Centralizing Your Invoices is a Must
The Pitfalls of Non-Centralized Invoices
It’s not uncommon for healthcare organizations to get by with small teams shouldering Accounts Payable work. Sometimes a single person is responsible for this complicated and crucial task, or else invoicing processes might be spread out among several members of the team.
This means handling payments can take on a making-it-up-as-we-go quality. And sometimes this is understandable, especially for a business or organization that started small and has scaled up. What worked for a single clinic or care home simply won’t as more facilities and employees are added. Using old manual processes for a growing company leads to a predictable variety of undesirable outcomes:
- Location confusion when suppliers might not be sure which of your offices or branches to invoice.
- Multiple invoices when a vendor might not know who to bill and sends duplicates, causing delays, lost invoices and potential accounting errors.
- Time-intensive manual processes that tie up employee efficiency.
- Delayed payments due to manual and over-complicated approval processes.
- Lost money due to overpayment of duplicated invoices.
- Strain in vendor and partner relationships due to Accounts Payable errors and complicated procedures.
Why Centralized Invoices Matter
Centralized Invoices Produce Benefits Across the Board
The many benefits from centralized invoices include:
- Increased workforce productivity. Particularly if your organization operates in more than one location, centralized invoices cut through redundant work, inefficiencies in approval procedures, and unnecessarily complicated workflow.
- More consistency. Vendor integration from centralized invoices becomes a core capability that simplifies Accounts Payable and Accounting.
- Cutting labor cost. When an organization is operating its finances in multiple locations, regular reporting and settling of accounts can become a monthly web of complexity that drains labor fours and focus.
- Saving money. In a survey, one third of Accounts Payable professionals admitted to paying a duplicate invoice. Tracking down that spend costs money in time and effort, even when it can be recouped.
- Better morale. Few things drain workplace morale and happiness than feeling out of control or trapped in inefficient systems. Keeping and retaining your best employees starts with empowering them with strong systems.
- Smoother vendor and partner relationships. Centralized invoices for healthcare organizations means billing and Accounts Payable is more accountable, efficient, and clear. This means better relationships with the providers of goods and services that make up the lifeblood of your organization.
- Keeping Supplies Replenished. Healthcare organizations are in the business of helping people by meeting them where they are, with efficient and sensible care. Centralized invoices mean necessary supplies are flowing and plentiful so that healthcare professionals can do their jobs the right way.
Technological Solutions for Centralized Invoices
Healthcare industry thought leaders agree that automation and technology are pointing the way forward for finance and Accounts Payable. Robust technological tools drive automated processes that begin providing benefits from Day One.
The best and most useful portals today contain all approved vendors and products. This leads to easy purchasing, simple receiving, inventory management, and all the benefits associated with centralizing invoices.
Procurement Partners offers 100% invoice automation and centralization for its range of clients in the healthcare industry. This means seamlessly automated invoices with more than 400 integrated vendors, and our Proprietary Optical Character Recognition system captures the rest.
