Progressing with automation: scale accounts payable for business growth

finance department meeting

When development plans are drawn up for any business, accounts payable is not always on the top of the list for areas needing the spotlight. It is a mistake, as accounts payable is a crucial business function in maintaining internal processes flowing with ease and ensuring that your vendors are paid on time every time. With good technology in place, you may even realize that ineffective AP processes that were not given attention for years are actually holding back your business from evolving.

Accounts Payable Hurdles in Business Growth

In a developing organization, there is a long list of hurdles for an under-automated accounts payable team. Manual AP methods produce multiple errors like late, failed, and duplicate payments which take too long to resolve, and there is very little to no insight into the process from an optimization standpoint. At the time when late fees and interests start adding up, the accounts payable managers and their employees often shoulder the blame, when in reality, they are positioned to react to invoices as they come in instead of being able to concentrate on the complete process and cash management.

It is more like a person dealing with an illness if the symptoms fail to get better on its own a doctor is needed to get involved in interfering with prescribed medicine. Similarly, the symptoms of an outdated accounts payable process likely won’t heal on its own, and will cost the organization more if they are left unattended for a longer period.

How Digital Evolution of the Finance Team Will Aid to Scale AP

It is observed that over the past few decades, there has been a movement across the corporate world, especially in the finance department, introducing countless amounts of technology platforms that aspire in streamlining and automating accounts payable procedures and competencies which were historically performed by human beings. It ignited a cultural shift in companies that continuously forced organizations to challenge the status quo to search for ways to enhance and acquire competitive benefits.

In AP, there was a particularly sizable opportunity for enhancement upon the present state of operations. Accounts payable automation began before several other teams, especially with EDI transfer of data, yet there was still big gaps ineffectiveness which EDI was unable to manage. Capturing data and electronic invoicing was one of the initial technologies to disturb the age-old process on paper-handling in accounts payable. Invoices could be easily scanned, matched, and approved in a web-friendly app.

There has been an incredible acceleration of the digital transformation of accounts payable with the growth in process analytics and big data. Automation of AP is no more about enhancing effectiveness, but AP automation transforms accounts payable into strategic centers of corporate insights, directly supporting your organization’s cash management.

For developing business, automation technology is essential to scale AP methods and efficiently support corporate growth and overall success. Traditional and unproductive procedures are doomed to add expenses to the bottom line, slow down business growth, and risk your organization’s competitive position in the market.

Why it’s a Win for CFOs

In this present age of digital disturbance, the CFO has a complicated task of navigating through multiple technologies to make their business scale quickly and more strategically. Technology can act like as an accelerant for archaic methods, but CFOs need to select wisely which technology they must invest in to avoid project failure.

Automating accounts payable can fit the bill as a dependable investment. Accounts payable can do more with similar headcount, cutting paper process expenses, and freeing up valuable employee time to support financial control panel directly and overall corporate development.

Availability of powerful cloud-based accounts payable applications makes it simple to go live with new solutions without depending on the already over-taxed IT resources. Once the systems are up and running, CFOs can immediately access actionable insights, as dashboards are continuously updating with the latest data from the AP process and ERP solution.

Now the operations department has complete visibility over business performance to locate drawbacks in invoice processes and fix them accordingly, and also over their vendor network, locating opportunities for dynamic discounts and early payment terms. The vendors feel the impact of automated accounts payable method, with easy access to updates on invoice status along with dependable payment schedules.

First Scale Your Accounts Payable and Then Grow Your Business

If business growth is your plan for the upcoming future, it is necessary for your AP department to be in order now. This age of digital evolution of the financial process is upon us, and the companies that continue to oppose modernization will find themselves falling behind their competitors who embrace the opportunity for accelerating financial engines for businesses.

Very often, the organization aim at fixing all projects as a part of their business growth plan. A massive solution with a varied focus on multiple aspects of the business usually needs a long implementation project, heavy customization, and it doesn’t address ineffectiveness directly causing problems presently.

To Sum Up

The opportunity for setting up corporate developmental plans for success with accounts payable automation is too high to ignore. It is necessary to begin the process of acquiring visibility and control of AP and financial methods now, rather than later. Take the effort and time to educate your team members on the advantages and how it fits into your organization’s plans to scale.

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