Your Accounts Payable Knowledge Center

Accounts payable automation offers a number of benefits to organizations. Some of the key benefits include:

Accounts payable automation is the use of technology to streamline and automate accounts payable processes, including invoice processing, payments, and vendor management. The goal of accounts payable automation is to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase accuracy in accounts payable processes.

For many years, the people in Accounts Payable have had to work long hours to make sure everything is paid on time. This often meant either staying late at the office or carrying boxes of paper home with you. With cloud-based Accounts Payable Automation, you can now work from anywhere.

Well, actually, you can use emails for invoice approvals.  The ESIGN Act outlines that electronic approvals are legal.  But that is not the real issue with using emails.

We still hear people worried about using an electronic process for approving invoices for payment.  One of their greatest concerns is keeping paper copies of the invoices.  Someone has told them that it is a legal requirement.  We have even seen people print invoices that were sent to them electronically just to have a paper record.  We have some good news for you.  We are going to let you in on a big secret. Electronic records, approvals, and signatures are legal and have been for over 20 years. 

We still hear people worried about using an electronic process for approving invoices for payment.  Below are a few of them.

Seems like a simple question.  Why would you want to give your money to your vendors faster? Shouldn’t you hold on to your money as long as possible?  Well, it depends. Each situation is unique, but here are a few reasons why:

When people hear “Accounts Payable Automation” they think jobs will be eliminated.  They think that there is no need for an AP team, since everything will be automatic, or they can cut the team AP in half because there is very little else to do.  We have not seen this to be true for small to medium sized businesses.  There are many factors that contribute to this.  We have outlined a few of them below.

Accounts Payable (AP) departments are increasingly expected to drive savings and contribute to an organization’s bottom line by avoiding penalties, capturing discounts, and lowering labor costs.

The most effective method for an AP department to accomplish this is through an automated accounts payable process. However, the average AP department typically uses an ineffective manual process with little to no automation.

The difference between the two in terms of cost reduction and profitability can be staggering.