While utilizing a manual approach to accounts payable process is the traditional method, it can lead to expensive human errors and extend the timeframe for payment posting success. Making a shift to AP automation can increase accuracy as well as speed, and free up staff hours for other, more pressing tasks.
Ways AP Automation can accelerate your company’s growth
Accounts payable is one of the most resource-intensive corporate activities, and also one of the most critical. By automating and streamlining AP processes, you can improve accuracy and accelerate your company’s growth.
Enhance efficiency
When your accounts payable division is supported by automation, efficiency and overall management productivity increases. Manual processes are largely eliminated, leading to faster time to invoice approval and faster time to payment for vendors and suppliers. This also enhances relationships with established partners.
Increase accuracy
By eliminating manual processes, the chances of human error can be significantly reduced, from misplaced invoices to duplicate payments. Minimizing such errors removes the need to expend time and effort to rectify them.
Maximize cost savings
Using automation improves the precision of the accounts payable process, while significantly reducing the amounts of hands on attention required. Both lead to considerable cost savings. Automation can potentially reduce the cost of individual invoice processes by as much as half.
Enhance compliance
By implementing end-to-end automation, your company can keep their accounts payable processes in compliance with current industry standards and regulations and avoid hefty non-compliance penalties.
Improve security
If your organization’s accounts payable automation technology is supported by robust, modern security defenses, your accounting department as a whole is more secure and payments can reach each intended recipient with confidence.
With SignUp Software’s ExFlow product and SK Global’s Banking & Treasury Automation Suite integrated directly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, both your AP staff and your IT team reap the benefits:
- All invoices are checked automatically, both against industry compliance regulations and internal company approver rules.
- Every invoice is additionally matched against initial purchase data and order forms through accounts payable automation, for heightened accuracy.
- The accounts payable process delivers end-to-end visibility, delivering granular control for stakeholders.
- Mobile accessibility and overall security are supported while the need for user training is minimized thanks to a familiar interface.
- Complex and time-consuming system integrations and configurations become a thing of the past with fully streamlined deployment.
Why an automated accounts payable solution is going to be vital in 2022
Financial regulatory bodies and data privacy laws are intersecting even more deeply than ever before. Being able to deliver the level of security and accuracy expected by consumers and required by legislation is a top-of-mind issue.
Additionally, a distributed workforce and complete upheaval of the financial services landscape due to the pandemic has changed how people interact with accounts payable departments overall. Being able to streamline your AP department can increase trust and loyalty and support a reputation for financial and operational stability.
Automation is a critical part of the way forward for all businesses that need to manage payments, whether for contractors, vendors, or suppliers. The ExFlow Process can transform your back-office and provide you with a reliable, fast, and effective method for handling all accounts payable tasks.
ExFlow works to automate AP functions before a payment takes place. The following five steps are specific to the ExFlow process:
- Each paper invoice must be scanned and added to the digital workflow. All files are then imported into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations platform.
- For each company, ExFlow analyzes the predetermined approver rules, taking into account the supplier and accounts as well as standards like dimensions and amount limits. ExFlow then proposes a specific approval flow and sends an automated email to the first approver.
- Accounts payable staff can view all invoices from historical documents to ones pending approval, and glean insights as needed via ExFlow.
- Approvers receive automated emails from ExFlow to notify them of outstanding invoices. Approval paths can be changed or amended at any time directly by approvers.
- Finally, if an approver needs to view an invoice code or any older invoice documents, they can access the ExFlow historic approval data without accounting apartment intervention.
At the end of the ExFlow automated approval process, the Banking & Treasury Automation Suite seamlessly manages handling of the actual payment through SK Global’s industry-leading, secure payment portal, ensuring that correct amounts are matched with the right recipients and the most efficient payment path available is used for speedy completion.
Together, SK Global Software and SignUp Software have created true, end-to-end accounts payable automation, through ExFlow embedded in SKG’s solution and integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365. ReadSoft OCR makes it easy to add unfamiliar invoices to digital workflows, and the result is a fully automated AP solution designed to scale as you grow.
For more information, schedule a free demo today!