Paying the price of expensive keyboard errors

We all make mistakes. We’re human. It happens. And that’s often how we learn.

Blunders occur when we’re behind a PC too. How many of us have sent an email to the wrong person – or failed to double-check something before we hit ‘Send’ … and then groaned afterwards. Hopefully any damage done is minimal.

But that wasn’t the case for major fashion retailer Supergroup (the company behind Superdry), according to reports in the past week. A ‘plus’ was entered in the accounts instead of ‘minus’.

The "arithmetic error" was worth £2.5m, noted the BBC. More bad news followed. Stocks plummeted by nearly 40% as shocked investors reacted to the news, say media reports.

Of course, until the robots take over, human error will always be part of everyday life and business. But it’s good to keep errors to a minimum where it’s do-able.

Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) is a great example. Manual re-keying of paper invoices into the system (where errors naturally occur sometimes) can be replaced by a hands-free, highly-automated process that maximises accuracy. It’s faster, costs less and staff can be redeployed to tasks that add more value to the business.

And there’s a raft of follow-on benefits too …

• Decision-makers get a clearer picture of spending in near to real time – because financial data enters the system faster and with greater accuracy.
• Admin time resolving errors can be minimised, so there’s another saving.
• And suppliers get paid on time, rather than experiencing delays because of any re-keying mistakes.

Put simply, e-invoicing represents a big plus without a minus. 

Pushing all the right buttons

If there’s one thing certain to create a storm online among techies – it’s the launch of a new version of Windows. Version 8 is no different.

Rumoured for full release in October, Windows 8 is available already in a ‘consumer preview’ flavour that’s been sampled over the past six weeks. You can try it yourself by downloading it here.

One big difference is the introduction of a Metro-style interface designed for touchscreens, like you’d see on a phone or the Xbox 360 games console. But will it be intuitive?

Perhaps, ultimately, it will loved by millions. But problems may exist in the short term.

“The next Windows version looks to be a steep learning curve for most users,” warns The Inquirer, which added that "the change is likely to be a jarring experience."

And, underlining the point, The Guardian ran a feature where one tech journalist unleashed his father on the operating system – with a reaction of bafflement. You can see the video here, though it’s excruciating to watch.

But are enterprise applications any easier – or everyday business users somehow far quicker to grasp the plot?

Not so, according to research. Some months back, IDC published a white paper called Intuitive Enterprise Applications Improve Business Performance.

IDC surveyed 300 enterprise application buyers in Scandinavia and put some of the key findings in the public domain. The findings were revealing:

• Almost 40% of those asked found that enterprise applications were hard to use
  
  
• Respondents were looking for web-like usability and strong search capabilities
  
  
• They also said that time was primarily wasted transferring data between applications and looking for information.
  

These findings could prompt useful questions for anyone to ask when choosing a purchase-to-pay (P2P) solution. For example:

• Is the new system as easy to use as Tesco.com or Amazon? If it is, less time will be needed training users. And if users embrace the system quickly, then the business benefits will come through faster.
  
  
• How does it handle data? Can you find what you need quickly? Is it a total solution? And if there are necessary interfaces with other systems, are they seamless?
  

The best way to find reliable answers is to ask for reference sites and check with existing users what they think …

Good news makes a change for small companies

Britain’s latest stamp price hikes spell more doom for hard-pressed small businesses.

After weeks of rumours, the price increases were announced by the Royal Mail. A first-class stamp will rise in price from 46p to 60p from April 30, while a second-class stamp will go up from 36p to 50p, according to the BBC.

Many small firms continue to send their invoices by post. And even if they use the second-class service, the costs can be significant. For example, a small company sending 40 invoices a month, will now pay £240 in a year in stamps.

This isn’t a huge figure. But it’s significant when money is tight. And it comes at a time when small businesses are struggling to get bank funding despite government’s efforts and there are predictions that a quarter of small businesses will fold by 2014.

But buying organisations with best-in-class, purchase-to-pay (P2P) systems are able to share some good news with their smaller suppliers – if they offer them the chance to submit their invoices electronically.

The benefits can help ease some of the pain points experienced by small firms in these ways:

Saving them money: A good e-invoicing solution will be free, so there’s an immediate cost saving on those pricey stamps, plus paper and envelopes.

Saving them time: E-invoicing should be easy and intuitive for any small supplier, whether they submit invoices in a few clicks from their PC, or simply flip a purchase order into an invoice on a Blackberry. There’s no time wasted walking to the post box either.

Saving them stress: When cash is tight, anxiety mounts. But a good e-invoicing system can give suppliers a portal where they can make sure the invoice didn’t get lost – and track the progress of their payment.

Improving their cashflow: With e-invoicing, there’s no delay at the start. Suppliers’ bills are received instantly and entered into a highly-automated approval and payment process. The bottom line is that it’s easier to for buying organisations to pay their suppliers on time.

In the current economic climate, it’s understandable if small businesses dread change – because the news always seems to be bad. But e-invoicing is a genuinely good-news story.