June 24, 2022

AI led Invoice Data Capturing- Helping Manufacturing Sector Capture Business Data at Speed

Invoice data capturing is amongst the most prominent IDP use cases in the manufacturing industry. It's because the sheer number of invoices to process and the types of invoices received by a manufacturing company are both unstructured and enormous in nature. To further add, the traditional ways of document processing are simply comprehensible considering the current situation. To provide a resolve and further extrapolate on the issue, read our blog ahead…

Invoice processing is a much bigger beast for the manufacturing industry to tame. Considering manufacturing is at the center of multiple other industries, it receives tons of paperwork in the form of invoices to process.

With limited resources and traditional methods, either the manufacturing companies are pushed to expand teams or outsource their workload. On the other hand, there are manufacturing companies that have slowly started to adopt automated document processing using IDP aka Intelligent Document Processing.

In this blog, we will be focusing on the variety of invoices a manufacturing company can receive, invoice processing steps, and what VisionERA Intelligent Document Processing platform can do…

Types of Invoices in Manufacturing Sector

These are variations of invoices that can be used in the manufacturing sector. Each of these invoices bear its own significance for the business, and require due processing for purposes such as KPIs, maintaining ledgers, creating reports, and more.

Some common invoices in the manufacturing industry are-

Standard Invoice: It is a basic invoice exchanged between the manufacturer and the client and has information such as the manufacturer's business name, invoice number, amount, contact information, etc.


Credit Invoice: These are provided to the manufacturer’s for refunds or discounts. Also known as the credit memo, these are issued with the amount of discounts and refunds provided to the manufacturer with negative value.


Debit Invoice: A debit invoice or a debit memo is used for increasing the amount in an already existing invoice. These are provided to the manufacturer for the additional material provided.


Mixed Invoice: Mixed invoices can be called as an amalgamation of both credit and debit invoice. The invoice is provided with both positive and negative numbers, and primarily used by large businesses.


Commercial Invoice: It is one of the most important pieces of documents that is used in the manufacturing industry. It contains data such as shipment quantity, weight, goods description, total amount, etc.


Expense Report: These are reports or invoices submitted by employees and common across industries who need to travel for work related operations. It is a detailed report on the cost incurred on the employee during the travel which is later on reimbursed by the company.


Proforma Invoice: Proforma invoices are sent by the manufacturing company to the client they are manufacturing for. These invoices describe the estimated cost and the value within them are prone to change based on the services rendered.


E-Invoice: Any of the invoices above if sent digitally can be put under the umbrella of e-invoice.


Although there are plenty of invoices in the manufacturing sector, they are used depending on factors such as the intent of the operation. It is important to mention that once consolidated, these invoices form an unstructured pile of documents that are hard to process with traditional methods such as manual data entry or OCRs.


As we know modern problems require modern solutions, therefore, it gave way to intelligent document processing (IDP). In essence, an IDP is an AI-based document processing solution that is served to companies and organizations as platforms. These platforms are backed by advanced technologies that makes the platform autonomous and lubricates automation within any organization's infrastructure. These platforms are capable of processing unstructured documents from different facets and sources without any difficulty, and zero manual intervention. A great example of an IDP Platform is VisionERA.


VisionERA IDP are levels ahead of its contemporaries. The platform can easily process unstructured documents in batches and release processed output. The operation can be done without much ease and the platform provides the necessary automation from data extraction, verification, to storage.


Steps of Invoice Processing in Manufacturing


The invoices in any industry including manufacturing are processed by the accounts payable department. Below are the steps to followed in its most elementary form:


’Steps
  • Capture data from the invoices (delivery orders, purchase orders, etc.) and match it with the relevant data.
  • Forwarding the verified data to the authorized party.
  • Getting the authorization and storing the invoices data into the financial system.
  • Processing the payment for the invoices using relevant payment methods such as ACH, check, or wire transfer.
  • Archiving the data from the invoices for creating general ledgers and auditing purposes.


As you can see in each step, there are primarily three functions happening i.e. data extraction, data verification, and storage. VisionERA IDP is capable of automating each of these functions, thereby, reducing the cost of operation and associated time for the process tenfolds.


VisionERA - Automated Invoice Processing for Manufacturing Sector


VisionERA Intelligent Document Processing is an AI-based document automation platform capable of processing unstructured documents in bulk. Besides capturing data from invoices, it can prove to be an ideal fit for other use cases in the industry such as order form processing, proposal management, lead gathering, etc.


It is a perfect solution for any manufacturing document related process that requires automation for data extraction, verification, and storage. With invoice processing in manufacturing, it can offer compelling speed and substantial ROI to deem it as a worthy platform.


Adding to it, VisionERA IDP boasts multiple compelling features such as industry beating table detection system, contextual autocorrection, document processing for handwritten scanned documents, and much more. It is a one-stop platform for document processing that can automate the entire process end-to-end without making any errors in the data and zero intervention.


Benefits of Automated Invoice Processing using VisionERA IDP


Below are some of the most easily witnessed benefits post deploying VisionERA IDP for automated invoice processing. These are:


  • Reduced time in processing documents.
  • Reduced cost in processing documents.
  • Zero human-induced errors.
  • Capability to collect data and provide useful KPIs.
  • Enhanced transparency and control.
  • Learns and evolves over time.
  • No need for further team expansion.
  • Security of data.


Final Words


Invoice processing in manufacturing is a time consuming process. It is stated that a single invoice can take from 60 to 90 days for clearance. Infact, there are services such as invoice discounting and invoice factoring provided because of slow payments. Adding to it, the manufacturers are also not able to enjoy prepayment benefits from the supplier because of slow invoice processing.


With automated invoice processing using VisionERA IDP much of the lag in the TAT and overall output can be mitigated easily as it offers a unique invoice data capturing capability that relies on the three pronged approach of decode-decipher- decide.


Want to know more about VisionERA, click on the link below.

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