Digital Invoice Management / e-Invoicing

Challenges in Invoice Management: Paper, PDFs, and Manual Processes

Whether paper-based or in PDF form, incoming invoices that are processed manually cause high costs, errors, delays, and compliance risks. With its digital invoice management solutions, Konica Minolta helps businesses automate and standardize their invoice processes.  We also ensure that your organisation complies with EU e-invoicing regulations in your region.

Almost half of all companies (48%) process up to 500 invoices every month. For many companies, this means manually comparing invoices with orders up to 500 times a month and entering invoice data manually. What a tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone process! A mix of paper and email invoices makes processing even more difficult. What's more, non-standardized approval workflows can lead to payment cycles being extended or invoices even being overlooked completely. If the processes are also paper-based, they generate high costs in terms of printing, sending, and storage. Correcting errors or disputes requires time and resources and increases operating costs. Added to this are possible fines or penalties for non-compliance with laws such as the EU law on e-invoicing.

What is digital invoice management?

Konica Minolta’s digital invoice processing automates and standardizes your invoice processes. The data on incoming invoices is automatically captured, checked, and transferred to common accounting systems (ERP) using text recognition software and intelligent algorithms. They are then forwarded to the right team for approval. 

How does AI-powered digital invoice processing work?

AI-based invoice processing takes things a step further. Here, the fields in the document do not need to be manually defined in advance – for example, through zone-based OCR – because the AI automatically recognizes all relevant content and can therefore handle documents with varying layouts or unstructured content. No time-consuming pre-configurations or training are required.

The AI recognizes and extracts information from the invoice – such as invoice number, date, amount, supplier, and tax ID – and stores it in the corresponding system. This data is then returned to the workflow in a structured format – usually as a JSON file. The user can then review, validate, and approve the extracted information. Once everything is correct, they confirm the process. After confirmation, the data is automatically transferred to downstream systems such as SAP and processed there, for example for bookkeeping or transactions.

If invoices arrive on paper: The process typically begins with the invoices being scanned at the MFP. These documents are first digitized and stored (e.g., in SharePoint) and then processed further by the AI-based workflow. Documents scanned on a smartphone can also be processed.

When invoices arrive via email: Here, the AI can process the digital document directly.

The major advantage is that there is no need to implement new software solutions. Konica Minolta’s AI-based solution can be integrated into existing ECM systems, thereby streamlining existing invoice workflows.