Aligning AP Automation with Environmental Goals

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Happy Friday to all.  We’re deferring to our friends at ReadSoft for our first guest post on DISCUSS!  DISC Corporation is a ReadSoft partner, providing our clients the industry-leading Data Capture and OCR technology, as well as Document Classification solutions.  Readsoft Kelly Spear, ReadSoft Partner Marketing Coordinator – take it away!

All too often, the benefits of data capture & AP automation solutions are summed up as: decreased errors & processing time coupled with increased control & visibility.  But what about the impact these transformations make on your AP processes’ environmental footprint?   With paper no longer heavily relied upon throughout the invoice process, it’s clear that more trees are spared with CO2 emissions concurrently reduced as well.

ReadSoft solutions alone process 270 million invoices each year, saving 1.4 billion paper copies.  Assuming that regular printer paper is used, 1.4 billion pages saved each year weigh 6000-7000 tons. According to the European organization for the paper industry, CEPI, each ton of paper product uses 0.34 tons of CO2. Consequently, ReadSoft customers help reduce CO2 emissions by more than 2000 tons per year.  If you take into account the solution’s ability to utilize e-invoicing, then an additional 700 million paper copies are saved.

What’s interesting is how companies investing in AP automation have taken this a step further by aligning their automation goals with their environmental efforts.  Green Mountain Power, a Vermont-based electric utility company, is one such company.  In order to continue its commitment to environmental sustainability, Green Mountain Power wanted an accounts payable solution that provided a more electronic procedure to reduce its paper dependency across seven locations.  Invoices were often lost in inter-company mail, but through ReadSoft’s invoice automation software, the company enjoys more control & visibility of its entire accounts payable process while saving trees and helping reduce CO2 emissions.

Time Warner Cable is another automation veteran that has leveraged automation to further its environmental and AP efficiency goals. The use of automatic data capture jumpstarted the company’s shift to electronic reporting and receipts.  Time Warner Cable took its automation efforts to the next level by leveraging automation to track utility charges at their facilities and front-ends by capturing KwH hours, or the electricity charges for using 1,000 watts of electricity for one hour, without any human intervention.  

Interested in hearing about more of these companies’ automation experiences firsthand?  Visit ReadSoft’s reference center here.