Aderant: Friday Feature – Expert Invoice OCR
Welcome to our “Friday Feature” series: a space to highlight exceptional features unique to Aderant products. Check back every Friday as we introduce new ways to improve your firm’s efficiency and ease of operations.
This Friday, Aderant Senior Product Manager Meg Anker discusses the Expert Invoice OCR feature.
What is the Invoice OCR feature?
Invoice OCR (optical character recognition) flips the script on how firms manage supplier and vendor payables, allowing them to rapidly process invoice images using OCR, AI, and machine learning. Invoice images are automatically recorded as invoices in Expert Accounts Payable, and the image is attached via Expert Imaging. Invoice images can be processed from a network folder or directly from within an email. In one click, billing staff can quickly review for accuracy and create the invoice in Expert AP.
What problem does the Invoice OCR feature address for Aderant clients?
The Invoice OCR feature addresses many billing problems for law firms, including:
- Lost invoices due to unknown payment obligations “sitting on someone’s desk” or waiting in an email. Images are stored centrally and processed automatically, removing the risk of misplaced invoices.
- Data entry errors; the process is automated and not reliant on manual typing. Recording is much faster due to both machine learning and AI capturing repeatable data entry and automating it.
- Retrieval of already processed images; Invoice OCR saves them in Expert Imaging. They are stored and available for viewing in Accounts Payable, I, and automating backup for clients who require copies of invoices.
Finally, once the invoice is created and coded in Expert, firms can use the Invoice Approval workflow to route it to those responsible for approval along with the invoice image for review. This addresses the problem of approvals through email getting lost as well as the ability to track how efficient the approval process is working.
What is the overall impact of Invoice OCR on the legal industry as a whole?
The stress of efficiently managing and processing payables is a burden for most firms. There are often many slow, manual processes which are error-prone and cumbersome. Streamlining the process using Invoice OCR provides firms with a significant return on their investment. With Invoice OCR, firms can reallocate time that would otherwise be spent on tracking down lost invoices, increasing data entry accuracy, and speeding up the overall data entry process.
