By Boomi
The order-to-cash process is notoriously time-consuming and resource intensive. Creating, sending, tracking, and collecting invoices can require the full-time attention of an entire finance department. And on top of it all, the effort put into a manual order process can result in human error, increasing delays and costs even more.
Automation can help expedite order-to-cash, but simple process automation still requires significant human intervention to understand and navigate the complexities of each account. To automate effectively, finance teams need to engage in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
iPaaS Enables AI
Data is the backbone of AI. Without a constant, end-to-end data flow, AI cannot learn, create the context for data, or navigate new scenarios. The more complete your data, the better your AI. An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution integrates every business application into a single, unified data ecosystem.
The data that flows through an integrated ecosystem enables AI-powered receivables processing by providing the system with a constant stream of the latest customer data. The AI system then analyzes the data, detects patterns, and learns as it goes. Once the AI system has sufficient data, it can take over multiple tasks from human operators, automating many of the mundane, time-consuming tasks that can slow enterprise organizations.
AI Expedites Order-to-Cash Integration
When an order is received, the faster it’s processed, the sooner the company will receive payment. Rather than continuing to rely on slow and error-prone human processing, companies should look to AI-powered order-to-cash, which can expedite the process in multiple ways. And because the organization’s entire suite of business applications is integrated, AI can take data from multiple input sources, process it, and automatically carry out tasks using other output tools.
For example, AI can take customer information from marketing and sales applications, and discover patterns in how quickly certain customers pay their invoices. It can also determine which customers are likely to pay their invoices quickly and which may require a follow-up and adjust customer communications based on those predictions.
AI can also take advantage of unstructured data in sources like chat transcripts and customer emails. This allows it to automate customer communications, expedite order fulfillment, and optimize payment collection.
AI solutions require a massive amount of storage and processing power in order to operate quickly and effectively. The cloud-based nature of iPaaS provides the necessary resources AI needs at any given time, expanding resources on demand and scaling down again when demand decreases.
Achieve AI-Powered Order-to-Cash With Boomi
An order-to-cash process powered by AI can be transformational, from reallocating resources to higher-value tasks to getting paid faster. To learn more about how to realize the expansive benefits of application integration in AI-powered order-to-cash and other business processes, read our executive brief, Using AI to Discover, Catalog, and Analyze Data at Scale.