Hunting Learning Center franchise owner finds help with processing accounts payable through an on-demand solution.

by David Crane

The Huntington Learning Center helps children all over the country reach their full learning potential. But as franchise owner Bill Goldenberg discovered, even the oldest provider of supplemental education services can learn something new.

With three learning center locations and nearly 50 employees, Goldenberg was experiencing big company accounting challenges in a small business setting. “We weren’t ready for a full-time bookkeeper,” Goldenberg said, “but the invoices and expense reports still needed to be tracked and paid.”

Accounts payable processing for the franchise locations fell mostly on senior management. As his business advanced, Goldenberg knew the time his team spent handling accounts payable documents was distracting from operations that make a difference in children’s lives—as well as business growth.

To complicate matters, each center had its own document organization system, which made it time consuming and expensive to find documents and related information. The system—or lack of one—just wasn’t making the grade.

“These challenges were costing management several hours on invoice processing every month. Tracking our invoices became an issue that could not be overlooked, and we knew we needed a centralized document management system,” Goldenberg explained.

The solution? The company turned to an on-demand, web-based accounts payable and document management service provided by IntelAccount , a provider of AP services for small and mid-sized businesses.

Often, small and medium-sized businesses spend proportionately more time and money processing and paying bills than their larger counterparts. Enterprise companies can improve productivity and save significant time and money by outsourcing their payables to a number of established providers, many of which offer low-cost, offshore services.

But buyers can offset the labor arbitrage advantage offshoring offers through automation. Goldenberg discovered that using an automated process that includes digital document management, web-based invoice routing and approval, and electronic payments to vendors and employees could offer cost advantages. Significant time could be saved, cutting bill payment tasks from days to hours while leaving total control of the process with the client.

The system, in effect, is similar to payroll outsourcing. At one time, vendor-administered payroll was available mostly to large employers. Now, companies of all sizes outsource payroll to third parties because of the availability of hosted payroll solutions that are easier to use, faster, safer, and less costly than an internal payroll department.

An on-demand outsourcing accounts payable service provides many of the same benefits to organizations of all sizes. For smaller buyers, being able to focus their resources on core business activities means being able to compete effectively and grow.

Through IntelAccount, the accounts payable process is accomplished with the click of a mouse button. Security is improved because there is no more routing paper around the office or to other locations; no printing, signing, or mailing checks. Most importantly, the filing and storing of paper documents are eliminated.

All of Goldenberg’s Huntington Learning Center franchises now process and digitally store all payable documents. Scanned and entered daily, document images are made accessible 24/7 through a private, secure web interface. The web site also consolidates accounts payable information for all the centers, standardizing record storage so there are no more lost documents, and older documents can be retrieved in seconds by any authorized user. What was a large drain of valuable time became a non-issue.

“Payables took too much of my time,” Goldenberg explained. “I now have more time to focus on my centers. IntelAccount processes my invoices and pays my vendors for a lot less than the cost of a bookkeeper. And the fact that my company is ‘greener’ by using less paper just sweetens the deal.”

David Crane is the CEO of IntelAccount.