3 Common Problems for AP Managers and How to Handle Them
Today accounts payable managers are not only responsible for making payments, but they also have to look for ways to make AP more efficient and predict the cash flow of the business. Some of their key responsibilities comprise of streamlining payment processes for suppliers, monitoring incentives, connecting to several banks, and managing various payment channels.
These manual operations gradually get tedious as the company grows bigger. Automating accounts payable helps the department to manage these operations easily and effectively, keep track of all the related financial data, and handle challenges that AP managers face.
1.Incorrect Data
If you are still using manual accounts payable system, then there are higher chances of human error while entering data. Moreover, small accidental errors can delete your data, slow down the process, make it harder for you to meet deadlines, and affect audits.
Accounts payable automation provides complete visibility and control instantly. So, instead of entering data manually, accounts payable software will collect every piece of information from electronic invoices. Paper invoices are scanned and later processed like electronic ones. The data capture technology provides a 99% accuracy rate.
2.Ineffective Invoice Processing
As everyone wants the work to be done immediately, expectations for accuracy and speed has become a daunting task for AP managers. If your processing system fails to work fast, you will definitely end up making delayed payments which will cost your company money and damage relations with suppliers.
Automating AP makes invoice processing more effective in various places.
The systems have the ability to match invoices to the purchase orders automatically and monitor them so the invoices that are due get paid on time. Some exceptions such as documents with discrepancies or non-standard invoices get caught and routed for manual approval. Automated accounts payable system makes it simple to adjust the custom standardization and filter your corporate rules.
3.Managing Various Payment Channels
The days are gone when invoices used to arrive on paper and paid using paper checks. Automation brings all the invoices into a single place in order to process them the same way regardless of the way received. It will also help you to make payments as the vendor request by keeping a database of all your vendors. Moreover, the accounts payable system has a self-service portal that will save your time by allowing vendors to log in to view their invoice status instead of calling.
The Bottom Line
Replacing outdated manual accounts payable process with automation will definitely help to improve the AP process rendering it efficient, advanced, and quite easy to handle. This, in turn, will aid to reap more revenues for the business.
