Stay Ahead of the Curve: Why Accounts Payable Invoice Automation is the Key to Future-Proofing Your Business

According to a recent Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership survey, two-thirds of respondents believe their accounts payable (AP) processes will be automated by 2025. This imminent shift emphasizes the need for accounting leaders to embrace automation and take proactive measures to protect and enhance their AP processes.

The Benefits of Alleviating Phase-Out Issues

Efficient accounts payable automation helps you keep control of your AP processes and avoid the complexities associated with outdated procedures. Automation offers numerous benefits beyond addressing the specific challenges identified in the survey. Here are some key advantages to consider:

Improved Efficiency: Compared to manual AP processes, automation significantly reduces the time required for invoice processing. This allows accounting teams to allocate their time and resources toward activities that contribute to the organization's strategic goals.

Compliance and Audit Requirements: Failing to replace outdated compliance requirements could expose your company to increased audit risk and potential legal and financial consequences. By retaining control over AP processes through automation, your company can ensure compliance with relevant regulations and maintain a strong audit trail.

Cost Savings: Automation optimizes resource allocation by minimizing the need for manual labor, resulting in cost savings and improved overall operational efficiency. By avoiding phased-out processes, your company can continue to benefit from these cost-saving measures.

Stronger Vendor Relationships: Automated AP processes facilitate faster payment cycles and improved communication with vendors. This fosters stronger relationships and opens up opportunities for potential benefits, such as discounts or better terms, in the future.

Data Insights and Reporting: Automation tools provide real-time data insights and reporting capabilities, empowering managers to make informed decisions, identify trends, and drive continuous process improvements.

Solve Manual Data Entry Challenges

Manual AP processes hinder productivity and increase the risk of errors, potentially resulting in financial losses and strained vendor relationships.

Accounting managers must embrace automation to overcome these challenges and avoid the inadequacy of obsolete or phased-out processes. By leveraging automation, companies can streamline workflows, minimize the need for manual intervention, and enhance overall efficiency.

Automation addresses numerous problems associated with outdated invoicing processes, including:

Invoice Exception Handling

The manual handling of invoice exceptions is a time-consuming and error-prone process. Automation technologies offer a solution by facilitating the automated capture and interpretation of invoice data. These advanced solutions also identify exceptions and route them to the appropriate personnel for resolution, significantly accelerating the exception-handling process while minimizing human errors.

Manual Data Entry

Manual AP data entry is labor intensive, leaves you vulnerable to mistakes, and diverts resources from more strategic activities. AP automation can extract relevant information directly from invoices, purchase orders, and other documents, freeing up time for accounting personnel to allocate their time and expertise to more value-added tasks.

Embrace Technology To Promote Operational Success

The imminent phase out of manual AP processes necessitates a proactive approach. To effectively optimize AP processes, it is crucial to implement technology-based solutions that address the challenges posed by invoice exceptions and manual data entry.

AP automation allows you to streamline workflows, enhance accuracy, and improve efficiency to support long-term business growth. Corpay’s solutions allow you to boost your accounts payable operations and maximize productivity with our advanced offerings.

Want to know more about the benefits? Contact our in-house experts at Corpay today to discuss your specific invoice and AP challenges.