Simplify your financial management with a tool that automates the transfer of supplier invoices, approval, and payment preparation according to your own rules.
Learn more about the digitization of supplier invoices
Without waiting for the obligation to switch to electronic invoicing, the digitization of supplier invoices offers multiple benefits for companies. An overview of the 4 main advantages.
1. Save time managing supplier invoices
Between receiving and paying the invoice, processing supplier invoices costs time and money.
By implementing a digitization project, you can speed up the process of managing paper invoices within your company. This ensures a quick return on investment.
Qonto offers you an efficient solution for the centralization and digitization of your supplier invoices within a clear interface:
digitization of the invoice based on a simple photo;
automatic detection of VAT and your suppliers' data;
preparation of payments using our smart tool that detects essential data (IBAN, due date, and amount);
real-time access to invoices awaiting your action.
In addition to facilitating your company's management, digitizing invoices strengthens relationships with suppliers.
2. Reduce the risk of fraud
The fight against VAT fraud is one of the main motivations of the government for introducing new regulations on electronic invoicing.
Moreover, electronic invoices limit attempts at payment fraud that companies regularly face.
With Qonto, you have a tool for centralizing your invoices that becomes a true ally for structuring your team more efficiently:
management of access rights;
setting up an approval process.
3. Facilitate your accountant's work
Coding supplier invoices is a time-consuming task with little added value. With the advent of electronic invoicing, data entry work will gradually disappear, and the risk of errors will decrease.
Thanks to the digitization of supplier invoices, your administrative department can focus on crucial tasks, such as:
implementing the digital transformation process;
monitoring discrepancies;
in-depth analysis of costs and expenses in dashboards.
Are you convinced of the benefits of digitized invoices and want to eliminate paper invoices without waiting until 2025? To ensure a smooth transition, you can use these 5 tips to build your digitization project:
1. Check if your invoices meet your customer's and legal requirements (mandatory mentions, format, and method of sending).
2. Choose an electronic signature compatible with your customer's accounting software.
3. Choose an invoice digitization solution with optical character recognition (OCR) to facilitate data collection and processing.
4. Conduct a test within the framework of a specific transaction before generalizing the implementation of supplier invoice automation.
5. Establish an exchange protocol with your business partners, such as creating a supplier portal or designing special customer accounts.
To determine which software is best for transitioning from paper invoices to the digitization of supplier invoices, companies must ensure that the tool can perform all important operations.
Collection and processing of supplier invoice data
Except for EDI invoices, your digitization solution must be able to extract and then decipher the data using artificial intelligence. The data is then forwarded to your ERP or accounting software to automatically enter the bookings.
Implementation of an approval process
To make your digitization project successful, you need to select a solution that allows you to precisely set up your invoice management and approval process.
First, the software must allow you to determine the users who can approve supplier invoices as well as the procedure. For example, sending an email upon receipt of a new digital document.
Next, you should consider the possibility of categorizing your different business partners to establish specific management rules. This way, you can define processes specific to each case.
Archiving of supplier invoices
Every received or issued invoice must be kept for 10 years from the end of the fiscal year. In case of a tax audit, you must be able to quickly access these documents.
Therefore, your invoice digitization solution must offer you a system of archiving with probative value. This allows you to:
easily retrieve any document;
dispose of the paper originals;
reduce your required storage space.
In addition to offering all these features, Qonto provides numerous functions to facilitate the management of your business on a daily basis. For example:
Activating the authorization for managing supplier invoices allows the manager to perform the following actions:
download invoices;
view, download, and delete all company invoices;
modify the information of an already downloaded invoice, such as supplier details or the IBAN;
pay invoices;
mark invoices as paid and reconcile them with the corresponding bank transaction;
request payment if they do not have the necessary rights.
Here is the procedure to activate the authorization for managing supplier invoices:
1. Click on Team Expenses in the menu and then on Members
2. Select the Manager to whom you want to grant this permission and click on the pencil icon on the right in the Expense Authorizations.
3. Activate the authorization "Download and set up supplier invoices" to enable them to contribute and modify supplier invoices, and to request their payments.
4. Activate the authorization "Make and validate transfers, and reimburse expense reports" to allow them to pay supplier invoices directly. Note that if you set transfer limits, transfers above these limits must be approved by the Owner, Administrators, or Managers.
5. Click Confirm to apply these authorizations.
Remember that you can limit the authorization to one team. To do this, select the relevant team instead of "The entire company" during step 2.
