The global impact of COVID-19 has slowly pushed the business world into financial uncertainty. The disruption in the global supply chain has posed a critical financial challenge to the businesses by impeding the overall cash flow, which is crucial for business survival during this global crisis. As governments around the world are pushing for further public health measures to curtail the virus spread, it has fallen entirely upon businesses to revive their operations by ensuring smooth cash flow.
And yet the majority of the businesses have relegated their Accounts Payable to manual processes which now prove to be inefficient in optimizing the cash flow when they need it the most. However as the businesses began to slowly embrace the remote working models, this is the best time to finally automate the Accounts Payable Process with Remote Accounts Payable teams.
If you are a business owner looking to leverage the power of Remote Accounts Payable Process to optimize your cash flow during COVID-19, then this article is for you. In this blog article, we discuss the impact of COVID-19 on Accounts Payable Process and how businesses can smartly leverage the Remote Accounts Payable Process to optimize cash flow and improve their overall financial health. So read on:
Importance of Accounts Payable Process:
Accounts Payable process and its management are crucial for the smooth and efficient functioning of any business entity. An organized Accounts Payable process streamlines the payment of bills to ensure a smooth flow of supplies and services from vendors without fail. It tracks all the incoming invoices and strategically makes use of bill payment timelines to optimize the cash flow as per requirements, while avoiding the incidence of fraud and theft. However, many business entities still adhere to manual tracking, editing, and processing and storing invoices, which is a tad slow and inefficient.
Impact of COVID-19 on Accounts Payable Process:
The global disruption of the supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a spanner into the Accounts Payable Process of every business. The risk of financial uncertainty posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the massive fluctuation of the transactions, invoices and has altered the payment timelines as suppliers’ today request for early or timely payments. In addition to that, the global lockdown meant stalled operations in countries resulting in delayed invoice scanning and other documentations, further delaying payments to the suppliers.
Especially the businesses adhering to Manual Accounts Payable Processes where the invoices are sent, processed, and approved manually with signatures have severely copped the blows during this ongoing pandemic. Businesses that solely relied on receiving invoices and sending respective checks through the mail are hit by global lockdowns as they couldn’t send or receive the documentation on time and the ones which got through ended up at closed offices. As the invoices are delayed, they do not make it to the books rendering the cash forecasts false and incorrect. Though businesses today experience similar problems with Accounts Receivable, they must process and pay their suppliers. Delay in payments could harm the reputation of the business and deter the relationship of supplier-enterprise too.
All the above problems caused due to the ongoing pandemic have created severe bottlenecks on payment procedures resulting in unpredictable cash flows and incorrect priorities for AP teams.
A COVID-19: A Wake-up Call for Business to Leverage Remote Accounts Payable Services
Raising to the challenge posed by this global crisis, businesses around the world were quick to adopt remote working models to keep their business cycle running. As businesses are gradually getting back to normalcy, this is the right time to improve the cash flow management and stabilize their finances by digitizing their backend financial operations and leveraging Remote Accounts Payable Services. And automating the Accounts Payable Process is the first step any business entity can take to get started with Remote Accounts Payable Services.
Automation of the Accounts Payable Process:
Automation of the Accounts Payable Process is all about making a simple, accurate, and efficient paperless process that enables AP teams to effectively carry out all the Accounts Payable functions from remote work locations.
That said, automating your Accounts Payable Process can only help your business if you have a solid strategy to prevent cash leakages and mitigate payment risks during these testing times. At Back Office Accountants our expert of team of accounting specialists offer Remote Accounts Payable Services to small & medium businesses where we not only help business entities with automation of Accounts Payable Process but also device a perfect Accounts Payable strategy that can help them optimize their cash flow, improve financial health while strengthening the supplier-enterprise relations.
So are you a business entity looking to leverage Remote Accounts Payable Services? Then you can contact us here: Backofficeaccountants.com
