Organizations need a strong accounting team to run successfully. Regardless of the size of your accounting department, having an efficient process and streamlined workflow is necessary for the overall effectiveness and success of your business.
Many organizations still fully rely on paper invoices and manual processes, which directly and negatively impact accounts payable operations, costing companies money, impacting vendor and customer relations, and making it difficult for companies to organize cash flow.
A successful AP Automation transformation is comprised of many pieces that work together to promote efficiency, transparency, and less frustration.
A successful AP solution likely includes the following:
Document management
Document Management allows you to scan, file, and access your documents from one central system. It creates a fully paperless office and files can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, from any device.
Optical Character Recognition
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) takes data that is traditionally manually keyed-in, sorted, and matched to the purchase order and automatically classifies and sorts it.
Integration with your ERP
You likely already have an ERP that your organization relies on, so by implementing a solution that works WITH your ERP rather than separate from it, you create an even more streamlined process.
Workflows
Building workflows can help you find the gaps within your process that need fixing, and allow you to fix them quickly without missing a beat.
10 Signs that AP Automation is right for you
You process 500 or more invoices per month
If your organization is facing a heavy workload of invoices, it can be difficult for your team to keep up. Keeping track of hundreds (or thousands) of invoices is no easy task, which is exactly what AP Automation is designed to help with.
You have to outsource your AP
If you have so much AP work to complete that you have to outsource it to a third party company, it’s a clear sign that you can benefit from AP Automation. Automation is far more cost effective than outsourcing, and allows you to manage your invoices in-house.
You're missing out on early payment discounts
The flip side to avoiding late payment penalties is getting early payment discounts. These financial incentives can serve as a nice boost for your organization and can help you invest in new tools and technology to further better your business.
You're running into errors from manual data entry
By relying on your employees to complete repetitive tasks like data entry, you’re likely to run into error. As part of an AP Automation solution, you can utilize artificial intelligence to extract data and push it into your ERP, without any errors.
There is lack of visibility of cash flow in your processes
Knowledge is power, and if you aren’t sure exactly what the financial wellness of your business is it can be detrimental. With transparent processes and visible workflows, you can fully understand your organizations cash flow and determine exactly where the gaps are.
You have more than 2 full-time AP clerks
Even if you have a larger team of the best and smartest AP clerks, they can quickly become buried by invoices and processing. Relieve them of some of the more tiresome parts of their role (like manually entering and re-entering the same information over and over) by investing in a smart AP solution.
You consistently get late payment penalties
Late penalties that stem from AP clerks spending weeks processing an invoice is easily avoidable and can save your organization a lot of money that can be used for more important things.
You're processing invoices in more than one location
While your main offices may have one mailing address, you could have employees in multiple locations who all need access to invoices and other documents. By investing in AP Automation your employees can easily access those documents no matter where they’re working.
You regularly misplace invoices and other documents
Paper is hard to keep track of, and over the years you’ve likely found yourself tearing your office apart searching for one specific invoice. Storing your documents in a secure, accessible digital system means no more piles of paper to dig through and no more missing documents.
It takes longer than 4 days or more than $3 to process an invoice
Put simply, if you’re spending too much time or money processing each invoice, you’re setting your organization and employees up for stress and frustration. Ap Automation can make processing an invoice faster and less expensive, without error.
Ready to implement AP Automation?
If a few (or all) of these resonated with you, it’s a clear sign that your organization is ready for AP Automation. Implementing complete transformation on your own can be a nearly impossible task, but fortunately PiF is here to help.
We have a team of experts from sales, to implementation, to support, who can make the process easier. Kick start your transformation by scheduling a call with us, we’ll learn more about your exact needs and build a solution that can solve all of your pain points.
