Ariba, a provider of collaborative business commerce offerings, has unveiled PO-Flip service functionality in its Invoice Management offering that enables companies to match and process invoices more quickly and efficiently.

The company said that its Invoice Management delivered as part of Commerce Cloud, arms companies with the tools necessary to drive an automated, error-free invoice matching process, leading to faster approvals and payments.

Invoice Management provides capabilities required for buyers and sellers to develop and execute an electronic invoicing process, including: applications to drive a paperless invoice process – delivered as cloud-based services; global trading community Network, with more than 300,000 buyers and suppliers and Exchange, an online community of for sharing insights and practices.

In addition, the new offering also includes capabilities to fuel more efficient and effective global invoicing, including smart invoice validation against more than 60 business rules; VAT and global compliance; account coding; 2-, 3-, and 4-way matching; routing and approval; reporting and analytics; and invoice processing via a supplier portal, EDI, cXML, CSV, and paper conversion services.

Ariba claimed that Invoice Management enables buyers and sellers to: collaborate more effectively via the Network; reduce operating costs by 70%, enable 98% touchless processing; eliminate exceptions and simplify dispute resolution; speed straight through processing rates; support global e-invoice operations in more than 70 currencies; and improve cash flow management.

Leveraging the PO-Flip service functionality in Invoice Management, companies can automatically convert electronic purchase orders into electronic invoices that are error free and an exact match to the purchase orders.

Joe Fox, senior director of financial and network solutions at Ariba, said: "Companies spend inordinate amounts of time and effort processing paper invoices, matching them with contracts and tracking purchase orders, yet they can still see only so far into invoice processes, leaving them exposed to risks such as overlooked billing discrepancies, missed discounts and overpayments.

"Ariba Invoice Management is designed to help companies eliminate these risks and deliver the perfect payable."