Discover hidden costs in the scanning and capture process

The recognition rate of invoices is like tension on car tires: too low values are not immediately visible to the naked eye, and you do not notice much of its effect at first.

Compare it to driving a car: Underinflated tires not only adversely affect the car's handling and braking distance, but also mean higher fuel consumption and thus higher costs. Apparently, however, it does not have the attention of motorists. Presumably this is because incorrect tire pressure is not visible to the naked eye and is hardly noticeable in the use of the car.

So it is with the scanning and capture process. The recognition rate and data quality cannot be observed with the naked eye. So often people are unaware that the values are lower than they should be and the thought is, "It's working, so it must be good, right?

But if you improve recognition rates, you can reduce the average turnaround time of an invoice. You have less work with it, and this lowers the average handling cost per invoice. In addition, faster processing increases supplier satisfaction by getting paid faster.

Dashboard

Because people do not regularly check the tire pressure themselves, many cars are equipped with a tire pressure gauge. When the light in the dashboard comes on, it is abundantly clear what the motorist needs to do. In the same vein, ICreative has developed a kind of "recognition meter" to signal when the recognition rate of invoices is too low.

Things like recognition rate, data quality and turnaround time are just a lot harder to measure than tire pressure. This is because the data for measuring recognition rate does not come directly from the system itself. For that, relevant data about the process must be collected and combined.

Identifying causes

Using the data, you can determine which supplier(s) are causing the under-recognition, then you need to figure out what is causing it. So human interpretation is needed to find out exactly what is causing it. Only then can the desired action be determined.

For example, the cause of the low recognition rate may be that a particular supplier has changed the format of the invoice. Then the question is what he has changed. For example, are certain values being read now in a different place on an order or invoice? Or perhaps he has changed the naming of the values?

Problems with master data

Another common cause is that a supplier forgets to report changes, for example, when changing banks. When recognizing suppliers, buyers often use master data to verify that the recognized value(s) on the invoice such as IBAN number and VAT number of the supplier are valid.

It can happen that a supplier changes banks without reporting this properly and therefore a different IBAN number will appear on the invoice that cannot (yet) be found in the supplier master data. This results in a lower recognition rate with regard to this supplier.

With ICreative' s so-called IRS recognition report, such issues can be quickly identified. It provides guidance on which areas in the process there is room for improvement and also immediately provides a possible solution direction. Unfortunately, it is not yet as simple as inflating tires.

How does the ICreative Recognition Service Dashboard work?

See how IRS recognition reports work through three scenarios here: