HMRC Guidelines – Can Sage users scan their invoices?

29th Apr 2022

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One of the questions commonly asked by Sage users is if by implementing an invoice scanning software they are breaching any of HMRC Guidelines on Digital Record Keeping. It is therefore important to clarify HMRC position of how companies should keep their accounting records and if scanning invoices is something companies can do.

HMRC guidelines give a high level of freedom on how companies must keep their accounting records. For HMRC as long as companies keep their records complete, readable and easily accessible, invoices and other accounting documents can be stored in paper, digital format of as part of a software program.

For Sage users what HMRC Guidelines mean is that, yes, they can scan invoices into Sage without breaching any guidelines on Digital Record Keeping.

According to HMRC, what is then the best software to scan my invoices to Sage?

For obvious reasons HMRC does not recommend any specific supplier. What HMRC makes available on their website is a list of software providers that provide invoice scanning software solutions that help companies streamline invoices scanning processes. In case you would like to take a look at the list of digital record keeping software list on HMRC website click here.

If you are a Sage user and you are still wondering what is the best invoice scanning software to scan invoices into Sage, then we would like to invite you to take a look at PaperLess Invoice Scanning for Sage.

PaperLess is a Sage Addon Scanning Software that automatically scans and uploads invoices to Sage.

PaperLess Invoice Scanning is a Sage certified Invoice Scanning System that has a built-in OCR Software for Sage. This way, PaperLess can automatically capture all invoice data of the scanned invoices so that Sage users can reduce time spent on manual data.

PaperLess turns invoice scanning into fully automated process. With this Sage Addon Scanning Software, both transactions and invoices are automatically posted to Sage at the click of a button.

PaperLess Invoice Scanning Software – The best way to scan invoices to Sage

Automatically Scan Invoices to Sage
Automatic Upload of Invoices to Sage
Retrieve Invoices Directly from Within Sage
OCR Software Full Compatible with Sage

With what versions of Sage does PaperLess Invoice Scanning integrate with?

Automatic Invoice Scanning is available for Sage 50 Accounts, Sage 50cloud, Sage 200 Professional, Sage 200 Standard and Sage 200 Extra Online. Any company using one of these Sage products can implement this Sage Addon Scanning Software to automatically scan invoices into Sage.

How can Sage users scan invoices to Sage with PaperLess?

Scanning invoices to Sage with PaperLess is a simple and fully automated process. All Sage users need to do is to scan the invoices into PaperLess and run PaperLess Automatic Invoice Recognition for Sage.

Once invoice data capture for Sage finishes capturing the invoice data, Accounts Team just review it and post the transactions to Sage at the click of a button. On posting PaperLess automatically attaches the invoices to Sage.

What are the main advantages of automating invoice digitasation processes?

By digitising invoices Sage users can process much higher volumes of invoices without increase the Accounts Team headcount. Such would not be possible to achieve on a paper-based finance function where the manual labour is much more intensive, time-consuming and prone to errors.

When Sage user start scanning and digitising invoices they gain instant access to a significant set of invoice processing automation features. Such automation features, include Invoice Capture for Sage, Automatic Purchase Order Matching, Online Invoice Approval and Automatically Upload of Invoices to Sage.

Invoice scanning is then the first step Accounts Teams need to take to automate accounts payable processes. Only by digitising invoices is that Accounts Teams can automatically attach invoices to Sage, which not only saves a significant amount of time on archiving invoices but also make it much easier to find invoice.

Yes, with PaperLess Live Invoice Lookup from Sage finding invoices only takes a few seconds instead on the several minutes it would take to go through the paper invoice archive.

By ensuring that invoices can be retrieved in seconds, by digitising and attaching invoices to Sage, Sage users are then acting in line with HMRC guidelines which state that invoices should be easily accessible and readable.

Ensuring that invoices are kept accurate is also another one of the elements present on HMRC guidelines. Since paper invoices can be easily lost or damaged, by digiting their invoices Sage users avoid risking invoices getting defaced.

It is also important to mention that once Sage users implement a digital invoice record keep system, they can also easily backup all invoices and accounting data. Such further increases the security levels of their accounting records which would not be possible on a paper-based finance department.