In business, discounts can play a significant role in a company's bottom line. In fact, most corporate accounts payable departments establish set discounts with their top vendors for early payment of vendor invoices. These discounts are typically small on a percentage basis, but can result in thousands of dollars in savings per month if the quantities or dollar amounts of the invoices are large enough. Therefore, ensuring your AP department does everything it can to take advantage of these early payment discounts can have a significant impact on the financial performance of your business.
Alltel Corporation, the fifth-largest telecommunications provider in the U.S., recently realized its manual system for processing vendor invoices was causing it to miss out on approximately 60 percent of its early payment discounts. In response, the company implemented an optical character recognition system that automates invoice data collection and accelerates the payment process.
Source: Integrated Solutions, http://www.integratedsolutionsmag.com/index.php?option=com_jambozine&layout=article&view=page&aid=5840