Bill.com: Moving financial processes to the cloud cuts workload, costs by up to 70 percent

by Xtium Research

Bill.com, a business that sells invoicing and cash management solutions, recently released the results from a survey of 350 CFOs that revealed the cloud has the potential to cut costs by as much as 70 percent. The source also discovered that many businesses underestimate the true costs of paper based processing. Almost 40 percent of respondents claimed the expense of a single invoice falls below $5. Most of those surveyed likely underestimated costs and ignored factors like labor and materials, according to Bill.com.

In reality, a single invoice falls around $22, according to the source. Minimizing these costs by converting applications and processes to a virtual private cloud based environment can result in immediate savings. However, a lot of businesses are behind the times when it comes to accounting practices. Instead of utilizing modern software and automating the department as much as possible, almost three-quarters of respondents claimed they use Microsoft Excel to keep track of expenses.

Businesses slowly adapting to the modern era
Companies are coming around to newer technology, including cloud storage. iHS iSuppli released a report that found 375 million internet users are currently using cloud storage services and as many as 500 million may make the conversion by the end of 2012.

"The cloud is a game changer in an age of near-ubiquitous mobile broadband, offering benefits to consumers and cloud service providers alike," said iHS iSuppli's director Jagdish Rebello.

It appears that regardless of continuing internal application and software development, C-level executives are still becoming intrigued with the cloud, and the trend of across-the-board adoption is expected to continue into 2013. By the end of next year, the report suggested as many as 625 million internet users will be involved in the cloud in some fashion, demonstrating a 60 percent rise over the current number.

Decision makers not using the cloud are expressing frustration at their inability to manage cash flow, the Bill.com report discovered. Almost half of those surveyed said they were interested in tools that could provide "real time visibility," a service that becomes more manageable and accessible in a virtual private cloud.

Even for hesitant CFOs, such dramatic cost savings and benefits are becoming hard to ignore. If projected adoption rates prove accurate, expect financial service providers to develop more cloud-centered tools moving forward.