and streamline their financial operations, which is vital in today’s fast-paced and international business environment. It also makes it easier for them to track invoices, which prevents the risks of fraud and of invoices going missing.

E-invoicing technology enables faster, easier and safer payments between organisations, while achieving significant cost savings. With more and more companies and government departments set to adopt the technology, this will create greater collaboration between international business partners and more efficient international commerce.