Five Important Benefits of Accounts Payable Automation
The key to developing an exceptional product is planning, and planning requires a deep understanding of what the customer needs. Aim to meet all those needs while constantly improving on your product and you’ll always stay ahead of the game. Accounts payable automation is no different, and iPayables recognizes this. When designing its industry leading automation solution, every thought went into what AP personnel would need to make invoicing not only easy and cost-effective, but inclusive, so that important benefits are felt throughout the company.
What are those important benefits? The list is long, but we thought we would mention five. In no particular order, they are:
- Speed. The importance of cutting turnaround time from over a week to a few days can’t be overstated. No more catch-up, no more putting off other projects, no more handling phone calls from suppliers looking for a payment status. As you might have guessed, a lot of other benefits are derived from a fast e-invoicing solution, such as the replacement of late fees with early-pay discounts.
- Organization. Enterprise-grade automation makes filing, compiling, examining, comparing, and storing data easy and practically bulletproof. No more lost invoices. No more misfiling of records because automation does it for you. Plus, everything is available for any authorized staff, procurers and even suppliers to see and correct in real time.
- Happy suppliers. We sometimes forget just how important it is to keep our suppliers smiling. With a supplier portal, however, suppliers can save time and cost on their end, too. Invoices are easily created and forwarded with little effort, the status of payment can be monitored in real time, and errors can be caught before they become a problem. With this level of automation, suppliers are no longer outsiders; they’re part of the process.
- Less stress. This one, alone, is worth its weight in gold. The paper chase – keeping track of paper invoices, purchase orders, checks, mail, and all the rest – ends once automation is on board. Employees have plenty of time to get the job done, instead of running up against payment deadlines each month.
- Compliance. This benefit looms large in today’s highly-regulated business world. Your accounts payable department deals with transaction records that must be recorded and stored away in the right place. With enterprise-grade automation, all those records will be right where they belong, ready to retrieve and examine when needed. What used to take days for auditors to sift through now takes hours.