By Jackie Flaten
On The Office, when Michael Scott’s boss asked him to fax something to NY headquarters, Michael responded: “Why not just send it over on a dinosaur?”
This exchange made me think of our cool client billFLO, whose mission it is to eliminate paper invoices and save business $30 billion a year in processing costs. When we first became acquainted with billFLO CEO Ian Sweeney, he of the charming Irish accent, we were genuinely surprised that the sum total of paper invoices sent on an annual basis between businesses is a forest-gobbling 20 BILLION.
Practically every other business office task is done electronically. But this essential operation is still handled for the most part via a nearly 2,000 year old conveyance, paper being invented in China by Cai Lun in 105 AD.
Ian and company co-founder Alec Kercso founded billFLO because they were surprised no one had tackled this problem in a way that would help any-sized business save money as well as reduce paper waste. The Media Owls can attest from first-hand experience: billFLO is very easy to set up and use.
From billFLO’s April 20 news announcement:
“…billFLO [is] the first low-cost, fully electronic invoicing network that enables small businesses to easily exchange invoices electronically. Each year nearly 20 billion paper invoices are exchanged between businesses at the price of nearly $30 billion in lost productivity. billFLO completely eliminates paper invoices by electronically connecting both the vendor and customer accounting systems.
“Vendors simply email computer-readable billFLO invoices to customers who, in turn, use billFLO to instantly import the electronic invoice into their accounting systems. A small business receiving 100 paper bills each month requires at least six hours or $400 for manual data entry to process the incoming paper invoices. billFLO, which can be downloaded for free from billFLO.com eliminates that expense. The average computer user can set billFLO up in five minutes, making it practical for any-sized business.”
Why send your dinosaur when you can save a tree, save time and save money by using billFLO?-jdf
Word Play 