28% Nix E-Invoices

U.S. companies report that 28% of their customers refuse to accept invoices by any delivery method except postal mail, according to a study by document process automation provider Esker (www.esker.com). Nevertheless, 89% of the businesses surveyed report maintaining or increasing e-invoicing via e-mail.

"Businesses moved relatively quickly to accommodate companies who asked for electronic invoicing, not only to meet their preferences, but also because of the major efficiency gains that e-mail brings," said Renee Thomas, Director of Field Marketing, Americas with Esker. "But the fact remains that there are thousands of companies who still like getting their invoices in hard copy format in the mail--- and regardless of how large or small a company you are, to compete in today's marketplace, you need to take a customer-centric approach. The question that companies should be asking themselves, though, is, 'are we being as efficient as we can be about accommodating those preferences?'"

The study noted that "on average, two to three employees spend 106 hours per month generating and sending physical mail with invoice-related correspondence, including reminders and resends. Of the time it takes to generate and send each invoice, only around 15% is spent on actual calculation of an invoice, with the remainder dedicated to printing, addressing, stuffing, and mailing it, largely menial tasks. And while 9 % reported that invoice calculation is automated (81% used SAP), one-third of organizations still manually add postage to their invoices, and 8 % are hand-stuffing them into envelopes using internal staff."

Of course, your company is doing some of this on your end---opening the mail, sorting the invoices, routing the invoices, and so on. Just as e-invoicing can save your vendors time and money, it will trigger savings at your company as well.