Do you transparently track, control and audit your company spending? Many business leaders cannot reply “yes” to this question full heartedly. Although there are several underlying reasons, the main reason of this fact is lacking of a full AP automation system. It is not easy to build a seamless accounts payable workflow, which has to deal with tons of invoices, receipts or travel expenses, without an AP automation solution. Errors, late payments, duplications, incompliances will occur, no matter how dedicated or professional your employees would be.
Accounts payable team’s daily work load is a serious challenge. They need to process invoices coming from suppliers, manage expense claims, carry out approvals and payments etc. Processes such as fraud checking, legal compliance issues, reporting and audit readiness add more responsibilities. Organizations need a reliable accounts payable invoice automation solution in order to overcome this chaos.
How to Imply Accounts Payable Automation?
Accounts payable automation, in simple, is a process of converting invoices, receipts and other relevant documents to digital and structured data through a capture method, such as OCR or ICR.
Following step is the analysis of extracted data by artificial intelligence. This is the key point of a true AP automation, since many solutions lack AI features. Analysis step consist of some sub steps. These are: classifying, validation, anomaly warning. Machine learning technology enables the system to be flexible enough to adapt itself to new document types and layouts, and also accurate and fast enough to build a reliable, holistic automation process.
Another important feature of accounts payable automation solution is the integration to ERP. An advanced solution has to contain connectors for ERP systems. So that, AP workflow can run without any interruption.
Benefits of Using an AP Automation Software
- Faster and flawless invoice processing.
- More control over spend management.
- Cost savings, due to paperless operation and reduced labor cost.
- No late payments and unsatisfied suppliers.
- Efficient use of ERP and other IT systems.
- Compliance with local and global legislations.
Which AP Automation Software is Best for Your Company?
It depends on your unique requirements and business model, yet there are several criteria to look for.
First of all, you should test invoice extraction proficiency of the AP automation software you are examining. High accuracy rates and ICR support is required.
Cloud based AP automation software will ease your life and make your employees happier.
It must fit to every invoice processing scenario of your company. Some solutions are built for specific needs, and cannot be extended for alternative needs.
If you choose an AP automation software, which is not fully integrated to your existing ERP then you will not get an automation solution but only an OCR tool. Be sure that a reliable connector for your ERP system is already involved in the offer.
