Accounts Payable Software Plus This Equals AP Juggernaut

Newsflash

As you may have come to know from perusing our blog for even a brief while, we’re ardent promoters of the concepts of machine automation as a forward-propelling force concerning manual processes. Accounts Payable invoice processing is exactly the type of unsightly, challenged, and typically cumbersome process that is ripe for improvement with the right tools. Further, the transformation of this tedious back-end process is one that portends great advantages for the visionary and bold financial leaders that will challenge organizational complacency and other mindsets in their pursuit of business betterment. However, though we go through great detail about the impacts evidenced by accounts payable software, it’s not the only ingredient necessary to have fantastic outcomes in this area of your business.

Another key foundational element beyond accounts payable software is the prescient deployment of electronic payments. While this is a broad and encompassing subject and one that is seemingly evolving all the time, it is absolutely necessary to create optimal results in accounts payable. As we have discussed in other posts, it’s time for payments to change and the future of business-to-business payments is clearly not checks for a variety of reasons. This particular article from PYMNTS.COM deals with why CFOs are guiding their people to plastic, and in particular virtual plastic. That would be virtual cards or virtual payments to use the modern-day vernacular.

The bottom line is that payments represent an opportunity for innovation and improvement that undergird how business gets done.

Electronic payments afford businesses the following advantages:

• Monetized payment stream driving cash rebates back into the corporate coffers
• Enhanced payment controls and tighter security standards over traditional corporate cards and check payment methods
• Better visibility of payment approvals and audit trails
• Faster payment cycles and reduced costs associated with print and mail

This is not an exhaustive list of all the benefits and impacts that come from electronic payments, but it should serve as a primer on the key takeaways from a payments initiative.

Further, we recognize that some of these items are only elementary and that in order to have meaningful change in a burdened area like AP, it’s necessary to deploy some type of automation technology, whether it’s EDI, e-invoicing, or AP automation. We also understand that each prospective buyer of said technologies is going to have a predilection or preference depending on their business and vantage point, but the bottom line is that your situation will be improved vastly over a manual operation just by choosing one of the options. However, not all businesses can execute these and thus you have to do some soul searching to honestly evaluate what’s affordable, achievable, and ultimately acceptable.