The Future of Accounts Payable Automation

Today, with modern technology and procedures, your accounting teams’ future will change. Various innovations, such as automating accounts payable, electronic payments, as well as, virtual cards will become mandatory.

Here we present some predictions for AP in the long run and how clients can use cloud-based accounts payable solution to future-proof business.

AP Staff Have Become More Strategic

Organizations now are significantly depending on reports and analytics for making prompt decisions. Robust AP platform leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to create reports automatically. As the technology eliminates traditional tasks, as a result the role of individuals working in your team will start shifting.

There is no more preparing reports manually. Rather, the team members can focus on interpreting accounts payable and aiding the stakeholders make accurate decisions around vendor relationships and cash flow.

Importance of Making Digital Payments

Electronic payments are constantly rising. But the trend still follows outdated methods. Many companies make half of their payments using checks. But around 40% of them witnessed a boost in ACH payment.

Almost 65% of businesses are planning to enhance electronic payments in the upcoming years. In the remote working environment, this change can aid you to minimize payment delays, save productive hours, and assign resources accurately.

AP Technology Will Scale Companies and Reduce Expenses

Small-sized companies may get away with traditional AP methods. But managing paper checks and making decisions in desk-level do not scale up. Handling the evolving work pressure either needs recruiting more employees or implementing new technology. Hiring a new team can be expensive and takes a lot of time as well.

Expanding a team will further enhance expenses down the road as the trend in invoice volume will continue. Moreover, the wages for existing workers are expected to enhance in 2022. Around 5% of the payroll budgets are set aside to the account for raises. This boost has not been observed in a decade.

Whereas, modern AP technology scales more quickly as the demands change. It enables you to automate different accounts payable methods, thus minimizing manual errors and workload, while allowing effective payments.

The expense per invoice managed by the team also increases while using conventional processes for end-to-end decision making. It signifies that companies which employ new tools will have financial benefit along with other advantages related with implementation.

Acceptance of Digital Tools

Many forward-thinking business professionals are investing in AP tools and prioritizing digitization for success in the long run. Smart tools are making this change from being additional to mandatory in the face of technology. Earlier, the teammates needed to search for invoices, scan/print them, and route them for approval physically. But now work from home consent in this pandemic has increased the use of digital solutions for businesses.

Automated Notifications and Alerts

Accounts payable automation can offer a wide range of alerts/notifications like reminding any decision-maker for invoice approval. In the long run, the accounting team may have real-time access to broader range of the data, such as financial data on their own companies and customers to work with. The notifications will enable AP employees to catch problems, including fraudulent activities in invoice management earlier and have more right sense of the business health.

Improved Visibility

Getting access to the right AP data and KPIs is the way to receive the appropriate read on the real-time monetary health to make proper business decisions, specifically while navigating times of company upheaval. Without clear insight into accounts payable, watching closely on the cash, monitoring productivity, and forecasting trends can be difficult and time-consuming.

And as traditional AP environment don’t enable for process visibility- or any insight in that matter- it is one more critical reason accounts payable digital transformation has become mandatory.

Summary

Technological shift towards AP as the strategic position is a clear indication of the critical role AP will play. So, in order to prepare, your firms consider how they can use the new data sources. AP leaders should be willing to develop new skills associated to modern technology and security that will prepare them to become more strategic partners instead of paperwork.

So, is your business ready to take a leap into accounts payable automation?
Online AP software eases the procedure with simple set-up and works with the existing systems, so you can use the power of automation soon.