It's still e-invoicing, only better: How AI is revolutionising electronic invoicing

Kenneth Taylor from Comarch explains how artificial intelligence and machine learning are shaping electronic invoicing, bringing us closer to touchless e-invoicing capabilities

The concept of electronic invoicing is not particularly new, in fact, the technology was first conceived way back in the mid-1960s. Back then, few had even dreamed about the “paperless” offices that many of us work in today. These primitive e-invoicing systems were all developed in-house and were proprietary for the company using them. Chances are, many of those that worked with the oldest types of e-Invoicing systems have long since retired, however, they would tell you that these systems were not at all flexible and lacked any type of standardisation between companies.

It was not until the 1990s that the e-Invoicing software we recognise today would start to be adopted by companies looking to simplify their AP/AR process. These new systems were often developed by third-party software providers and featured a more user-friendly interface. They enabled the sending of invoices via channels like the web, email, and point-to-point integrations, allowing for the submission of file formats such as CSV, PDF, and XML. For many companies, these legacy e-invoicing systems that were implemented in the 1990s are still in use to this day. Although great at reducing complexities and speeding up the invoicing process, these legacy invoicing systems have become obsolete in the face of modern solutions that have capabilities to go beyond simple digitisation. 

With modern advances in artificial intelligence, e-invoicing has gone through its most radical transformation since the 1990s. Today, sophisticated electronic invoicing providers can offer a holistic approach to the invoicing cycle. The latest solutions feature functionalities beyond basic invoice transmission and make the invoicing process virtually touchless. This automation unlocks abilities that were previously never thought possible. Companies can efficiently process hundreds of thousands of invoices, organise significant amounts of data, and easily identify and verify every transaction they have ever made. With such power, companies can take greater advantage of economies of scale, be in full control of their costs, and manage their supply chain with maximum efficiency.

While these new developments in the world of e-invoicing are exciting, the most innovative of software companies are taking things a step further. Utilising machine learning in conjunction with artificial intelligence, the most advanced e-invoicing tech has groundbreaking new abilities such as anomaly detection, smart business rules generation, automatic data validation and completion, and self-learning image conversion. These abilities are game-changing and make significant strides towards our collective goal of completely touchless e-invoicing.    

Anomaly Detection 

A solution with anomaly detection can automatically identify possible… Want to read the whole article? Click here to read on. 

Be sure to register for the upcoming webinar on December 16th at 10:00AM EST to learn more about how artificial intelligence and machine learning are shaping electronic invoicing and bringing us closer to touchless e-invoicing capabilities. 

About Kenneth Taylor

About Comarch