Intervate has announced the launch of its AR Accelerator, powered by Linxus, to enhance organisations’ Accounts Receivable departments and reduce debtor’s days.
The solution was developed by Linxus, a local technology company that connects people, process and technology – to create practical business solutions and drive real business value in an organisation. With a strong background in supply chain and operations management, Linxus uses unique technology design and implementation methods to deliver services with enduring value to its clients.
AR Accelerator allows an organisation’s customers to easily map invoices and statements, to relevant purchase orders, contracts, timesheets, service level agreements, and other related documents.
Despite rapid enhancements in digital and automated technologies, many local organisations still manage the distribution of invoices and collection of payments in a largely manual fashion.
Hours are spent searching, matching, resending and chasing documents. Payments are delayed, and the debtors days pile up – requiring the company to allocate increasing capital to cashflow contingencies and bad debt provisioning.
CFOs worry that poor debtors books have a direct impact on financial performance, profitability, costs of financing, and the company’s ability to pay its own creditors. As more resources are thrown at the problem, margins are eroded by recovery costs and overdraft fees.
Intervate executive head Peter Reid explains that AR Accelerator alleviates these worries – bringing fluidity and efficiency to the Accounts Receivable function with a comprehensive set of linked documents that improve the likelihood of speedy payments.
“AR Accelerator can reduce debtors days by as much as 40%; and produce time-savings of up to 60% within the Accounts Receivable department.
“Not only does it eliminate inefficiencies and inaccuracies, but it provides a better experience to one’s customers, as well as guaranteeing peace of mind in adhering to compliance and governance requirements,” adds Reid.
AR Accelerator includes the following headline features:
* Automation of invoices on a monthly or periodic basis… reducing the manual intervention required by the Accounts Receivable department.
* ‘Moment of Truth’ information delivery… providing the correct set of related information to the customer, as the invoice is issued.
* Transforming documents into calls-to-action… the next steps that need to be taken can be ‘teed-up’ for the customer – simplifying their experience. This could include approving, providing feedback, logging a query, or initiating payment.
* Click-to-chat functionality… allowing a customer to easily contact the supplier to clarify or ask questions. Support numbers and email addresses are also clearly visible at all times.
* Creation of a data warehouse environment… so all pertinent information is easily available for reporting or auditing purposes.
* Embedded process and systems workflows… which physically move documents between different parts of the value-chain, as well as automating and optimising processes in the background.
* Open architectures… to ensure all documents are available via whatever front-end system that a customer may use (such as email, CRM, SharePoint, Lync, Skype, etc).
According to research firm Aberdeen Group in 2016, the number of employees required in Accounts Receivable functions more than halved in organisations where an automated process was implemented.
AR Accelerator not only generates these kinds of efficiencies, but improves the experiences for one’s customers, helps to ensure that capital is channeled to the most profitable areas, and improves overall financial performance.
