An inefficient business is one that risks losing out to their competitors, especially in the increasingly competitive current environment. Making sure that your business is maximizing efficiency is a key step to improving your chances at sustainable growth and expansion.
Part of the approach to improving efficiency within a business lies in streamlining operations, cutting costs, and strengthening productivity. One tool that can help with all those goals is accounts payable automation, which has the potential to dramatically turn around the way your company handles its entire invoicing process.
So, read on to explore just how accounts payable automation can help your business achieve its efficiency goals.
Understanding the application of accounts payable automation
Before we can dive into the specifics of how accounts payable automation benefits businesses, we should first set out what it is. In short, accounts payable automation is a software solution that has the capacity to digitize and automate the entire accounts payable and invoicing process.
This removes the need for manual input throughout the process, saving finance teams the need to engage in manual data entry and other time-consuming invoicing tasks. A dedicated accounts payable automation solution can capture, process, and track invoices with minimal need for human intervention, minus the standard oversight.
The efficiency benefits of accounts payable automation
It goes without saying that incorporating automation into the accounts payable process has the potential to improve efficiency.
Removing the need for human input throughout the invoicing process naturally results in greater efficiency, as it cuts down on the time it takes to process any given invoice.
The traditional invoicing process is well-known for its nature as something of a time-sink, with staff having to invest significant amounts of time on each stage of the process – from generating invoices to inputting data into the system, approving payments, and chasing up invoice approvals.
By cutting down on the manpower required to achieve all these elements of the process, accounts payable automation frees up staff to focus on other, more value-adding tasks. Effectively, with a business that implements accounts payable automation, the same amount of time gets you double the work.
Not only does this create greater efficiency, but incorporating automation in a supportive role for your finance team should lead to an improvement in productivity. While the accounts payable automation software completes the tasks previously handled by staff, the team can get on with additional work that they would not have otherwise had the time for.
Improving accuracy with accounts payable automation
Removing the need for manual data entry has the additional benefit of improving overall accuracy within the invoicing process.
It is an unavoidable reality that manual data entry is prone to errors and typos, which have the potential to negatively impact the entire business if they are not caught promptly.
From duplicate payments to missed deadlines, there are many reasons to try and reduce inaccuracies for any business. As accounts payable automation takes away the need for manual data entry – capturing and processing invoices without any manual input – this naturally cuts down on the risk of human error.
Properly integrated accounts payable automation solutions can also validate invoices against other data, making it easier to catch any potential discrepancies that have slipped through the net. The ability to integrate with other backend systems – such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) – also allows data to flow between them without the need to copy anything across manually.
By now, the efficiency, productivity, and accuracy benefits of implementing accounts payable automation should be clear. For businesses who want to maximize their potential the improvements possible with automation support cannot be ignored.
