Potential spread of virus is happening needlessly due to lack of solution that spans both online and offline invoice processing
Qinthara Fasya | 13 July 2021
A majority of employees (80%) in Singapore still have to go to their workplace during lockdown to perform tasks related to invoice processing, according to the latest market research by Asia’s leading contact management solution provider Sansan. That’s despite an overwhelming majority reporting that their workplaces are currently promoting paperless initiatives (77.8%) and remote working (66.8%). The survey commissioned by Sansan and undertaken by Rakuten sampled 400 employees with an average age of 38 years old and an approximately even split between male and female. All of those surveyed said their responsibilities included handling invoices from external parties, with the most common departments being operations/business planning (21.5%), accounting (17%), and finance (10.8%).
As businesses move towards paperless operations as part of wider digital transformation (DX) efforts, one of the key challenges for employees tasked with processing invoices is around converting from physical to digital formats, and vice versa. A majority (52.8%) said invoices received in electronic file format (i.e. PDF) had to then be manually pointed out, while an even larger number (66.3%) also had to regularly scan paper invoices into electronic files. On average, 436.27 invoices are requested from suppliers each month, with 80% requesting suppliers submit invoices in a specific format. After invoices (79.8%), receipts (59.5%) and contracts (48%) are viewed as priorities for going paperless.
Edward Senju, Regional CEO of Sansan, said: “Our research points to a clear need in the market for a single cloud solution that allows businesses — whether they are sending or receiving invoices online or offline — to submit both paper and digital formats to a single address, at which the invoices are automatically processed and stored in the cloud. A physical postal address for paper invoices, as well as an email address for digital PDFs, would be the most comprehensive solution to address this nationwide challenge. Such a solution would save companies substantial time and costs, while also reducing the need for employees to go to their workplace during Covid lockdowns, potentially exposing themselves and others to infection. All of this would further serve to support the efforts of the Singapore government’s paperless initiatives on e-invoicing, as spearheaded by the IMDA.”
Over half of those surveyed (52.5%) said they process invoices the moment they are received, with the remaining 47.5% taking longer. From this group, 65.2% spend over 10 minutes on average searching for a specific invoice and receive an average of 300 invoices each month. This suggests 50 hours per month (about 600 hours per year) spent searching for invoices, before even starting to process them.
Finally, the survey found that while almost all (92.8%) invoices are processed within 30 minutes, approximately three quarters (74.4%) still include paper formats. When you consider the average volume of monthly invoices that are processed by each employee, you quickly surpass 218 hours per month that are spent on invoice processing (including converting formats). This can lead to invoice processing being an inadvertent avoidable but cause of workplace stress among those surveys (36.5%), with over half (52.5%) saying they typically have to action them ‘as soon as they come in’ and that this need to process them quickly is a source of stress (60%).
About Sansan
Launched in 2007, Sansan is a fully-featured, cloud-based contact management solution for corporations. Centered on business cards, and using a proprietary system of digitization harnessing the power of both AI and humans, it seamlessly organizes contacts into a secure online database, accessible at any time from either the web or mobile app. The database is optimized and integrated with external information by an advanced AI system and is fully shareable within organizations. As of 2019, Sansan is used by almost 6,000 companies, ranging from small businesses to international corporations. For more information, please visit www.sansan.com
About Edward Senju, Regional CEO, Sansan
Edward Senju is the Regional Chief Executive Officer at Sansan Inc., a Japanese provider of cloud-based contact management solutions for corporations. Using Singapore as a springboard, he is responsible for driving Sansan’s growth in the region, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Senju aims to establish the business platform in Asia by strengthening the deployment of corporate business card management. He is focused on driving strategic partnerships and service acceptance amongst corporate users and organizations. Since joining Sansan in 2009, Senju has been a key contributor in the company’s growth and expansion from Japan to other parts of Asia. He was initially responsible for overseeing the management, operations, HR, legal, and finance teams.
