Making the best use of data in Accounts Payable Software

It’s all Greek to me.

We’ve all heard this adage in one context or another.

In the day and age of big data however, this is not necessarily a good thing and for too many businesses, their data is unfortunately all Greek to them.  With that said, there are many savvy and intrepid businesses that are maximizing the raw power of their data to achieve enhanced business outcomes.  That’s all well and good, but what does it have to do with Accounts Payable software?

We’re glad you asked!

We’re going to look at a few different scenarios as it pertains to this question over the next week or so, and in the first example we want to share with you a client win who was able to leverage cloud based accounts payable software deployment to achieve multiple things.  In this instance the client was a large consumer packaged goods maker who had multiple, disparate accounting and inventory system that presented a major challenge to integration and data aggregation.

Here are the main take-aways from their experience with cloud based account payable software:

1. They were able to streamline their frenetic and highly seasonal approach to invoice processing to be something that was streamlined and scalable.  Where they used to have to augment staff heavily to meet the demands of their yearly peaks, they now possess the ability to scale and adjust through the automation afforded to them with accounts payable software.
2. They were able to make their data meaningful.  This is probably the key to the entire post today in that data is entirely useless unless you can digest and interpret it.  For many businesses, especially as it relates to AP invoice processing, there is little to no data analysis and certainly less intentional action around invoices.  For too many businesses, the raison d’etre for AP is simply pay the bill when it come in.  This is a major disservice to the strategic function of AP and ultimately will cost said organization lots of dollars through blown opportunities by way of missed discounts and tacked on penalties.  We believe the best way to make data meaningful from the steady stream of invoices that pour in is by utilizing a tool like advanced OCR technology to extract all the data from an invoice and then run it through a logic based automation tool that looks for and identifies key data sets...invoice number, vendor name, due dates, terms, line items, totals, tax, freight, etc.  All of this can then be used for later analysis and action.
3. They were able to assemble a data warehouse where their legacy system was unable to.  This is partly due to the flexibility of cloud based accounts payable software and the implications that most cloud technology has over fixed, static, legacy systems, but in this case, the client was actually able to establish vendor contract data in the cloud based upon the stream of invoices that was pouring in.  Granted one of the assumptions that was made and accepted by the client was that there was a certain good faith element to accepting the customer pricing as listed on the invoice.  However, by implementing logic controls around price / item / and location variance, the client was able to triage invoices that underwent any kind of a price augmentation above a standard, pre-defined acceptable change threshold.  Where there legacy system was incapable of providing, clean, dynamic data, by housing this data in a new cloud based system, they were able to transform their insights and reporting to achieve never before seen clarity within their process and which ultimately ended up with enhanced vendor management and optimized financial outcomes in terms of payment. Beyond this, they were able to monetize their payments through virtual Mastercard payments and make AP a profit center!

If this means something to you don’t let your process or lack of quality data hold you hostage any longer!  Schedule a demo and see if we can help you transform your accounts payable process!