Accounts Payables Automation: The Key benefits

by | Jun 9, 2017 | Accounts payable, Expert Tips

Did you know that the mere process of automating your own internal accounts payables (Accounts Payables Automation) has proven most reliable and in addition, provided greater view of all processes for both the controller and the administrative staff?

In turn, the traditional paper based treatment of the AP process renders a longer cycle of financial costing in terms of effort and time. Needless to say, there is also the inevitability of added management of data entry errors.

Process Automation, specifically Accounts Payable Automation, is the most common process which eliminates paper, reduces time, effort and cost.

Additionally, automation provides many other benefits such as eliminating errors and provides controls for management with a clearer view into the process.

Today, we live in times where a business can better leverage its processes by the improved use of technologies and communications. It has come to such a point that it now plays a vital and central role in a company’s life.

There are payable automation solutions that allow for improved productivity and enhances the internal control by the management. In fact, AP Automation has been the leading process that many companies start with on their journey towards more automation.

Does your own business’s AP process and workflow reflect these new improvements?

If not, this may be an opportunity to begin reviewing an improved AP process with an initial focus on invoices from suppliers. Today’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies provide a very high degree of precision and performance.

OCR captures and extracts supplier invoice information with impeccable speed and accuracy and is not template based per supplier.

Traditionally, manual data entry functions and paper archiving have always been considered high as operational cost functions. The notion of automating payments and payment controls’ related tasks could allow a company to redirect its strategic initiatives in terms of resource management based on the approval process.

Here are some key benefits that accounts payable automation offers:

Accounts Payables automation: time savings and productivity gains

By executing a functional analysis of the documents routing and flow (email, Fax, mail) within the company’s processes all approver combined up to final payment, will allow the organization to significantly reduce the steps and optimize the workflow process.
This audit of the current manual AP process from the reception of all invoices (paper, email, or fax), including workflow of all approvers, will highlight the areas were automation can provide many benefits.

Your vendors’ files improved processing is also a key for success when you want to automate your AP department.  You can save a lot of time in discussion with your suppliers by using the emails exchange within your electronic solution. The financial benefits will be clear as the overall reduced efforts will be apparent with automation.

This reduced time of processing invoices correspond directly to the costs savings related to the financial savings of supplier invoices processed. Our solutions minimize human intervention. This in turn contributes to a reduction in account payable staff thereby freeing them up for more important and greater value-added tasks

Real time access to information regardless of where you are

Our workflow and automation solutions permit the connection and allows for access to any information regardless where you find yourself. All that is required is Internet or mobile access.

As a result, one can evaluate and approve vendor invoices anywhere.

In contrast, traditional business management practices required that the assessment and analysis be performed at the office

Expense Account management

Our solutions also allow to leverage its capabilities by simplifying and optimizing the reimbursement of employee expense accounts for everyone involved. The AP automation capabilities by mobile capture facilitate the remittance of the employees’ appropriate receipts and bills of expenses in a simplified process.

The proposed travel & expenses (T&E) solution will make it easier to approve and provide a quicker repayment to the employee.

Obviously, this will bring about a substantial reduction in the processing of expense claims costs and additionally allow for a more stringent compliance of company policies

Removal of data entry errors

Manual data entry errors have been well known to contribute to the increase of operating costs for processing accounts payable. The INTEGRIM automation solutions with 4 levels of filter can eliminate those errors and insure a better integrity of your data in your ERP or financial system.

Your organization will also improve and increase the rate of quality control of the extracted data into your supplier invoices. It is therefore safe to say that automation gives the manager the ability to quickly ascertain and identify potential problems and patterns which will also minimize and reduce errors.

The elimination of duplicate invoices, incorrect amounts, Purchase Order mismatching and vendor ID confirmation all assist in minimizing those errors and reduces costs.

Cost savings on late fees and the ability to take advantage of financial earnings on early payment discounts

 The manual aspect of managing and processing accounts payables for your enterprise or organization may from time to time produce late payments. This in turn generates late fees’ costs. These additional costs become part of the total costs incurred for the processing of accounts payable.

By using an electronic AP solution with data capture, the organization can therefore properly plan for an improved schedule of these forecasted payments. As such, many opportunities will arise to fully benefit from early discount payment periods.

Needless to say, such cost reductions also influence positively cash flow management and liquidities

Conclusion

Business document automation allows a company to save time, free up resources to redirect their tasks and efforts towards higher value output, optimize its costs hence fully leveraging the possibilities for growth and profitability.

For this to be possible, a thorough analysis and an audit need to be performed to assess the current state and recommendations of an ideal future towards automation state. This integrative type of approach is necessary to ensure maximum ROI for its manager and stakeholders.

Integrim is the Canadian leader in Automation solutions. They offer its business management clients a complete suite of automation solutions and services, related to processing paper or electronic documents thereby reducing costs, eliminate paperwork and improve staff efficiency, regardless of the type of document or the activity sector.