Manual invoicing still drives many finance processes, but its risks are becoming harder to ignore. From delayed payments to data errors, outdated systems can slow down cash flow and hurt customer experience.
Sarah-Jayne Martin, Director of Financial Automation at Quadient, believes that automation provides faster, more accurate invoicing that allows teams to respond to risk more effectively. Sarah-Jayne says this is a strategic advantage, not just an administrative improvement.
Digital Journal spoke with Martin about how finance teams are rethinking invoicing in response to today’s economic pressures. Martin also shares how companies can evaluate the effectiveness of automation and where to begin when moving away from manual processes.
Digital Journal: Finance leaders are under pressure to deliver ROI with fewer resources like smaller budgets, heavier workloads, and tighter timelines. How has that shifted the way finance teams think about invoicing as part of their broader strategy?
Sarah-Jayne Martin: Invoicing is the link to revenue. The timelier and more accurately you can invoice and get paid by your customers, the better that is for the bottom line. With increased pressure on revenue in today’s economy, finance leaders have been forced to look at all processes – both in and out of their department – to find ways to be more efficient. While once overlooked as a purely operational task, invoicing is now seen as essential to broader business strategy.
There is growing recognition that invoicing has an immediate impact on cash flow and customer experience. When the process is slow or error-prone, the consequences are felt right away. Payments are delayed, disputes increase, and finance teams are pulled into time-consuming rework. By contrast, automation provides faster, more accurate invoicing that allows teams to respond to risk more effectively. That is a strategic advantage, not just an administrative improvement.
DJ: In your view, why has finance shifted from a back-office task to a strategic priority, especially now?
Martin: We have had several years of economic uncertainty, between the pandemic, global political unrest and economic concerns, organizations have been forced to instill more efficient processes within the finance sector. Accounts receivable, when optimized, can speed up time to cash, improve customer experience and encourage cross-team collaboration.
Back-office roles, such as invoicing and collections, were historically very manual and relied heavily on internal institutional knowledge – this created risk when staff turned over or retired, creating massive knowledge gaps. Automation has changed that. It allows finance teams to operate more consistently and gives them access to data they can use to inform broader business decisions. Finance is no longer just about closing the books. It is about planning scenarios, analyzing performance, and supporting agility across the organization. That is why it has become a strategic function.
DJ: Where do manual invoicing processes typically break down, and what’s at stake?
Martin: Manual invoicing is prone to human error and is a slow process. Often data is stored in siloed systems where, when done manually, it is hard to gather and verify – this increases the chances of items being missed (and therefore unbilled). The faster you can invoice your customers, the faster you get paid, so allowing this process to be slow will affect your cash flow and working capital. In addition, an incorrect invoice is poor customer experience, requires correcting and reissuing, all of which will further delay payment, and jeopardize future sales.
It is also not a gratifying role, so it is often subject to job dissatisfaction and high turnover, which creates more problems and knowledge gaps are constantly having to be bridged.
DJ: What are the biggest hurdles finance teams face when trying to automate invoicing?
Martin: Gathering all relevant data and ensuring it is correct. I can’t overstate how necessary it is to have clean data when considering automation. That means everything from which products or services you are invoicing for, as well as good customer data, such as email or physical addresses.
There are secondary concerns as well, things like ensuring taxes are calculated correctly and invoices provide clear details about what product was bought, how to remit payment and what to do if something is incorrect.
We also see a multitude of billing relationships – think about corporate and franchisee companies where in some cases you need to bill the corporate location and other times it is the franchisee. Invoicing systems need to be flexible to allow for all these outlying situations.
It’s important for businesses to ensure their input (the data) is as strong as the output they want to achieve.
DJ: More broadly speaking, how does automation reshape the role of finance professionals? Are we seeing a shift in how their time and expertise are being used within the business?
Martin: Finance roles are becoming less manual and more strategic. Automation reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks and frees up professionals to focus on more valuable ones.
We are also seeing increased collaboration. When finance professionals have more bandwidth, they are able to work more closely with teams across the organization. Whether that is helping sales structure smarter contracts or supporting operations with payment data, the finance function becomes a proactive partner. This shift not only increases the value finance brings to the business, but it also improves job satisfaction, which is needed for retention and long-term performance.
DJ: What advice would you give to CFOs or controllers just beginning to rethink their invoicing systems? Where’s the best place to start?
Martin: Start with a blueprint of where all the data sits and how you plan to streamline it into a single system, whether it is an ERP or other solution. Then review data and ensure it is as clean and up to date as possible. Consider what you want the outcome to look like and work backwards. Finally, the devil is in the details, so ask the employees who do the work manually what things you might be missing!
