Truth be told, you could go the rest of your career as a financial operations professional without picking up another pencil or piece of paper. That is, if your workplace and the rest of the world tapped into all the technology available today for accounts payable, accounts receivable, and procurement.

Yet it’s highly likely you and your peers are still doing your jobs the same way your predecessors did decades ago, using increasingly outdated tools and methods. Meanwhile, ironically, the field of technology solutions that are supposed to simplify your work is becoming more crowded and complicated. It’s enough to make you stop in your tracks, like deer in the headlights, hesitant to make a move.

You experience the same phenomenon as a consumer when you set out to purchase a new cell phone, computer, television, camera, car, or anything else that runs on digital technology. How can I purchase this now when I know the next version is coming out in six months? Why don’t I just wait? Because in another six months, the developers will be queuing up an even newer version, that’s why.

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Presenting at booth 1615, Esker will spotlight how a company’s automation efforts throughout multiple business processes — from accounts payable invoice processing and accounts receivable invoice delivery to order processing and postal mail — can all be unified with one streamlined, integrated platform.

Read full Press Release here.

But, research shows AR is still a largely paper-based function. The TARN Benchmarking Billing Practices survey found that paper was the most common invoice delivery format. One fifth of the respondents issue all invoices on paper; one fourth send some percentage of invoices via traditional EDI; and only two percent send all invoices via EDI.

The Accounts Payable Networks’ Key AP Benchmarks survey shows that the amount of paper invoices received varies by industry and company size. The percentage of paper invoices sent to respondents’ AP departments ranged from a median of 30 percent in retail trade to 95 percent in educational services and public administration (government).

Read the full article here.

Automated processing is typically associated with customer and vendor invoices; however, the management of customer orders represents a valuable opportunity for today’s businesses. Faced with a multitude of reception modes (e.g., fax, email, postal mail, Web, EDI, etc.), order processing has become more and more complex, despite being a critical process for customer satisfaction, commitment, revenue and competitive advantage.

Read the full Press Release here.

Madison, WI – April 23, 2012 – Esker, a worldwide leader in document process automation solutions, today launched its 2012 Esker Americas User Conference (EAUC), a two-day event held on April 23-24 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center^®, located on the shore of beautiful Lake Monona in downtown Madison, WI.

As the largest educational networking event of the year, EAUC 2012 offers Esker customers the opportunity to ask questions, examine their automation strategies, and share best practices for maximizing the Esker solution — all while enjoying the sights and sounds of one of America’s most lively and celebrated cities. This year’s format features a wide range of interactive and insightful events specifically designed to allow customers to:

• Explore ways to automate multiple business processes with a single platform, along with best practices for optimizing the Esker DeliveryWare 6.0 and Esker on Demand solutions
• Energize document process improvement efforts with hands-on lab time, breakout sessions and one-on-one consultations with Esker’s Professional Services Staff
• Engage directly with Esker staff members, other customers, and third-party thought leaders for the latest trends and like-minded perspectives

Read the full Press Release here.

Esker sales revenue showed strong improvements in Q1 2012 — increasing 15% based on a current exchange rate and 12% based on a fixed rate over a strong Q1 2011 (+13%). These excellent results can largely be attributed to the success of Esker’s document process automation solutions (+15%) and its solid performance in the U.S.

Continued momentum for cloud-based solutions

Esker on-demand solutions (FlyDoc and Esker on Demand) continue to grow at a steady rate (+21%), representing over half of the company’s activity this quarter (52%). As a result of defining its strategic positioning already in 2005, Esker was one of the first software vendors to successfully incorporate cloud computing into its solutions.

Read the full Press Release here.

Madison, WI – April 2, 2012 – Esker, the leader in document process automation solutions, today announced that International Companies, the corporate umbrella for four leaders in the food ingredient industry, has successfully implemented an Esker on Demand solution to automate the processing and delivery of customer invoices. The Esker solution integrates with International Companies’ ERP system and leverages Esker production facilities to eliminate the need for manual mail processing while facilitating customer adoption of electronic invoicing.

Read the full Press Release here.

In 2011, the success of its document process automation solutions helped propel Esker to the best performance in company history. Sales revenue for FY 2011 reached 36.3 million euros, which was a 13% increase over 2010 based on a fixed exchange rate (11% based on a current exchange rate). For the second consecutive year, operating profits nearly doubled reaching 3.8 million euros, while the net results increased sharply to 2.64 million euros (+40%).

 Based on its economic model and continued success of its solutions, Esker is preparing for a strong 2012 as well, with expectations of a double-digit increase in sales revenue and substantial growth in company profits.

Read the full Press Release here.

So what’s the big deal for businesses?  Well, when you consider that at least 50% of invoices are still sent using physical mail, slowing that delivery can have a huge, cumulative impact on companies’ ability to collect cash and control DSO.  In an article in the April issue of CFO & Controller Alert, REL Consultants estimates that you’ll wind up with an additional 2-4 days in your collections cycle.  And, an article by David M. Katz in CFO.com, highlights the additional impact these mail delays will have on working capital.  Just Google it and you’ll find plenty more on the topic.

Feeling anything yet?  Well, if you’re a Finance Executive and your A/R and A/P departments are manually shuffling paper invoices, you should be looking for ways to mitigate the impacts coming your way. 

Consider taking your processes electronic.  At the very least, start sending your invoices via email.  If you don’t think you can get everyone to accept email right away, consider a phased approach.  We’ve worked with several customers who have shifted their mail and email traffic to our platform so that they could quickly accommodate user preferences (hopefully moving more and more from mail to email) quickly and seamlessly with one solution.  Then, you can look for ways to further automate the entire A/R process up to and including payments. 

And – don’t forget about A/P – ask to have invoices emailed to you rather than mailed.   You don’t want to add any time into that process either, especially if you are trying to take advantage of early payment discounts and want to stay in good standing with your vendors. 

If you find you still need to send physical mail, make sure you are at least using a vendor that can offer you the benefits of presort mail.  So even though things overall will still be delivered more slowly, you’ll have a time advantage.

So, what IS slower than a snail?  Oh, and that also rhymes with mail…

Read more on e-invoicing in the 2011 AR Automation Study conducted by The Institute of Financial Operations.

In the latest Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook survey, more than a quarter of the responding CFOs said they increased accounting staff in the past two years. In fact, the biggest growth in jobs right now seems to be occurring in the professional and business-services sector. But chances are the majority of those organizations are still hiring the old-fashioned way: posting openings and sifting through piles of résumés.

For Esker, a French-based, publicly traded document-automation company that has gone from 220 full-time employees to 280 in the past two years, that process of reviewing résumés, commenting on them, and ranking candidates was rendered even more time-consuming: everything ultimately needed to be shared with headquarters in Lyons before a hire could be made. Because hiring is a paper-based, standardized (yet critical) business process, Esker managing director and U.S. COO Steve Smith figured it was ripe for automation and began thinking about building a tool to do just that. After all, Esker is in the business of automating document processing. Why not digitize all those résumés to make them searchable by the skills Esker was looking for?

Read the full story of how Esker has Quit Paper within our hiring process.