Accounts Payables has a significant role to play in the smooth functioning of your businesses. Irrespective of the size of your company, processing multiple vendor invoices on a regular basis consumes a great deal of time of your daily operations. You might have witnessed your Accounts payable (AP) team struggling with the invoice processing and being caught up back and forth with the follow-ups and all the manual data entry.
Before we go into the depth of why your company requires invoice automation and dodge all the challenges faced in the traditional methods, here are a few stats to look at:
Only 33% of the AP departments adopted partial automation.
The fraction of AP leaders adopting complete automation is as low as 10-15%.
25% of the AP teams have reported struggling with mitigating increased fraud and compliance risks.
About 8-10% of the AP practitioners are working an additional of at least two hours per day due to remote work.
Now you might think, why do these statistics hold any value? If you have already assessed the condition of your AP team, you might as well have the answer. But to help you understand better, it impacts your business operations in more than one way possible, by impacting the cash-flow management, vendor relationships, duplicate invoice payments, error in data capturing, etc. Further, if your company operates remotely, automated invoice processing can be a boon for your team and even more for smooth functioning without causing any hiccups in the payment timelines.
Now let us take a look at some of the significant challenges faced by your AP team with a manual or partially automated process.
1. Delayed payment:
Needless to say, paper invoices add up more time in invoice processing. The tedious process of entering the data manually consumes a good fraction of time added on with its approval. Not to mention if the approval included different departments, the duration may get prolonged.
Consequently, it leads to late payments affecting your cash flow and your trade relationship. You might even miss out on early payment discounts and might even face penalties.
The solution:
Move forward with automated invoice processing and let the paperless revolution help your AP team ease up the whole process. Send electronically generated invoices directly for approvals along with alerts and reminders.
2. Risk of fraud
Growing your business includes a lot of risks, some of which you might not completely dodge off. But the risk of fraud, be it internal or external, while managing your invoices is the last one you and your AP team should be handling.
The frauds can occur in the form of fraudulent payments, manipulations of financial records, payment scams, etc. It is not uncommon for your AP team to fall target to duplicate invoices or double payments, incurring loss for your company.
The solution: With an investment in e-invoicing software like that of Skyscend and choosing AP automation rules out the chances of getting caught in a fraud. For example, the technologically advanced data capture mitigates errors and the possibility of duplicating invoices. Thus, all the payments are carefully authorized, and the records of the payments can be retrieved as and when required.
3. Stressed supplier relationships
Whether it is a late payment, error in an invoice, or fraud, all the instances of poorly managed invoice processing stem can stress your supplier relations. In business transactions, professionalism is a highly sought-after area. As a result, a strained trade relationship can affect your company's reputation in the market.
Further, the suppliers might appear less cooperative in offering discounts and other trade benefits, causing a hindrance in the profit quotient of your company.
The solution: with automated invoice processing solutions like Skyscend, you can streamline your AP workflow and eliminate any risk factors that might strain your trade relations. In addition, the automation solutions are developed with the integration of advanced technologies and thus improve the overall efficiency of invoice processing.
No, we are not exaggerating when we say that optimizing your accounts payable is crucial and can give your team a better-outlined working system. Moreover, considering that your business might be functioning remotely for longer than expected, automation becomes even more critical.
With Skyscend, your team can seamlessly coordinate the invoice processing and do away with the challenges that add up while working remotely. We are not talking about another software you need for your business dealings. Still, we highlight the need for a proven and efficient invoice processing system to help you achieve your business goals in the digital era.
Your business requires the best support to grow and disrupt the industry, and we are here to support you in your quest. To know more about our seamless automated invoice processing, book a demo.