Invoice reception, review, approval, record and payment processing – the five-step Accounts Payable is not at all as simple as it seems. Every step is laden with multiple problems that only get complex as the volume of invoices increase.
An invoice that enters a disorganized and cluttered manual AP process will more often get delayed and worse may even be lost its way leading to payment delays, double payments, wrong and missed payments. However, a business can choose to bypass all these problems by streamlining and organizing their AP process with automation. And in this blog, you will get to know-how.
With the inputs of our Accounts Payable team at our Back Office Accountants here we are going to help you understand how automation can level up your AP process. Read on:
1. No more lost invoices with e-invoices in automation: The duplicate payment was a major problem faced by one of the clients before outsourcing Accounts Payable to our AP team at Back Office Accountants. And the reason? Lost invoices.
Given their industry, the client receives a bucket load of invoices every month from multiple channels – e-mails, PDFs, faxes, JPGs, PNGs and even physically mailed paper invoices. The invoices that entered their disorganized AP process rarely had a safe passage and many invoices are lost but not found. However payments did happen in their name but they were not exactly processed to correct destinations – duplicate payments.
So the first step our Accounts Payable team has taken to spruce up their AP and solve the immediate problem of the lost invoice is to quickly shift our client to e-invoicing. By working with the clients and vendors (a long and tedious process) we have successfully implemented the e-invoicing which cleared up the paper clutter they were used to, and more importantly they never had to deal with lost invoices and duplicate payments.
So if you are a business is no stranger to cluttered and disorganized AP process then e-invoicing as the first step for automation will be a great initiative.
2. Automation de-clutters and organizes the AP process: E-invoicing is only the first step in organizing an AP process; the core lies in streamlining the process with accelerating the workflow with seamless approvals.
While manual processing in itself is a time-consuming process (the reason why the payment timelines are long), the AP requires coordination of versatile teams across the enterprise which results in stretched timelines at best, bottlenecks and chaos at worst. An automated AP system paves an expressway by enabling seamless yet diligent approval and verification by involving key stakeholders with an easy-to-complete workflow.
Having a streamlined and accelerated AP workflow is how our Accounts Payable experts at Back Office Accountants accrue early bird discounts and it suffices to say we have never encountered a penalty or late payment as a provider of outsourced Accounts Payable Services.
3. Accurate and faster invoice data entry: Inaccurate data entry has always plagued Accounts Payable. For that matter, no other field suffers as frequent injuries as accounting due to error-prone data entry. While mistakes are common, the data entry mistakes are more common in Accounts Payable especially when the quality of incoming invoices is low and their volume is high.
According to research, it is found that at least 12.5% of the invoices require reworking in one form or other. Don’t let the seemingly small number deceive you, 12.5% is the number that arrived after the verification process. And it has a huge direct impact when it comes to invoice and payment processing, costing additional, effort, time, and even money to correct them even after taking huge processing time.
An automated Accounts Payable process makes use of OCR which automatically captures the invoice data out of printed invoice sheets to load accurate data (even better with e-invoicing). With the versatile of OCR systems in the market, the whole data entry can be accurately automated for processing. This collected data is gained used for analysis b your Accounts Payable team at Back Office Accountants in case of future audits.
4. Save money in every transaction: Automation cuts down the time taken by every step in AP workflow when processing an invoice. Less time spent on invoice processing reduces the burden frees up your resources. Having a streamlined AP process also reduces the risk of late payment penalties. However, the biggest benefit of automation in terms of money comes in the form of reduced financial discrepancies.
5. Automation Prevent financial fraud in AP with automation: By far, Accounts Payable is one of the most commonly affected accounting processes when it comes to financial fraud. When a manual AP process is cluttered and is organized, every step in the workflow can be leveraged by fraudsters to dupe a business. Automation brings complete visibility, transparency and enables easy audits fortifying the Accounts Payable and preventing potential financial discrepancies.
Outsourcing Accounts Payable Automation & Back Office Accountants:
Accounts Payable automation, reduces time spent in invoice processing, simplifies the approval process, automates complex coding, declutters and accelerates complex AP processes and prevents AP fraud and guard yours against financial discrepancies. So it’s high time every business adopt automation to make your AP seamless, profitable and high-performing.
But if you are a small and medium business that is not entirely equipped with enough expertise or resources then automating Accounts Payable can be a tough task to accomplish sometimes not practical too.
However, you can leverage all the benefits of Accounts Payable automation by simply outsourcing Accounts Payable to expert remote accounting firms like Back Office Accountants. With a team of dedicated Accounts Payable experts powered by advanced automation tools and processes, we cater to all types of Accounts Payable outsourcing requirements for businesses across all domains. You can contact us here: https://www.backofficeaccountants.com/
