Why are CFOs interested in Accounts Payable Automation, and how can it help your company?

As a CFO, you must strike a good balance between risk management, producing (business) value, and keeping expenses under control. A clear vision, strategy, and an appropriate financial function structure are critical.

Consider a system that covers invoice input, categorization, matching, and approvals, allowing Accounts Payable teams to maximize productivity, accuracy, and policy compliance while decreasing cycle times and duplicate payments. That's what CFOs are looking for in a tool to automate their accounts payable process.

There are several advantages to automating the accounts payable process. Let's examine a few of these benefits.

• High levels of touchless invoice processing

For more than a decade, one of the most important objectives in every financial transformation strategy has been AP automation. Many firms, however, have yet to implement any automation, and those that have may be trapped in a first-generation system with partially manual and paper-based procedures that restrict the viability of touchless invoice processing. Finally, with today's technology, the time has come to abandon paper binders and ineffective semi-automated P2P operations. Touchless invoice processing levels of up to 90% are being reported by industry leaders using clever AI-based solutions. These systems additionally handle contract and PO matching, cost matching (accruals) at the appropriate time, and automatic approval allocation and follow-up (chasing late approvals). This level of automation not only reduces operational recording time and costs dramatically, but it also enhances reporting timeliness and saves the organization the burden of boring and repeated duties.

• Image Boost

The beauty of AP automation is that it enhances the experience for suppliers as well. You can acknowledge bills and track down any potential problems or missing data far more quickly than if you do everything by hand. Suppliers can offer details, send bills, and check payment status online with certain "self-service" setups, eliminating the need to play phone tag or wait for email responses. The entire process works more easily for the provider, making you look more professional, organized, and generally simpler to do business with.

• Higher Accuracy

Correctness is ensured via improved visibility and end-to-end tracking. It is possible to monitor the verification, approval, and payment of bills in real time. As a result, there are many fewer mistakes and problems, and there are no longer any accuracy problems that might result in overpayments and duplicate payments. Therefore, e-invoicing is crucial for You can ensure accuracy thanks to increased visibility and end-to-end tracking. You may also track the verification, approval, and payment of invoices in real time. This significantly reduces errors and challenges, ensuring that there are no longer any inaccuracies that lead to overpayments and duplicate payments. Therefore, using electronic invoicing is essential for creating a closed audit trail that makes tracking and paying easier. allowing an audit trail that is closed to make tracking and settlement easier.

• Lower Risk

Another benefit of increased trade and transaction visibility is a lower chance of invoice fraud, human mistakes, duplication, oversight, etc. When an effective system is in place that does not provide much room for such risks to enter the processing cycle, organizations may save countless hours and money in the time necessary for cross-verification and due diligence.

• Rapid installations due to seamless interface with ERP

Modern AP automation solutions should be quick and simple to interface with your current ERP system(s) and include integration packages suitable for multi-ERP scenarios and the majority of typical ERP systems. P2P systems are consequently mostly standardized yet highly adaptable, negating the need for expensive modifications and reducing deployment time to weeks as opposed to months.

Accounts payable automation has evolved into one of the most critical moves businesses are taking towards the digitalization of processing cycles. If you haven't already, now is the perfect moment to invest in e-invoicing and accounts payable management to grow your company. Governments all over the globe, but particularly in Asia, are proposing mandates and working to implement the frameworks to enable automation of accounts payable.

Contact us and we'll be pleased to assist if you're curious about accounts payable automation or want to learn more about what's available.