This article is brought to you by Square 9. 

Convenience stores run on incredibly thin margins, and the productivity demands of manual invoice processing make these margins even more challenging to maintain. Every location generates a steady stream of invoices for fuel, merchandise, deliveries, maintenance and more. And as retailers add stores, invoice volume grows with them.

This has led many c-stores to implement Intelligent Document Processing for their accounts payable departments, a system that allows c-stores to open new store locations without equally increasing demands on accounts payable teams.

Making More Volume Manageable

Traditional invoice processing requires employees to open documents, identify important information, enter data into back-office systems, route invoices for approval and investigate discrepancies. Across thousands of invoices and multiple locations, these relatively small manual tasks can become a significant drain on productivity.

“Intelligent Document Processing simplifies approval routing, escalations, and data entry, while allowing staff to find the information they need across both their documents and additional systems like PDI” said Stephen Young, president and CEO at Square 9.

Invoices of wildly varying formats and types are scanned, and information such as vendor names, invoice numbers, dates, totals and line-item details is extracted. The system then validates that data against established business rules before automatically routing the invoice to the appropriate person for approval.

“Employees remain involved where their judgment matters rather than spending the same amount of time handling every invoice,” said Young.

Seeing Across the Store Network

Intelligent Document Processing can also address another challenge that becomes more pronounced as store counts grow: information visibility.

When invoices are moving between locations, inboxes and approvers, answering simple questions can require significant follow-up.

• Where is that invoice?
• Who needs to approve it?
• Has it already been processed?

Centralizing invoice storage creates more consistent processes across locations. “By working with systems such as PDI to create one single source of validated invoice data, c-stores reduce duplicate entry and create a clearer picture of payables across the business,” said Young.

A Growing Business Doesn’t Have to Mean Growing Labor

For c-stores, adding locations will inevitably mean processing more invoices, but it does not have to mean adding the same amount of manual work. Automating routine invoice capture, validation and routing allows lean AP teams to direct more of their time toward exceptions, vendor issues, cash-flow decisions and other work that requires human expertise.

“Intelligent Document Processing offers retailers a way to scale their operations without exceeding back-office capacity. By automating accounts payable, c-stores can focus on delivering quality services across new locations, instead of the administrative bottlenecks that could have come with it,” said Young.

This is the first article in a two-part series brought to you by Square 9. Part two will explore opportunities to scale back office technology.

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