Article Abstract:

Return on Investment (ROI) is at the heart of every significant business decision.  In the simplest of terms it is a measure of what you get for what you give.  Research by Ohio State University found that 4 out of 5 buyers seek “value” before price.   In other words, most people will give more to get more.

Article Excerpt:

“Value” includes Quality, Flexibility of the offering and Availability all as a function of Price.  “Quality” means the product delivers what is required (or wanted) and does what is promised.  Economists call this the “Law of Marginal Utility.”  For the rest of us it means what blows your hair back won’t necessarily interest the next guy.  When we talk about ROI, we have to keep it in the context of what is important to the buyer.

What are businesses requiring today?  First, they want more customers and more sales.  That is pretty well true no matter what the economic conditions are.  Beyond that, however, is that business today is desperately seeking ways to engineer cost out of the business.  Most of the improved earnings reports are the result of cost reductions.  And while cost reduction began as a way to respond to the recession, evidence suggests that it is quickly becoming a permanent part of business culture. 

With a paper based invoice processing system the company incurs a significant “cost” in handling paper, but it is difficult to quantify the short-run cash savings.  Creating a long-run “saving” by installing imaging, for example, doesn’t add value if I still have the floor space, the employees and all my other out of pocket expenses.  The value may be intrinsic but few businesses are investing today based upon intangible value.  The CFO will say “Show me the money!”

FileBound e-now offers a rare opportunity to eliminate work at a value based price.  A major task in the AP department is entering data from paper invoices into the Accounting System.  Typical information entered is a vendor name, purchase order number, invoice number, payment due date and general ledger account code (s) and total due.  Because this information is normally put into the accounting system after all processing and approvals, other logging and data entry of the invoice typically takes place before the invoice is ready for entry to the accounting system.

With FileBound e-now all of this changes.  Invoices are scanned immediately upon arrival.  The needed information is electronically picked up off the invoice and captured by e-now eliminating data entry and other manual tasks to a fraction of the time normally required.  Routing and review of invoices is all handled electronically eliminating hand routing and handling of the invoices.  Finally, the scanned information is automatically imported into the general ledger accounting system and invoices can be paid without further data entry.

Best of all, not only is the work more efficient, much of the original work (key entering data) is gone forever.  This provides the opportunity to either repurpose staff to cash producing work (such as AR collections and sales proposal follow ups) or eliminate headcount.  Either way, the business gets cash returns for the investment.

Added benefits include improved accuracy and reduced mailing expense.  Errors in data entry create extra work and cost.  With FileBound e-now, that problem is gone forever because the information is picked up electronically from the invoice.  Invoices received at field offices are now scanned eliminating mailing or courier expense.

The final pay-off is the price.  For just a quarter an invoice the business can store thousands of invoices electronically for just a few hundred dollars a month, much less than the cost of an employee key entering data.  Other than a scanner (which most people have on their copier) there is nothing else to buy.

High value for a low price with FileBound e-now – an easy ROI!