When it comes to implementing digital transformation solutions, accounts payable departments often take a backseat to other business processes. This makes sense because of the increased rigor that financial documentation goes through during processing. However, optimizing customer-oriented workflows, or process automation, without optimizing your invoice and billing solutions is a half-measure that will generate production bottlenecks in time. There are three ways to improve workflow efficiency with accounts payable automation.
Instead of treating your accounts payable department like a burdensome cost, you can implement AP automation and innovative managed services that will transform accounting processes into cost saving value-generating assets. Once you start quantifying value in terms of cost-savings and efficiencies, the opportunity to upgrade your accounts payable processes is one you will want to take as soon as you can.
From digitally invoice processing to implementing state-of-the-art data and network security solutions, you can provide your accounting department with the tools it needs to produce long-lasting value and eliminate manual processes.
Three Workflow Solutions to Improve Accounts Payable Efficiency
Today’s finance officers have to cope with increasingly complex regulations while being able to offer useful advice to partners using modern data analysis to draw insight. This puts CFOs in a position to balance concerns of performance, efficiency, and risk using data that may not always be immediately available.
To be able to take advantage of the data that accounts payable processes generate, you need to collect, store, and communicate data effectively. A solid financial data infrastructure can remove up to 25 percent of your current staff’s workload, increasing your capabilities significantly.
RJ Young’s workflow optimization specialists identify three valuable ways today’s organizations can reduce waste and inefficiency in accounts payable department. These include customized process automation, managed print services, and mobile compatibility.
1. Customized Process Automation and Workflows
Your organization operates according to a strict set of unique processes that determine what happens to incoming financial documentation. Those processes include solutions for invoices, procedures for billing, and retroactive corrections of mistakes (when possible).
Paper-based workflows are simply too slow and too inefficient to generate value in today’s workplace. But you cannot reasonably expect to bulldoze your own existing processes and replace them ad-hoc with brand new digital ones.
You need customized digital workflows that mirror your paper-based processes while improving the speed and efficiency with which accounts payable employees process individual documents. This allows you to set hard-and-fast rules that enforce regulatory compliances and speed up the capture of incoming financial documentation.
Additionally, customized digital workflows allow you to route new documents using automated tools that prevent the possibility of sensitive data from getting into the wrong hands. You can also speed up the invoice approval process with real-time approvals. Customized workflows allow you to keep a closer eye on data transfer and printing so that your company enjoys greater data security.
2. Managed Print Services
Printing can account for up to 15 percent of unreported annual business spending. That alarming figure is easy to understand when you factor in the cost of ink and toner cartridges, paper, printer maintenance, and employee downtime caused by printer-related issues.
Managed Print Services transform your print fleet into a value-generating asset that is scalable, efficient, and easy to manage. These services turn an ad-hoc expense into a fixed fee while incentivizing your service provider to keep your print fleet in perfect working condition.
Powerful analytics allow you to look at print consumption at the individual user level to determine which AP team employees are abusing print resources – and why. This also gives you the power to change your print fleet layout to accommodate employee workflows so that the departments that print the most have the ideal resources available to do so.
3. Mobile Office Solutions
Enterprises are increasingly moving towards the Bring-Your-Own-Device trend. For an increasing number of employees, work no longer refers strictly to what happens at your desk. The ability to process and communicate data from the palm of your hand is an important and valuable asset.
While there are legitimate security concerns to letting employees use their own mobile devices, the fact is that employees will choose the most convenient way to get things done. If that means using a mobile device to send sensitive customer financial documentation, it is up to you to make sure that the transfer is a secure one.
Developing and deploying robust mobile office solutions help to standardize processes and procedures for using mobile devices. This allows employees to print, scan, and transfer sensitive data from their mobile devices securely while enjoying full access to company resources.
Let RJ Young Provide Your Business with AP Automation Solutions
Are you ready to incorporate state-of-the-art process automation and workflow solutions into your accounts payable processes? Contact an RJ Young specialist today!