5 Financial Year-End Blunders (and How to Avoid Them)

The end of the calendar year is upon us, and for many businesses that also means the end of financial year is here. The air is getting colder, and everything seems to be slowing down… except your accounts payable (AP) process.

With office Christmas party planning, Black Friday shopping, and weather watching (will we get a white Christmas???), the festive season is a prime time for AP slip-ups, especially when attention drifts and teams begin to wind down for the holidays.

We’ve put together this list of the 5 most common year-end pitfalls to watch out for in the coming weeks, and how an automation solution, like Compleat, can help you to avoid them.

1.      Approval Delays

With December being a hot spot for staff members taking days or even weeks off work for festive activities (including hangovers!), it’s likely that approvers will be out-of-office.

With no approvers present, and no potential for an automated delegation, a smooth AP process is about as likely as hearing reindeer hooves clip clopping on your roof on the night of the 24^th.

An automated solution would allow you create delegated approvers using custom workflows, meaning when an approver is out-of-office, your last-minute order of mince pies for strategic business partners can be signed off and paid for.

You can also use a solution to increase the frequency of approver nudges in case there’s a little too many festive distractions.

2.    Duplicate/Late Payments

With so many distractions, it’s easy to see how mistakes can be made. Rushing errors, reduced visibility (can’t see the invoice for the snow?), and poor tracking of processed invoices can all lead to duplicated invoice processing, or the complete opposite, late payment.

AP Automation solutions, or Compleat at least, utilizes invoice trays which are neatly organized, labelled, and searchable. This also means that transaction audit trails from purchase to payment are crystal clear, ensuring that these exact scenarios don’t happen.

Meanwhile, the system will be able to check for duplicates, taking care of accidental double payments if distracted suppliers accidentally issue an invoice twice.

3.     Inaccurate Reporting

In all the rush to clock off before the big man in the suit does his rounds, manual reconciliations and data gaps from missing or mismatched invoices can cause serious holes in your reports.

Automating any process means that data is available and accurate throughout. Accounts Payable is no exception. With smart invoice matching and custom reporting, this year-end niggle is negated.

4.     Increased risk of Fraud

Busy periods mean a greater risk of scams and when combined with the reduced vigilance of a merry month, you end up with a higher vulnerability to fraud.

While your team may be taking extra time off this festive season, fraudsters are not and will be taking full advantage of whoever is left in the office being rushed off their feet in the run-up to Christmas.

A fully automated process would include bank detail verification, issuing alerts and warnings to staff if an imposter lands in your invoice tray.

5.     Year-end accruals panic

In a manual process, unprocessed invoices – including missing invoices from suppliers – won’t be part of your accruals.

Missing invoices don’t go unnoticed with AP automation, thanks to being able to automatically match invoices to purchase orders. You can usually see whether an order has been matched to an invoice by a status marker in the order tray.

Hopefully your team doesn’t experience these December frustrations and can enjoy the month in peace. Just know that utilizing AP Automation can help you sleep through until your stocking is stuffed and the New Year is partied in!

So, if you’re ready to see how Compleat can keep your AP process running smoothly over the holidays, book a quick demo or get in touch with us today!