General Electric was the largest company in the world in 1998. Despite their sophisticated accounting software, they still paid bills with paper checks. As a result, they had difficulty tracking their payments, which cost them hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

In 1999, GE implemented an automated scheduling and tracking process, replacing paper checks with electronic ACH payments. In its first year, this automated system saved them $1.8 billion and increased their total profits by 20 percent.

Paying bills with paper checks is labor intensive and cost prohibitive. In fact, the average cost to process and pay an invoice the old-fashioned way is over $12.62*. While it may be easy to pay for postage, paper and printing supplies, labor costs are generally high and hard to track.

This chart shows an average cost comparison based on labor cost of $0.30 per minute ($20/Hr).