Saving time and money are the objectives of companies that automate the processing of their supplier accounts. As with all Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, accounts payable automation offers many benefits. By implementing this, you can easily manage relationships with your suppliers, customers, and more by reducing the amount of manual tasks of your staff.
This guide will delve more into the benefits of implementing an accounts payable automation solution for your business, so let’s not waste any more time.
What Is Accounts Payable Automation?
Accounts payable automation software starts by scanning all your paper documents and invoices to capture all the important information and then cross-references them to ensure they are error-free. If there are any issues such as duplicate invoices or other issues, the affected party will be notified and directed to contact the appropriate team members to correct them. Ultimately, all of this information will be integrated into your software, converted into a searchable digitized format, and stored in one place. This process simplifies tracking and finding information when needed.
How Does Account Payable Automation Streamline The Manual Process?
Manual data entry is one of the most time-consuming tasks that the accounts payable department must complete. Automation can accomplish this task by simplifying manual processes and also provides the following benefits:
- Reduction In The Number Of Duplicate Payments: Manual entry of supplier account data can result in duplicate payments whose amounts can be particularly high. For example, if a member of staff enters twice, by mistake and without realizing it, the payment of an amount of €50,000 intended for a supplier, your net profit will then be seriously reduced. These errors, although occasional, can quickly add up and weigh heavily on your cash flow.
- Reduced Human Errors During Data Entry: automating the accounts payable process can significantly reduce or even eliminate any human errors during data entry. To achieve this, it relies on the digitalization, grouping, and automatic processing of invoices, which improve the level of control and minimize the human element linked to data entry. As mentioned above, automation generally helps eliminate issues such as late payments, omissions, and duplicate payments.
- Reducing The Number Of Paper Documents: Printing and storing them can not only be costly, but they make it significantly more difficult to find and track invoices when needed. However, accounts payable automation makes it possible to digitize all supplier invoices and contact details. It also facilitates their storage within the same structure.
- Automation Of Approval Processes: Excluding most human intervention in the approval process is one of the main benefits of accounts payable automation. You can schedule payments and automate approvals to save managers and administrators the hassle of manually reviewing paper invoices, saving them significant time and reducing human errors.
Part of managing an accounts payable department effectively is the importance of maintaining close relationships with suppliers. Automating the accounts payable process offers many benefits, including reduced penalties for late payments. Penalties and fees for late payment can indeed accumulate over the months. With the time saved upfront, you will avoid unnecessary penalties.
How Do Automation Tools Help To Save Money?
As briefly mentioned above, automation tools allow you to simplify tasks and improve processes. However, they also offer many measures to reduce costs. Not only will you be able to reduce your labor costs by eliminating time-consuming manual tasks, but you will also reduce your invoice processing costs because your team members will no longer have to track, analyze, and enter invoices. Automation tools capture all the important information to digitize it and automatically process invoices without any human intervention.
- Lower Labor Costs Due To The Elimination Of Manual Tasks: Labor represents a large portion of invoice processing costs. Fearing the consequences of a recession, companies are looking to save money by turning to automation. Using accounts payable software, you can reduce manual invoice processing by up to 85% by eliminating data entry, reviewing, searching, and storing invoices.
- Reduced Invoice Processing Costs: By reducing numerous manual tasks and eliminating data entry errors, accounts payable departments can significantly reduce the cost per invoice, as well as the time spent performing other invoice processing activities. For example, accounts payable teams can spend less time managing vendor disputes and instead focus on processing more invoices in less time.
In addition to integrating with your accounts payable systems, this type of software can also benefit your finance team by integrating with your ERP. With this integration, automation becomes complete.
Role Of The Finance Team In Adopting Accounts Payable Automation Solutions
When it comes to implementing Invoice automation solutions, your finance team is going to play a central role and will need to take into account some important considerations. They must always ensure:
- Fight against tax fraud within your company
- Monitor late payments and internal controls
- Issue purchase orders
- Follow up with suppliers
- Simplify approval workflows
- Respect payment cycles by agreements concluded with suppliers
Conclusion
Accounts payable automation offers many benefits for businesses. It simplifies processes to eliminate human error, reduce duplicate payments, reduce paper document management, and approve invoices faster. Simplifying these processes improves relations with suppliers by speeding up and enhancing fluidity. It also helps reduce costs, not only in terms of labor but also in terms of fees and penalties for late payment. Therefore, if you are looking for the best AI/ML technology to Automate your workflows, you should contact MINDFUL AUTOMATIONS. We address your organization’s challenges effectively, streamlining monotonous processes, reducing repetitive tasks, improving reporting accuracy, addressing operational inefficiencies, etc.