Payment processes are less expensive and
time-consuming for mid-size companies as a study shows they are
outperforming their larger contemporaries in invoice
management.

Cartoon showing a man posting a bill into a computerYouGov’s research, conducted on behalf of information
management company Iron Mountain, shows many companies in the UK,
France and Germany are struggling with out-dated processes and
inadequate controls in invoice management.

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Yet while firms with between 250 and 500
employees take on average 8.60 days and spend £9.60 to process each
outbound invoice, businesses with more than 5,000 employees take
nearly 10 days and £12.80 to process an invoice.

Almost a quarter (22%) of respondents from
larger companies said they have too many people tied up doing
manual invoice processing, a concern expressed by only 9% of
mid-size firms.

Worryingly 19% of the larger companies also
feel they lack control over their accounts payable process.
Tackling this issue requires a company to invest heavily in new
software and train staff accordingly, said Bettina Wonsag, general
manager of the Business Process Management division at Iron
Mountain.

“Effective invoice management is a business
critical process, regardless of company size,” said Wonsag.

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“The larger the business, the more invoices it
has to handle – and the more likely it is that these invoices will
arrive in multiple formats, languages and currencies. As the volume
and complexity of invoices grows, many finance systems reach their
limits.”

Mid-size firms are more concerned, however,
over their financial processing systems and document management
processes being out of date (13%) when compared to just 5% of
larger companies.