Invoice processing is a pain and more so for contractors with the level of invoices they receive on a monthly basis. Manually keying in invoice information is pretty time consuming when you also consider matching the invoice to an order, matching to a delivery and checking prices. LiveCosts solves this pain with invoice automation. Introducing Simple Scan.
Let’s take a look at why invoice automation can help.
What is invoice automation?
Invoice automation for construction is a method of using automation software to extract invoice data and populate the information in an accounts payable system, generally an accounting software. Automated invoice processing saves valuable time and money for a company’s Accounts Payable department. But this process alone misses the cost being allocated to a project or to a specific phase within a project.
LiveCosts Simple Scan extracts the key values from an invoice and allocates the cost to the correct project and phase by a 3 way matching process.
What is a 3 way matching process?
A 3 way match is the process of matching the invoice, purchase order and delivery receipt to validate the details of a purchase before making a payment. Before an invoice is paid, accounts payable reviews the quantities, prices, and terms to ensure that what is ordered (via the purchase order) matches the goods received (via the order delivery receipt) which matches what they are being charged (via the invoice). 3 way matching is a great business practice, but truth be told, it is labour-intensive and time consuming.
Looking through stacks of paperwork to find these three documents is difficult, Simple Scan auto-finds the purchase order and it’s associated delivery automatically. It’s important to mention that businesses may choose not to use 3 way matches for small or recurring purchases.
What is Simple Scan?
Traditional invoice extraction systems fail terribly at identifying and working with different templates and layouts. This generally means new template rules for every different type of document received. Given the volume of invoices received from different suppliers this becomes non scaleable pretty quickly.
The LiveCosts Simple Scan has been built on a foundation of machine learning. We have trained the system to recognise and extract the key value from an invoice. By extracting a purchase order number we immediately get access to what Project / Phase this invoice belongs to and if the goods have been received. This cost is applied to the project to get a true understanding of how we are spending vs our budget.
Better still, this is only one part of what we do for contractors. Start automating today!
