By: Chad Tucker November 12, 2024
As we approach 2025, organizations have an ever-growing selection of accounts payable (AP) invoice automation solutions to choose from. With Infor being the latest to offer a new tool, businesses are now faced with even more options for processing invoices and purchase orders than ever before.
Infor’s latest solution combines Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), offering a familiar approach that, for organizations using Infor CloudSuite, may be more beneficial than a dedicated AP invoice automation tool.
While both Infor’s RPA tool and dedicated AP invoice automation solutions have their strengths, understanding the distinctions will help your business make a more informed decision when it comes to addressing AP invoice processing.
In this post, we’ll discuss the key differences between these AP automation solutions and offer guidance on when each might be the better fit, based on factors like invoice volume and rule complexity.
RPA tools, like Infor’s new solution, are built for versatility. They can automate a wide range of tasks, from extracting data from invoices and other documents via OCR to performing repetitive processes like entering data into related financial and supply chain systems, logging into websites, or interacting with related applications.
These tools are a great option for streamlining routine processes across different departments, not just AP as well. However, when applied to AP invoice automation in isolation, they may lack the sophistication and depth that dedicated AP solutions can provide.
For example, an RPA tool can be set up to read invoices from an inbox, extract the data, and pass it to a form for system entry. This reduces manual data entry but often lacks more advanced functionality—such as managing invoices throughout their lifecycle, providing an invoice-focused user experience, and offering built-in reporting or handling exceptions with complex business logic.
In addition, when using an RPA tool to manage AP invoice automation, organizations still need to build and maintain intricate rules, which often leads to high customization, and subsequent ongoing maintenance that requires specialized expertise to keep running smoothly.
If, however, an organization has lower invoice volume, or simple logic for routing invoice and requisition information, Infor’s RPA tool can be a sufficient solution. Moreover, some teams prefer the ownership and sophistication of setting up customizations and the maintenance associated with keeping the system online thereafter.
So, if this sounds like your business, RPA may be the best option for managing AP invoice automation.
In contrast, a dedicated AP invoice automation solution, like Yoga Flexible Software—is purpose-built to manage the entire AP process. These tools come with pre-configured business rules, validation logic, and an intuitive user experience specifically tailored for ingesting and processing invoices.
Over years of development, solutions like Yoga incorporate best practices, deep insights, and feedback from hundreds of clients, and in turn create a holistic solution that doesn’t just automate but manage AP processes at scale.
Because these solutions are built based on decades of solving common challenges and business requirements, they often address many organizational needs out of the box too, in addition to providing many other benefits up front.
A dedicated AP automation solution is designed to go beyond data capture as well. It tracks invoices through their entire lifecycle, provides functionality for handling exceptions, and offers consultant designed reporting and visibility to support business decision-making. This additional feature functionality can come in handy for select businesses too.
For example, healthcare organizations, which typically have high invoice volume and complexity, benefit from dedicated AP invoice automation platforms because they can handle intricate purchasing processes, complex business rules, and multi-layered approval workflows. Dedicated solutions also help with supporting documentation, offering functionality for notes, comments, and invoice management that goes beyond simply processing documents.
In terms of evaluating different point solutions, what separates Yoga from others is that it’s built based on over 25 years’ experience building and developing leading practices of AP invoice automation. It’s pre-solved many of the challenges and nuances that AP departments and teams face, and therefore immediately delivers ROI.
Because it’s also constantly evolving based on client feedback, it scales with your business with minimal intervention from your teams. Yoga is not only pre-configured with the necessary business logic but is also designed to evolve over time, ensuring the system remains optimized without requiring users to build custom code or manage complex integrations themselves.
At a high level, here’s how these solutions compare.
Dedicated AP automation solutions are purpose-built for managing the full accounts payable process, offering pre-configured business rules, advanced validation logic, and lifecycle management for invoices.
They handle exceptions efficiently and provide users with deeper insights and reporting, reducing the need for custom development and ongoing maintenance. Dedicated solutions, like Yoga, evolve continuously based on client feedback, ensuring scalability and long-term optimization without the heavy lift of custom configurations.
In contrast, RPA solutions, like the one Infor is releasing, are built for versatility and offer basic automation for tasks like data capture and validation but require customization to handle complex AP processes.
RPA may work well for smaller organizations or simpler workflows, but larger enterprises with high invoice volumes and intricate business rules often find themselves needing to build and maintain custom logic. This can lead to a less efficient, more labor-intensive system in the long run.
Whether you have high or low volume invoices, simple or complex workflows, RPI Consultants can help your organization implement the right AP automation solution. Contact us to learn about our range of services and solutions for evaluating your current situation.
Our proprietary AP invoice automation solution Yoga provides a dedicated approach to AP automation. With built-in intelligence, scalability, and continuous improvements based on client feedback, you can feel confident about your Invoice automation process.
To find out how one organization enhanced its AP invoice automation process by achieving a 98% electronic data interchange success rate, 33% touchless invoicing, and nearly double the rate for processing invoices, download the Cooper Health Care University case study below.