You’ve seen the stats – that labor accounts for 62% of the total cost of AP and that 3.6% of invoices have errors on them. And you’ve heard the claims – that accounting automation can lower costs and reduce errors. But is it really true?
Today we’re going to take a look at a real company that purchased an accounting automation platform and their concrete results.
Company Bio
Who is Alimera Sciences? They’re a pharmaceutical company that specializes in the research, development, and commercialization of prescription ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, focusing on diseases affecting the back of the eye or retina.
Before they got automated, the problems they were facing centered around two areas:
- the limitations of their current accounting system
- a slow (and frequently stalled) invoice process
The Selection Process
Once Alimera decided they wanted to automate their AP processes, they looked into several options for automation software. In the end, they made their choice based on flexibility and customization. Here’s why they decided to go with DocuPhase: “When we had questions and got into the more serious details, DocuPhase was willing to look at our business processes and work with us as a partner.”
Tangible Results
Once the implementation began, it took about 2 weeks to get the DocuPhase system up and running. Here are some of the changes Alimera saw with their new system:
- Invoice processing time was reduced by 93%
- Items that previously took weeks or months to process now are complete within 24 hours
- The AP Clerk’s workload was cut in half
- Users can now track requisitions that are in process
- Productivity and customer satisfaction have increased
What They’re Saying
Implementation and User Adoption
User adoption can be a big concern. It’s difficult to predict whether or not your team will embrace new technology and updated processes, especially when they’re accustomed to doing things a certain way. Phil Jones, Alimera’s CFO, spoke out about internal adoption of the new system:
“[Implementation] was a lot quicker than I thought it would be. Everyone embraced it immediately, and it’s now such a standard part of our everyday business. I think everyone probably wonders why we didn’t have this before.”
The Accounting Team
While the DocuPhase platform can be used to automate processes in any department, Alimera chose to begin their journey within the Accounting department, because that was where their biggest pain points were showing up.
Here’s how the AP Clerk felt about DocuPhase after using it for a short time: "[Our AP Clerk] has found that the program itself has been somewhat of a God-send in the fact that it’s lessened her workload tremendously. To have parties coming to me saying, ‘We can do more work,’ has given us the ability to complete other tasks that we hadn’t been able to do before. We’re now able to look at other areas and processes and see where we could benefit."
Want more details on Alimera’s automation journey? You can check out the full story here.
To learn how much your Accounting team could be saving with automation, fill out our ROI Calculator. We’ll send you a full report with the breakdown of your savings.
