Best Practices That Can Impact AP Automation
Mistakes happen in AP teams almost every day and these errors can be costly. But the best part is you can combat several errors in your department by deploying the best practices policy. Today, as more businesses go digital, automation is critical when adopting new policies.
These policies which support the best practices in the AP workflow are effective when you support them with accounts payable automation. As your organization works to establish the practices that support AP processing, reliable AP automation software makes policy implementation simple and supports the financial goals of your business.
1. Centralize Data
You must search for a way to capture and handle data in a centralized location when you do not want to lose track of the incoming invoices. Data extraction, invoice receipt, and verification should not take place in different areas. It’s true for the AP team which traditionally processes the paper invoices and digitized departments.
Even when the employees in charge aren’t in the preferred or same location physically, then the cloud-based accounts payable solution makes it easy to centralize processing. You can now enforce business policies and optimize AP processing.
2. Handle Supplier Details
You require a clean and single master file that generates supplier data in a centralized location. Fraudulent, incomplete, and duplicate supplier details can creep into the software when you fail to make an adequate vetting procedure. Such accuracies can put your business at high risk for fraudulent activities or making inaccurate payments.
Keeping the supplier details updates is simple with the best AP automation platform. You can organize the suppliers in a database that can be easy to search and update.
3. Vendor Self-service Option
Handling supplier data can take your time from performing other critical AP activities if the staff needs to upgrade details manually. Plus they can lose time by answering supplier queries on the processing times and payment status.
You do not want your AP employees to remain bogged down in managing client service. Rather you want them to main robust relationships with their suppliers/vendors. An AP software solution allows you to set up a supplier access portal so that the approved providers can upgrade details on their own.
The self-service facility also enables them to check the status of invoices and find their answers to the most commonly asked questions. This option makes things easier as the suppliers free up the AP team as they will not need to take several client service calls.
4. State the Workflow Rules
Anytime you can have several workers together, you require clean software intact. Without the best practices to aid everybody out who must do what activities, it is simple to end up working at cross purposes. The employees in the AP team must remain on the same page about the approval deadlines, the policies for managing exceptions, how to make the payments, and more.
You must clearly state the workflow rules as part of the accounts payable automation best practices policy. Once you have rules intact, you can customize the AP system to aid enforce the workflow best practices.
5. Store the Digital Records Safely
The paper records take up massive storage. It gets challenging and time-consuming to look for details in paper documents. Also, paper files can be tampered with, lost, misplaced, and even damaged quickly. To support the best practices in accounts payable, you need to want the digital records of all the invoices and processing history. The digital records are easy to search for and safe.
When you are scanning paper invoices into the solution for processing, the automated AP system can backup and store the details too. Plus you can easily scan the old paper documents into the software so you can handle the records. The document imaging service can aid you with that if you would outsource file scanning than manage it in-house.
Deploying Accounts Payable Best Practices for Business
The best practices policies in the AP automation process keep your team members running seamlessly. Together the policies and the quality automation solution boosts cash management and accelerate invoice processing. Plus, they are going to fight fraudulent activities in AP, boost supplier relationships, and make the taxes and audits simple to handle.
