How can you Automate Your Accounts Payable (AP) Processes?
Manual accounts payable (AP) processing is time-consuming. If you are looking to increase the efficiency of your AP team, and you are looking to expedite the AP process without sacrificing quality and accuracy. Accounts payable automation is often the most effective solution.
In this blog :
How can accounts payable automation improve your AP processes?
Accounts payable software automates invoice processing with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and cloud-based processing. It simplifies data entry, price matching, and purchase order management.
By investing in the right solution, you can streamline your workflow, save time, and deploy your resources towards more profitable areas that will help you grow your business, such as building customer relationships and acquiring new clients. Here are just some of the many features offered by the best AP software these days:
1) Invoice verification
The manual verification of invoices is incredibly time-consuming, especially when your AP team has to conduct three-way matching.
You can use accounts payable software programs to verify invoices automatically, cutting down a five-minute task to just 20 seconds. In addition, this software processes invoices 24/7, saving up to 77 hours of manual work every week (if you receive 1,000 invoices in a week).
2) Electronic invoice archiving
Invoices have been stored as physical documents in binders, file cabinets, or off-site storage facilities, making locating and retrieving data a painstaking task that’s prone to costly errors.
Accounts payable automation software allows you to archive data electronically through the cloud. This way, authorized users can access the information they need anytime, anywhere.
3) Fraud detection
False and duplicate invoices are a prevalent problem in any industry, and companies that rely on manual processes are most vulnerable to these schemes. Accounts payable software can quickly identify duplicate invoices according to the invoice number, date, and vendor name, minimizing the risk of fraud. In addition, these programs prevent internal data breaches by enhancing transparency.
4) Centralized communications
Manually processing a single invoice usually involves several people, including your AP professionals, purchase requesters, approvers, and vendors. Information can get lost along the way when communication happens via emails and phone calls.
Accounts payable automation will help you centralize all communications in a single hub, giving you a real-time overview of data for proper decision-making!