By a beginner for a beginner: What does accounts payable automation software actually do?

Accounts payable automation software is the gift that keeps on giving.

Imagine: you’re sitting at your desk in a haze of a post-lunch food coma, and you’ve got a mountain of invoices to process. What do you do?

You could start manually entering data from each invoice into the system, then keep track of those manual entries while they make their way through the accounting department to be approved and processed.

Or

You could get AP automation software, aka the Santa Claus of accounting software.

It streamlines everything, consolidates all your vendor info, makes it easy to find what you need, and best of all- it’s mobile!

What are the benefits of accounts payable automation?

Adding automation to your accounts payable process has many benefits.

1. The accounts payable process will become fully automated, allowing you to eliminate all paper invoices.
2. Your AP team will be able to deal with a larger volume of invoices as your business grows.
3. By automating the process, you can free up your current team of employees to focus on higher-level tasks.
4. By implementing automation, you’ll see a dramatic improvement in your organisation’s efficiency.

AP Automation applications are a smart investment for any business. They not only help cut processing costs but also improve the quality of data.

Manual processes are unreliable and prone to errors, so AP automation helps you to achieve better data quality and improve accountability. Moreover, adding strong automated processes to help you to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and report them to stakeholders.

Also, if you want to be a market leader, you can establish strong vendor relationships with your suppliers.

Automated AP is a great way to increase your company’s overall profitability. Your business will benefit from increased efficiencies, improved productivity, and decreased costs.

The cost savings alone will make the investment well worth the money. Furthermore, you will have more time to focus on strategic initiatives and boost employee morale.

With Accounts Payable Automation, you can spend more time on more important tasks that require strategic thinking.

How to shop for Accounts Payable (AP) software?

When you shop for a tool to streamline your Accounts Payable (AP) process, you want to find a solution that:

1. Is convenient for electronic payments and auto approvals (no paper checks!)
2. Has flexible approval workflows
3. Is able to detect credit card and accounting fraud
4. Has options for AP process to integrate into your accounting system

One of the most common features that this software has is what’s called an auto-approval feature. This allows you to automatically approve invoices if they are within a certain dollar amount. If the amount is higher than what you’ve set up as the threshold, then it’ll automatically get rejected and sent back to the user that submitted it for review.

Let’s not forget about accounting fraud! AP Automation will also make auditing and compliance efforts easier. By flagging suspicious activity, AP automation can detect accounting fraud and reduce credit card fraud.

These accounts payable automation systems also allow for mobile access, allowing users to create AP workflows for invoice automation management from anywhere with an internet connection. AP automation software can also be integrated with your existing ERP system. This integration guarantees advanced transparency and interaction across the organisation.

AP Automation can help you become carbon neutral

If your organisation is committed to carbon neutrality, automation technology is a simple way for it to gain environmental credibility. With accounts payable automation, companies can increase their efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint at the same time. Best of all, it doesn’t cost any more than manual AP operations.

AP Automation is a cost-effective and efficient way for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. By eliminating manual tasks, AP automation reduces the amount of paper.

Think about it: one of the main causes of environmental damage is the use of fuel for transportation and industrial processes.

If you reduce (or better yet remove) your need for paper and shipping, you can reduce the level of harmful emissions. Carbon neutral initiatives are based on the principle to stop using fossil fuels during all operations, either by eliminating or reducing them.

With a streamlined and integrated system, a company can avoid utilising outdated paper-based solutions, reduce its carbon footprint, and join the global efforts of lowering carbon emissions.

In the end, AP Automation matters

So, in the end, AP automation can make your life much easier and eliminate stress experienced by the accounts payable department. It removes the chance for spelling mistakes, math errors, inconsistent data, and reduces carbon footprints.

Best of all, with AP automation you can forget about days lost to processing invoices manually and being available for questions from clients, which opens up more time to do what you really want to do- grow.