How a BPO hit SLAs for high-volume invoicing with automation

The accounting expertise disaster is altering how companies deal with their funds. With the US market needing 340,000 new accountants and 45% of companies struggling to draw expertise, extra corporations are turning to specialised expense administration suppliers to deal with their accounting operations.

However this is the catch: These service suppliers face the identical expertise scarcity. 

We lately labored with one such supplier who processed over 50,000 payments and invoices month-to-month for his or her shoppers. As extra corporations got here to them for assist, they bumped into the identical impediment: they could not rent sufficient folks to maintain up with the high-volume workload. It bought to a degree the place they needed to flip down new shoppers.

Let me take you thru how the service supplier carried out automated bill processing and located a strategy to bulk-process payments and invoices with out continuously including extra workers.

What occurs when rising bill and invoice quantity breaks doc processing

The expense administration supplier in query focuses on serving to organizations optimize their working expenditure. As a Enterprise Course of Outsourcing (BPO) accomplice, they deal with every thing from utility and telecom bills to IT prices—processing payments, validating fees, and offering detailed analytics. They assist AP groups in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and authorities organizations cut back their workload whereas delivering value financial savings via higher expense administration.

Nonetheless, as this supplier’s enterprise grew quickly, dealing with near 50,000 utility payments and invoices month-to-month turned greater than only a processing problem. It uncovered elementary operational constraints that threatened their potential to scale and ship worth to shoppers.

This is what occurred:

1. Guide processing turned a bottleneck: Their crew relied on guide knowledge entry and will solely course of about 100 invoices per individual per day. It created a rising backlog and restricted their capability.

2. Expertise scarcity worsened issues: Discovering and retaining certified in-house accounting analysts to supervise the method and guarantee accuracy turned more and more troublesome and costly. This made it more durable to scale their crew and meet rising calls for. 

3. Consumer service suffered in consequence: Processing inaccuracies and inefficiencies meant delays, errors, and, in the end, sad shoppers. Additionally they struggled to satisfy shopper deadlines, resulting in potential penalties.

4. Revenue margins had been squeezed: Elevated labor prices and SLA penalties reduce into their profitability, making it more durable to spend money on development and innovation.

5. Progress alternatives had been restricted: They could not effectively onboard new shoppers or tackle new enterprise alternatives. It put them on the again foot towards rivals with higher programs.

They wanted to keep up a big crew of knowledge entry clerks always to key within the sheer quantity of payments and invoices. Whereas they had been in a position to outsource a few of it, the inherent limitations of guide processing remained.

The tipping level was when the service supplier began turning down new enterprise as a result of their operations couldn’t scale to serve them.

Why bulk bill processing turned sophisticated

Check out a typical utility invoice, it’d appear to be a easy doc to course of. However it may rapidly change into a headache if you’re processing 1000’s of them in bulk every month. Extra so if you’re aiming for the accuracy and element wanted for efficient expense administration.

Every bill incorporates important knowledge factors that must be extracted and validated: account numbers, service addresses, meter readings, utilization knowledge, cost descriptions, and fee phrases.

This is a fast glimpse into how sophisticated the utility invoice processing workflow was:

1. Each utility invoice is completely different

• Lots of of utility corporations, every with distinctive bill codecs—some even utilizing 7-8 completely different layouts
• Some utility corporations ship each day payments, others month-to-month
• Single invoices can run from 1 to 372+ pages
• Every format wants particular dealing with

2. Billing info is not simple

• A number of meter readings for various companies (electrical energy, fuel, water) might be scattered throughout the doc
• Service addresses for multi-location shoppers is likely to be unfold throughout pages, or buried inside tables
• Cost descriptions lacked consistency (“Buyer Cost” in a single invoice and “Cust. Chg.” in one other)
• Equivalent fees would possibly seem a number of instances on a single bill, requiring guide revisions

3. Accuracy necessities are strict

• Meter readings should match their corresponding fees
• Information wants validation earlier than system import
• Errors might result in incorrect shopper stories, flawed monetary insights, and missed optimization alternatives
• Processing delays result in SLA penalties

These complexities imply guide processing or fundamental OCR options, which frequently battle with inconsistent layouts and sophisticated knowledge relationships, wouldn’t be sufficient. They wanted an answer that would not solely deal with excessive quantity but additionally adapt to the intricate particulars and variations of their shoppers’ utility payments.

Reworking high-volume bill processing with AI and automation

The expense administration supplier knew they wanted to automate bill processing earlier than development turned unattainable. Nonetheless, with 50,000+ month-to-month invoices, advanced validation necessities, and strict shopper SLAs, they could not afford any drops in accuracy or service high quality in the course of the transition.

That is when their CFO found Nanonets. Our one-shot studying, customizable validation flows, hands-on assist for advanced vendor setups, and skill to deal with multi-page tables satisfied them that we might meet their particular wants:

• Distinctive doc layouts
• Advanced knowledge extraction wants like a number of meter readings and repair addresses
• Excessive-volume processing with constant accuracy
• Validation necessities for his or her system import

Working with the supplier, we took a scientific method to automation. Slightly than disrupting their total workflow directly, we began with a vendor-by-vendor method to validate accuracy and construct confidence.

Right this moment, their automated workflow processes a good portion of their 50,000 month-to-month payments and invoices. Right here’s the way it works:

1. Doc consumption

• Their crew collects invoices all through the day via a number of channels (mail, shopper emails, utility firm portals, and bodily invoices)
• On the finish of every workday, they place all collected invoices into a delegated SharePoint folder
• The SharePoint folder construction can go as much as 3 ranges deep (e.g., foremost folder → vendor folder → date folder)
• Nanonets checks the SharePoint folders each 3-5 minutes for brand spanking new recordsdata
• When new recordsdata are detected, Nanonets mechanically imports them

Word: Backup strategies embody direct add via the Nanonets interface, e-mail forwarding to a devoted mannequin e-mail tackle, and different  cloud storage choices (Google Drive, Dropbox)

2. Preliminary processing

• As soon as imported, Nanonets’ AI mannequin begins extraction instantly
• System identifies and processes:
  • A number of meter readings as desk constructions
  • Advanced cost descriptions
  • Service addresses throughout pages
  • Fee phrases and dates
• Constructed-in validation checks the payments for:
  • Discipline completeness
  • Date format accuracy
  • Quantity validity
  • Required info presence

Word: Their crew adopted an end-of-day batch add method, permitting our system to course of every thing in a single day. This ensures all paperwork uploaded in the course of the day are processed and prepared for evaluate the subsequent morning. 

3. Error dealing with and high quality management

Error dealing with includes automated checks, adopted by guide critiques for corrections.

Among the automated checks performed by Nanonets:

• Flags lacking fields
• Identifies mismatched meter readings
• Catches incorrect cost descriptions
• Tracks accuracy charges by vendor

The processing crew then critiques error logs and output each day for:

• Cost descriptions within the incorrect columns
• Service addresses throughout a number of areas
• Meter readings matching their fees accurately

When points are discovered, the crew investigates the basis trigger, corrects extraction errors straight within the Nanonets interface, and updates the AI Mannequin’s coaching recordsdata if wanted to enhance future accuracy. This steady suggestions loop helps keep excessive accuracy charges throughout all distributors.

Word: Each day error reporting was carried out to forestall points from bleeding via the complete week.

4. Submit-processing and output

As soon as paperwork cross validation:

• System applies customized formatting guidelines to extracted knowledge
• Standardizes cost descriptions throughout distributors
• Information is exported in customized CSV/Excel format
• Recordsdata are organized by vendor and date
• Information is imported into the service supplier’s billing system

Word: The crew processes 15,000-20,000 pages month-to-month this manner, which might scale to 30,000+ pages.

5. Steady enchancment

We work with the service supplier to keep up and enhance processing high quality. Their crew identifies areas for enchancment and gives suggestions, whereas we repeatedly improve the AI mannequin’s accuracy. This includes:

• Common mannequin updates primarily based on their processing crew’s suggestions
• Centered enhancements in advanced areas like cost descriptions
• Gradual onboarding of recent distributors to make sure steady efficiency
• Utilizing our analytics dashboard to observe and optimize efficiency

This collaborative method helps keep excessive accuracy charges whereas steadily increasing processing capabilities.

The influence of automation on bulk bill processing

Inside three months of implementing Nanonets, the supplier noticed important outcomes. For starters, they managed to automate processing for ~12,000 invoices per 30 days. This highlights the system’s potential to deal with their high-volume wants. 

For utility invoices from identified distributors, the AI mannequin achieved processing speeds of 173-174 invoices in simply 5 minutes — a process that may’ve required hours of guide knowledge entry.

However the influence went past simply pace.

Processing effectivity

• Nanonets can now course of 46 out of fifty distributors shared by the client
• Just one consultant file required per vendor for AI mannequin coaching
• Automated doc consumption via SharePoint integration
• Bulk in a single day processing of 500 invoices each day

Operational enhancements

• Employees free of guide knowledge entry to concentrate on higher-value duties like shopper reporting and evaluation
• Quicker turnaround on shopper deliverables and assembly SLAs
• Extra constant processing high quality, with fewer errors and guide corrections
• Higher dealing with of advanced invoices with a number of meter readings and repair addresses

The trail ahead

The implementation remains to be within the early phases. With solely ~20% of the supplier’s whole invoice quantity at present automated, there’s important room for progress.

Their subsequent steps concentrate on:

Increasing automation protection

• Processing telecom invoices (estimated 10,000 month-to-month)
• Scaling to deal with ~30,000 payments and invoices month-to-month
• Persevering with to onboard new invoice codecs from completely different utility corporations effectively
• Constructing on their profitable utility bill automation

Technical integration

• Implementing API integration by summer time 2025 to allow direct knowledge circulation between Nanonets and their expense administration resolution
• Automating error corrections the place potential to scale back guide evaluate time
• Constructing a extra sturdy integration between Nanonets and their in-house options

Managing utility payments and invoices for a number of shoppers?

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See how automation can assist you develop with out including headcount. E-book a demo to see how we can assist automate your expense administration service.

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