Go paper-free on November 6
Premier League’s goal is
increased productivity
For businesses especially, it is an
opportunity to consider whether
certain processes could be completed
more efficiently if they were paperless.
Around half of business execs surveyed
by AIIM said that the biggest single
productivity improvement to their
business would be to remove paper.
AIIM president John Mancini said:
“Enough is enough: it is 2014 and we
are still drowning in unnecessary paper,
at home and at work. It is bad for the
environment and clogs up the workplace.
We know that you can’t eliminate the
use of paper entirely, but we want World
Paper Free Day to make us think a bit
In today’s competitive environment,
businesses are under pressure to
improve efficiency and productivity
in all departments through greater
automation. Accounts payable with its
many repetitive and labour-intensive
tasks is a case in point.
As the English Premier League has
found out, an automated document
management system makes it easier
for accounts payable staff to monitor
and control payments and retrieve past
invoices, giving them more time to
devote to higher value tasks, such as
resolving queries.
The Premier League, which organises,
manages and promotes the Barclays
Premier League on behalf of the top
20 football clubs in England, receives
1,000 or so invoices every month. To
speed up processing and payment and
reduce the department’s use of paper, it
November 6 isWorld Paper Free Day
2014 when information management
association AIIM challenges individuals and
businesses to forgo paper to highlight how
much paper is wasted and how well we can
manage without it.
How the Premier League is automating invoice processing with EASY INVOICE
harder about the sheer volume of paper
we waste.
“There is no reason other than habit
that we are so reliant on paper and there
are so many ways to prevent it, from
enterprise content management systems
that address paper documentation in
the workplace to iPads that can replace
paper files in the home and at work.”
AIIM claims that 300 million tonnes
of paper are produced each year and
that if everyone went paper-free on
November 6, it would save 821,918 tons
of paper and prevent 10,958,904 trees
from being cut down.
To help you get started, AIIM has
produced the following five tips for
reducing paper use:
1
Lobby your boss to get on board with
the environmental and productivity
benefits to be had from going paper-
free. AIIM research shows that 50% of
businesses use so much paper due to
a lack of management initiatives or
recently implemented EASY Software’s
EASY INVOICE document management
solution.
The pre-configured solution is
designed specifically for the automation
of purchase invoice processes and the
electronic storage of invoices for rapid
retrieval.
Key features include: intelligent OCR
(optical character recognition) for the
extraction of invoice data from paper and
electronic invoices; data synchronisation;
verification; rules-based workflow for
authorisation to post extracted data
to Microsoft Dynamics GP; and the
long-term storage of documents in the
revision-proof EASY Software archive.
The automated process significantly
reduces processing times for purchase
invoices and improves accuracy by
removing the need for staff to input data
manually.
Business workflow
magazine
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mandates to reduce it;
2
Use tablets for meeting agendas and
supporting documents – 60% of
surveyed businesses told AIIM that
the main reason they produced paper
copies was for use in meetings;
3
Use Outlook calendars and apps such
as Evernote to reduce ‘to do’ notes
and lists;
4
Know exactly what you need and do
not need paper for – 45% said they
still needed physical signatures on
certain documents;
5
Highlight the role that paper-free
processes can play in business
improvement initiatives – there are
lots of benefits to reducing paper use,
and people need to know about them.
Businesses and individuals can register
to participate inWorld Paper Free Day at
.
For each registration AIIM will make a
donation to The Arbor Day Foundation, a
tree planting charity.
EASY INVOICE controls the entire
workflow, so reviewers, people in charge
of cost centres and accountants can
automatically submit their invoices and
then concentrate on their specific part of
the process chain. An automatic reminder
message integrates ‘occasional users’ into
the system.
The system’s transparency prevents
bottlenecks in processing caused, for
example, by the sudden and unexpected
absence of a particular employee. Users
are also able to prioritise processes using
freely definable criteria.
Richard Lindsay, network and systems
manager at the Premier League, said:
“We believe that having the EASY
INVOICE system in place will not only
reduce the workload of our accounts
payable department, but will also make
the business more productive in the
long run. Productivity should be greatly
improved and that will probably be the
main benefit, over and above even the
financial benefits.”
He added: “We did look at many other
electronic invoicing systems, but EASY
INVOICE seemed to tie in well with our
current financial processes. Many of
EASY Software’s competitors seemed
to require a process overhaul, which we
weren’t very keen on.”
Photo:
Ronnie Macdonald
