Over the last decade, automating the accounts payable process has been found to significantly improve the financial operations of any business.In addition to streamlining processes and eliminating paper, automation provides numerous benefits to your organization. In today's blog, we'll examine three things you didn't know about AP automation. Let's get to it!
#1: AP Automation is More than Just Document Management
With document management, companies use software to store, manage, and track electronic documents captured through the utilization of a document scanner. Document management takes paper out of the equation, but not the time-intensive tasks associated with it.
AP automation, on the other hand, eliminates tedious tasks like opening the mail, manual data entry, and filing stacks of paper. By applying true automation to the AP and payment process, you’re eliminating paper invoices and checks altogether and creating new time for more meaningful tasks.
#2: More Control and Increased Fraud Protection
When it comes to paper, AP professionals believe they have more control. “At least with the paper I have it in my hands – I know it’s there,” they say. This is, of course, misleading. With paper, you don’t have the ability to put a series of checks and balances on it. With automation, you can add additional approvals to the process with ease and create fraud monitoring reports that check for duplicate invoices. Our software tracks who enters the invoice, who approves it, and who batches it to the accounting system – and it can’t be the same person for each task.
#3: You Can Reduce Processing Costs by 60%
Companies can reduce their AP and payment processing costs up to 60% with automation, eliminating all of the manual tasks associated with paper invoices and checks in the process. By automating the accounts payable process, companies can track invoices electronically, streamline workflows, and have a central repository for invoice data that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.