Executive SummaryManufacturing organizations face different challenges to their counterparts in other sectors. The highly-competitive nature of the industry creates pressure to adopt a lean approach to delivering goods and services to customers. This has led to an increasing emphasis on customer centricity and faster, more robust supply chains. While there tends to be a focus on front-end process improvements, manufacturers realize that there is also a need to extend these improvements to their back-end processes, particularly in accounts payable (AP) and procurement. AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. In an effort to reduce costs and optimize efficiency, leading organizations are implementing AP automation software and streamlining their back office functions. This article serves as a guide for finance leaders on the drivers for implementing AP automation and the value it adds to the manufacturing supply chain. It summarizes the issues that manufacturers are faced with, and the benefits that AP automation has delivered to a range of organizations, including, reduced costs, increased visibility, improved efficiency in AP processes, and enhanced vendor management. The paper highlights the ways in which AP automation can be integrated with existing ERP, procurement, and supply chain systems, and ensure tangible results including: IntroductionOrganizations in the manufacturing sector have a faster supply chain, and there are greater demands to purchase and deliver goods and services quicker and in innovative ways. As businesses increasingly focus on meeting the needs of the customer in order to outperform competitors, many manufacturers offer goods via multiple channels putting pressure on companies to improve processes in the front and back ends of the business. The use of e-commerce, in particular, and the demand for ever shorter delivery times has forced manufacturers to shift focus from traditional brick-and-mortar to online ordering. For this tilt to be possible, supply chains must be fast and reliable, and back end processes must be agile and automated. This pressure to improve back end processes to achieve cost reduction and maximum profitability is widely covered in industry research. Forrester research predicts that customer centricity, analytics, and optimization will be key for manufacturers in order to distinguish themselves from competitors and mitigate the risk of reduced growth. Research confirms that management will fundamentally change the pace of their business, replacing cumbersome, manual processes with automated, agile ones. According to further research, this is a key area of focus for the future: 81% of executives surveyed agreed that operational efficiencies are a priority to improve profitability. Organizations can gain a competitive edge in the manufacturing sector by allowing finance teams to focus on their core activities. AP automation eliminates the manual tasks of invoice data entry, coding, approval, matching, and payment, allowing operations and finance teams to focus on strategic, high-value work. A dedicated system for auto-mating AP tasks ensures that costs are significantly reduced and spend management is brought under complete control. AP automation can have considerable impact on the bottom line, delivering cost savings as a result of increased transparency over company spend, improved efficiency, reduced costs, and better relationships with vendors. AP Challenges in Manufacturing Manufacturing organizations typically utilize industry-specific systems for procurement, particularly for purchasing goods, as this accounts for approximately 80% of total spend and is vital for revenue growth. However, when it comes to goods, including expense items such as marketing, legal fees, utilities, etc., organizations generally do not employ a dedicated system for procurement and AP, and instead rely heavily on manual processes. This results in deficient spend management, a lack of transparency, and poor vendor management, which contributes to inefficient AP pro-cesses. AP automation replaces these inefficient processes with structured solutions that enable finance leaders to take control of company spend, increase productivity of their teams, and improve vendor relations. 1. Manufacturing Specific ComplexitiesThe manufacturing industry has many industry-specific challenges in purchasing goods and services such as tolerances (allowing an organization to manage under shipments, late shipments, and unit price variations that cause discrepancies between the PO, invoice, and goods receipt), surcharges (for returns or for over handling of goods), and over-receipting (receiving more goods than originally ordered), and individual organizations have additional, bespoke business requirements to meet. AP automation solutions facilitate all these manufacturer-specific requirements as well as the standard AP requirements such as duplicate invoice checking, varied payment terms, discount allocations, and VAT calculations. In a manual AP environment. This results in disjointed back-end processes, with a primary focus on goods, and crucially, without one single view over finance operations. 2. Different Processes for Different Types of InvoicesIn typical manufacturing environments, the different types of invoices are often separated with either by different systems, or by different AP teams. This separation of processes for PO vs Non-PO spend results in unnecessary complexity, duplication of resources and a lack of visibility of overall spend. Invoices for goods are typically received in e-mail, EDI, or XML for-mats, while non-trade invoices are received in e-mail, paper, or PDF formats. Procurement of trade goods is typically man-aged by industry-specific solutions and while these systems may automate the creation and approval of purchase orders (PO), organizations ultimately rely on manual processes to complete the remaining AP steps including invoice capture, matching, and posting for payment. 3. Lack of Visibility & Control Over Expense SpendOn the expense side, manufacturing organizations typically do not utilize systems specifically for expense invoices or the associated Non-PO AP tasks, in which case the AP teams are left to manually complete every step from procurement through to payment of invoices. This manual processing is inefficient, slow, and uncontrolled, with a high number of touch-points which drives up the costs involved in processing an invoice, and increases the risk of human error. This makes it difficult to manage expense spend, which is often non-PO based and can often account for over 20% of total spend. Typical problems that arise with non-trade spend are retrospective approvals, maverick buying, and non-adherence to company spend policies. 4. Duplicate InvoicesIn manufacturing environments, it is common for organizations to have large numbers of vendors across global locations. This poses several complex challenges which often are not sufficiently managed by existing ERPs and, as a result, organizations implement further manual processes to handle them. One challenge faced by many manufacturers is duplicate invoices and duplicate payments. In AP departments with no automation, manual processing naturally results in human inefficiencies and inconsistent invoice handling processes. From a vendor point of view, there is no visibility over whether or not an invoice has been received, approved, or paid, which often leads to vendors submitting invoices multiple times (by post, EDI or email) in an effort to get paid more quickly. Since there are no reliable ways to detect duplicate invoices in a manual environment, AP teams end up duplicating their effort to process these invoices and in some cases ultimately making duplicate payments which result in commercial implications and require further effort to remedy. 5. Vendor ManagementVendor management is another area where manufacturing organizations often find they struggle. This is due to limitations in the ERP vendor master data and the lack of structured tools within the ERP to efficiently and accurately manage existing vendors and on-board new vendors. Simple requirements, such as ensuring that all vendors are compliant with tax clearances, industry certifications, insurances, and other buyer-specific policies, are typically managed externally from the ERP using offline, manual processes. Likewise, vendor contract renewals and other vendor updates are often handled in a similar manual fashion. 6. Remote WorkforceIn today's world the need has never been great for staff, teams and employees to have remote access to business decision making information and accounts payable is no exception. Since the COVID outbreak in March of 2020 teams of people have been forced to work remotely and or from home. With limited access to information, invoices and documents necessary to keep the supply chain moving, many manufacturers feel sluggishly behind. Those manufacturers who were already prepared by implementing applications that provided the immediate secure transfer of knowledge outside their four walls were able to continue operating with little to no interuption. Interested in learning more? The AP Automation Solution for ManufacturingThe AP automation solution allows organizations to control buying from approved vendors and management can enforce strict ‘No PO, No Pay’ policies and gain full visibility over what is being purchased. AP automation solutions work seamlessly with multiple ERP systems and provide a single view of the world for AP teams. Segregated AP teams can be consolidated and the manual paper-based processes and spreadsheets are replaced with structured and controlled systems. This allows the entire AP process to be automated by one solution, eliminating the need for two separate AP processes, and two separate AP teams. The automated processing of invoices enables finance teams to only handle invoices by exception and to prioritize by key criteria such as value, early payment discounts, aging, etc. Re-porting and analytics also provide finance leaders with the necessary dashboards to project operational and financial metrics such as processing times, FTE productivity, approver performance, invoice accruals and vendor performance. Other industry-specific challenges can also be managed. In manufacturing it is not unusual for vendors to send invoices be-fore the goods arrive - often as soon as the goods are ordered - in an effort to expedite the receipt of payment. Situations like this can cause real problems with traditional manual processes. However, with AP automation, invoices are automatically assigned an expected arrival date and are held pending the goods receipt note (GRN). When the GRN is received, the system triggers an automatic 2- or 3-way match, and unless an exception is found it will be automatically approved and routed for payment. AP automation provides a single system for processing all invoices through a structured workflow with automated matching and built-in approval logic. This ultimately enables the touchless processing of invoices and focuses AP teams on only handling invoices with exceptions. Vision360 Enterprise AP Automation Invoices can be captured in any format including paper, XML, PDF and EDI, so manufacturers can accept invoices electronically from sophisticated vendors using XML/EDI or, for other vendors, they can also automate the processing of invoices received by paper, email or PDF or submitted electronically. Vendors receive notifications regarding the status of submitted invoices, providing them with visibility over whether invoices have been received, processed, approved or paid. AP automation allows for better control over the organization’s cash flow. It equips the AP team with transparency over all vendors, enabling them to consider early payment discounts, and to strategically buy from preferred vendors and schedule payments in order to avail of these discounts. The solution also facilitates multiple languages and currencies, and provides full visibility over pending payments, allowing management to make informed decisions on when to pay invoices without incurring unnecessary charges. Taxes and freights, which are not always accurately accounted for in a manual environment, is fully automated within the AP solution, enabling precise payment and reporting. The Cost Benefit of AP AutomationThe costs incurred in the finance department can be significant. Automating the AP process enables organizations to achieve better employee productivity, increased visibility and control over spend (both trade and non-trade), and significant cost savings at each stage in the AP process. Industry research by PayStream has found that 90% of CFOs that implemented AP automation achieved an average savings of 80% in invoice processing costs. The cost of manually processing invoices can be significant. Forrester reports that over 97% of invoices are processed manually. The average cost of processing invoices varies, but can amount from $15 up to $45 per invoice.
How Does AP Automation Work?AP refers to the entire process by which organizations pay for goods and services, from the receipt of the goods to the processing and payment of the vendor invoice. Successful organizations are modernizing their AP processes by automating each of the steps involved. AP automation can be achieved by transforming the following tasks:
Learn more about AP Automation and see it live! ConclusionCompetition between manufacturers has resulted in greater demands to establish differentiation. In order to get ahead, manufacturers are making efforts to provide improved goods and services to consumers. Considering the emphasis on speedy supply chains and the importance of vendor relationships for success in manufacturing, companies have started to improve back end processes in order to increase efficiency and maximize profitability. Leading organizations have deployed AP automation in order to deliver considerable efficiencies and have achieved faster invoice processing times, reduced in-voice processing costs, improved vendor relationships, and lower overheads and labor costs. Automation of AP processes allows for better visibility and control over total spend (both trade and non-trade) which enables finance teams to produce higher value reporting and analysis of operations. About UsBlueCreek Software is a leading provider of financial process automation and developer of Vision360 Enterprise software, replacing inefficient processes with solutions that transform financial processes, reduce costs, and ensure that organizations meet their business and compliance obligations. Do you have questions or want to learn more?
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1. DO WE NEED ACCOUNTS PAYABLE (AP) AUTOMATION? We don’t know if you NEED Accounts Payable (AP) Automation, that will be up to you to recognize and decide. HOWEVER, there are probably some very good business reasons for considering or even implementing an AP Automation system or process in your organizations finance department. We’ll discuss those towards the end of this. Keep in mind, what we have found is that many corporate executives have either never been in an accounts payable role or limited experience and have a very different view of what their AP Staff actually deals with on a daily basis OR some finance executives have been far away from the day-to-day activities that they forget about all of the challenges that consumes the AP Staffs time each day. First let’s set the stage for what we’re about to discuss. 2. WHAT EXACTLY IS ACCOUNTS PAYABLE? Accounts Payable (AP) are the amounts of financial obligations you, or your business owes a supplier because you purchased goods or services on credit from the supplier. For these goods and or services you’ve agreed to pay for them within a specific period of time, this is called the “Terms”. Think about this for a moment. Think of your household monthly bills – utilities, rent, mortgage, cell phones, Netflix subscriptions, digital cable and internet – these all represent your personal “accounts payable” at home. At home you probably keep track and pay for these services each month, most likely by receiving electronic bills (invoices) via email or electronic notifications and using electronic payment methods such as credit cards. In business, Accounts Payable represents a company’s obligation to pay off a short-term debt to its suppliers. Businesses, Accountants and Finance Teams use accounting software to track when they receive invoices and when they make payments to manage cash flow and to pay their suppliers on time. For many businesses, however, the accounts payable process is a manual, paper-based process that costs the company time and money. While many professionals pay their personal bills quickly and conveniently online, their company’s finances are often very antiquated with paper invoices, manual tasks, filing cabinets, and paper checks with no visibility to any information. So why is it acceptable to use electronic processes for managing home expenses, but not at your company? 3. WHAT IS ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AUTOMATION? Over the last decade, forward-thinking companies have adopted AP Automation to automate the paper and manual elements of processing invoices and making payments. These software solutions integrate with their accounting software and enable the accounts payable department to streamline workflows and reduce processing costs. AP Automation adds significant value to Accounts Payable, including real-time visibility into performance and financial status, increased accuracy, and better compliance with tax laws and industry regulations. Simply put, if a company is still receiving paper invoices or paying bills, they’re not capitalizing on today’s best practices. They’re also missing out on the unlimited potential for savings after relieving their AP team of time-consuming tasks such as opening the mail, data entry and filing mountains of paper. These manual tasks can lead to lost invoices, human error during data entry, and duplicate invoices. 4. DOES YOUR COMPANY NEED AP AUTOMATION? You most likely have a person or two or three on your AP Staff that are more than capable of doing things like opening mail, printing out the invoices your suppliers email to your company, scanning those paper invoices and printed email invoices (which by the way you received electronically), emailing the invoices around to people for approvals, then chasing those same people down who don’t approve their invoices on time (or at all). When the vendors call to inquire about the status of the pay-ment of their invoice I would bet your AP Staff will happily talk with the vendor about where the invoices are at and when you’ll pay them. Now let’s think about two types of invoices from suppliers, “Non-PO Invoices” (needs approval) and “PO-Invoices” (needs to be matched). When it comes to Non-PO Invoices your AP Staff chases down the approvals, lots of back and forth AND now you have to assign the charges to the “chart-of-accounts” via general ledger (GL) coding. In your company who is responsible for making sure Non-PO invoices are GL coded properly? This seems like a simple step, unfortunately this step is riddled with errors mainly because no one understands the chart of accounts very well. Purchase Order Invoices on the other hand are much more complex. The price for goods are negotiated and agreed to in advance and the terms are set. The Purchase Order acts as the pre-approval to spend money on behalf of the company. When the invoice arrives your AP Staff will most likely confirm that the invoice price is consistent or matches the purchase order price. Purchase order matching usually falls into one or two categories, a 2-way match (invoice & PO) or a 3-way match (invoice, PO & goods receipt). In any case the matching process in either case if a very tedious process that usually involved dealing with things like taxes and freight charges which are not typically on a purchase order. Assuming that the matching process goes well and there are no discrepancies it may take a few minutes to an hour or so to match a PO invoice, HOWEVER it is not often that a PO invoice matches exactly. Because of discrepancies in costs and pricing companies have developed internal allowable tolerances. What this means is that as long as the invoice due amount falls within an acceptable tolerance range of a few dollars or a percent or two, then the AP Staff should just pay it. Now let’s think about what it takes to figure out if an invoice is within your allowable tolerance. Since most people aren’t very good at calculating numbers in their head your AP Staff most likely take out their calculator on every PO invoice to make sure the invoice due amount is within your allowable tolerance. So your AP Staff just spent an enormous amount of time matching the PO invoices item by item and calculating whether or not the invoice due amount is within your allowable tolerance and some invoices EXCEED your tolerance, so now what? Now the back and forth begins, your AP Staff scans the PO invoice, emails a copy of the invoice to the buyer—and waits. Maybe your AP Staff emails a copy of the invoice to your purchasing department—and waits. The back and forth continues, the chasing game is played, the vendors are waiting for payment and invoice piles are growing, invoices are falling behind, your AP Staff are being blamed for the slow process. Finally, after all of the tedious manual back and forth to get approvals, the back and forth to deal with invoice exceptions now your AP Staff can finally key the invoice data into your financial system for payment processing. Your AP Staff can file away all of the paper invoices into file drawers and bankers boxes and when a tax audit happens your AP Staff will be happy to roll up their sleeves on a weekend to rifle through all the boxes of paper invoices over the last few years to try and find the invoices. 5. WE SPENT A SMALL FORTUNE ON OUR ERP SYSTEM. CAN’T WE JUST USE THAT SYSTEM? The vast majority of companies run some sort of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. ERP systems are very expensive and are touted as all-inclusive business solutions, and we all want one system to handle everything. The fact is, ERP systems, while extremely valuable business tools that work well for collecting, storing, managing and interpreting data from various business activities, fall woefully short when it comes to AP invoice capture via optical character recognition (OCR), data-validation, invoice approval routing, and PO matching and exception-handling. This is because ERP’s don’t have the ability to support the multiple processes (receipt, review, approval, etc.) that are prevalent with each invoice transaction. ERP’s are simply not specialized enough in any one area to provide the best AP automation solution you can get. While the ERP seems like a good idea on the surface, a company’s AP staff is still burdened by all of the manual aspects of processing the supplier invoices BEFORE an AP invoice even makes it to the ERP system. The AP Staff would be consumed with opening envelopes and mail, managing an email inbox where some suppliers send PDF invoices, printing out the PDF invoices to paper and then eventually scanning all of the invoices one-by-one into the ERP system (if that is even possible to do). After the invoices are scanned your AP Staff would be responsible for OCR’ing the data from each and every invoice AND making sure all of the invoice detail data is correct. This includes the vendors names, the invoice date, the purchase order number, any taxes that might be on an invoices, any freight charges or extra fees that your company might be responsible for as well as the full amount due of the invoice. Now keep in mind that OCR Software is not part of or included with any ERP package, so this would require your IT Director or IT Manager to investigate OCR tools, purchase the software, get trained on the software, train your AP Staff how to use the soft-ware and how to troubleshoot issues of misreads, incorrectly interpreted data and bad transactional data that may make it into your payables process and ultimately into your ERP system. It’s important to understand that the design of most modern ERP systems is based upon the premise that a person (the AP Staff) is going to manually handle all data entry and, as such, the developers of these ERP systems do not focus on a technology which replaces that data entry. This fundamental design assumption also leads to poor exception handling, because the assumption is that humans (the AP Staff) have already corrected the data as they entered it. In reality, error rates through manual human intervention are fairly high while visibility and productivity remain low and expensive.
It’s worth pointing out that, while upgrading an ERP to continue to handle ever-changing exceptions and business rules is difficult (lots of time required, expertise needed, and expenses incurred). It’s made even more difficult when you consider some companies, because of acquisitions and mergers, have multiple ERP systems in use across a global enterprise, a situation that makes streamlined workflow in an AP process almost impossible to achieve. These are just some of the pitfalls that can be avoided by going outside your ERP for AP automation. 6. WHAT’S IN AP AUTOMATION FOR OUR COMPANY AND STAFF? CFO's & Finance Executives: By leveraging AP Automation finance execs are able to reduce overall costs while taking advantage of freed up staff and resources that can affect the bottom-line and assist in strategic and corporate growth. Corporate Controllers: Will gain better visibility and control to the payables process that they otherwise would not have. Controllers can also leverage real-time KPI's and analytics via AP Dashboards to measure AP performance and monitor cash flow. Accounts Payable Teams: AP is able to eliminate paper invoices and the manual back and forth caused by printing and emailing invoices between the parties involved in obtaining approvals. The AP department will now have "ultimate control" over the processing of supplier invoices. The AP process is streamlined by electronically routing, coding, matching supplier invoices through a pre-defined set of accounting rules. Because we connect payables with your ERP there is no more manual data entry or keying of invoices. This will allow AP Staff to spend time on more important financial functions rather than chasing approvals on invoices and being consumed by data entry. In today's world of AP Staff working offsite, remote or from home online AP Automation systems such as Vision360 Enterprise allow AP Staff to manage the entire payables process from just about anywhere. Invoice Approvers: The rest of your company is busy, they have responsibilities and tasks to get done. By allowing approvers to simply "click a button" to approve invoices, and from anywhere, helps to free them from scribbling on paper and scanning, emailing or interoffice mailing invoices back to accounts payable. Accountants & Research Staff: Instant access to view and research supplier invoices from any computer by authorized staff helps to streamline monthly, quarterly closes as well as year-end. Internal, external and tax audits are much more efficient with greater efficiency and less headaches for finance executives. 7. WHAT CAN YOUR COMPANY ACHIEVE WITH AP AUTOMATION?
8. A FEW DIFFERENT WAYS TO APPROACH AP AUTOMATION Accounts Payable Automation can take on several looks and depending on a company’s goals and objectives each approach has varying degrees of results. The end result however is improved efficiencies and lower overall costs to process supplier invoices.
9. WHAT ARE THE STEPS FOR FULL AP AUTOMATION
10. WHAT ARE THE STEPS TO GETTING STARTED WITH AP AUTOMATION?
There is no doubt that the current situation is putting extra demand on everyone across the board. It seems right now everyone is affected one way or another by the pandemic either both at home and on the job.
With onset of a remote workforce it is becoming more of a challenge than ever before for accounts payable departments to get invoices out for proper review and approval and still meet the terms of suppliers. Many suppliers understand that we are in difficult times and are willing to work with their customers to help, however the AP Staff are still struggling with getting invoice approved. By utilizing an online accounts payable processing system like Vision360 Enterprise organizations are able to manage the payables process much more efficiently than if they had to shuffle paper invoices around. There are a few reasons to consider an online accounts payable processing solution:
Consider attending one of our informational webinars to learn more about ways to make your payables process more efficient to save time, energy and money. The global pandemic of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has turned the entire world on its head, some non-essential businesses have been forced to close, others are seeing a downturn in customers, employees are getting ill and your AP Staff are not immune to anything and probably feeling the pressure of all of this. Businesses are quickly being forced to re-evaluate how they operate and conduct daily business. The day-to-day routines that we have all been accustomed to for so long have been disrupted by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). The company you work for may be switching gears at this very moment and having to react to the current situation. At every level of the organization people may be rethinking policies, having to adjust business processes and work schedules as they try to figure out the best course of action. So how will your Accounts Payable Team manage their operations when there is so much uncertainty right now? We've outlined 4 key areas for AP Staff to focus on to help keep the accounts payable process flowing, your suppliers happy and goods/services coming in. 1. A/P Staff conditions To continually meet the needs of both internal and external customers, you first need to ensure your A/P Staff is well equipped to do so. If your company’s like most, it’s advised employees who can work from home to do just that. Many A/P departments use telecommuting as a perk for their staff, so you may already have clear remote work requirements outlined. If your team’s less familiar with working from home, make sure your A/P lead communicates how it works and what’s expected. Remote AP Processing systems and solutions can help to provide AP departments with direct access to electronic invoices while providing remote users the ability to review and approve invoices from any device anywhere in the world. For example, do staffers have all the necessary access, connectivity (Internet) and equipment (scanner, printer) they need? Must they stick to normal business hours? Should they use specific digital tools/platforms to communicate with your team? What technologies are they permitted to use? Which brings us to … 2. Fraud concerns Working at home spurs more fraud threats. As mentioned recently, remote work is one of the top cybersecurity threats in 2020, since homes and public places aren’t as secure as corporate networks. Scammers know that lots of people are working from home right now and are already devising scams to obtain private data and money. In fact, they’re using the coronavirus specifically as an email hook to get people to click (e.g., links promising updates and stats). So, remind your A/P staff to stay especially alert on the tech front. A benefit of utilizing an online AP processing system is that there are checks, balances and controls that will identify potential fraudulent invoices from making their way into your payable process 3. Vendor management Looking at business more broadly, it’s clear that the coronavirus pandemic is having a huge impact on companies’ productivity, revenue and supply chain. Most are trying to maintain operations while protecting employees and customers. That’s why it’s critical to make sure A/P Staff knows how your vendors are faring, if their normal ops are changing and how the payables process might be affected or interrupted. Also, make sure you’ve discussed your current strategy for paying vendors, since you may want A/P Staff to focus more on payment timing to be strategic with cash flow. An accounts payable processing system can assist in these areas by providing A/P Staff the visibility and control they need in order to keep the payable process moving and your vendors up-to-date regarding the progress and status of their invoices. 4. Employee communications Along with staffers and vendors, there are other employees in Finance and Purchasing who A/P may have to make a little extra effort to stay in the loop with right now. You could suggest scheduling routine conference calls to get status updates and discuss potential problems. And AP processing aside, you’ll also want to keep communications open overall to ensure that cash flow is in sync with your ever changing business needs. This information is intended to provide basic helpful information and in no way intended to provide, diagnosis, represent any type of diagnosis or healthcare solutions to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. For more information regarding our remote accounts payable processing solutions and services, please contact us directly. Our remote AP processing services and solutions are trusted by iconic brands like Welch’s and Yankee Candle and across all types of industries from manufacturing and retail to healthcare and high-tech. Portions of this article credited to the CFO Daily News.
If you're still manually processing supplier invoices here's how they could flow through your payables process if you were using AP automation.
Read more about the steps to making this happen, "Steps to AP Automation" or read our latest blog post, "AP Automation has something for everyone!" If you would like to see Accounts Payable Automation live and in action let us know and we'll schedule a day and time that is convenient for you and your team. Today's CFO faces never ending pressures to grow revenues, ensure financial controls and reduce operational costs across the enterprise. This is no easy task for any CFO, who has to deal with things like economic uncertainty, increased regulatory requirements and increased scrutiny from investors. CFO's have a few diverse and challenging roles, Steward, Operator, Strategist and Catalyst. The traditional role require CFO's to preserve the assets of the organization by minimizing risk and getting the books right and running a tight finance operation that is efficient and effective. It's increasingly important for CFO's to be strategists, helping to shape the overall strategy and direction, instilling a financial approach and mindset throughout the organization to help all parts of the business to perform at a high level. As Strategist, CFO's help influence the future direction of the company by taking a seat at the strategy planning table. CFO's are vital in providing financial leadership and aligning business needs and financial strategies to grow the business. As Catalyst, CFO's can drive the execution of change within an organization. CFO's are in a position that allows them to drive business improvement initiatives such as enterprise process improvements, cost reductions, and innovations that add value to the business and affect the bottomline. As Operator, CFO's have to operate an effective and efficient finance team that provide many different financial functions to the organization such as treasury, tax, sales, planning, analysis, accounts receivable and accounts payable. As Steward, CFO's work to protect the vital assets of the company, ensure compliance with financial regulations, close the books accurately and communicate value and risks to investors and boards. With all of the challenges faced by today's CFO how can Accounts Payable Automation help? By leveraging current AP Automation technologies, finance departments operate at a much higher efficiency level, with lower overall operational costs than those finance teams relying on manual processes. The CFO can now be assured that financial rules, policies and procedures are being enforced by the AP Automation technology. This ensures that proper protections are in place, segregation of duties are enforced and compliance requirements are met. Since today's AP Automation solutions provide an extremely high-level of efficiency gains, finance departments are no longer burdened by time-consuming, error-prone, manual tasks and can now focus on financial tasks that will help CFO's to manage cash flow, monitor liabilities and make more effective business decision regarding the future growth and bottomline of the company. Vision360 Enterprise, by BlueCreek Software is one of the fastest growing AP Automation solution providers on the market. Our services and solutions are trusted by iconic brands like Welch’s and Yankee Candle and across all types of industries from manufacturing and retail to healthcare and high-tech. For more information about Vision360 Enterprise or any of our services and solutions please visit our website at www.Vision360Enterprise.com or contact us directly 603-437-1400.
We are living in an age where streamlining manual processes and running lean has become the standard. If you look around your company you can probably see where process improvements have already taken place.
Streamlining the AP Process is really no different than any other improvement project that your company has undergone in other departments. If you look at your current payables process, you probably have some things going on that are not very efficient, maybe not the best business practice and most likely putting finance at some level of risk and may be costly to the company. Check out one of our informational webinars >> AP Automation Webinars No matter what finance role you're in, AP Automation can help you.
Check out one of our informational webinars >> AP Automation Webinars What is your role at your company and how might AP Automation affect what you do every day? Leave your comments and thoughts below. Let's face it, accounts payable teams are forced to do much more these days with far less resources than those of the past. When things go wrong, when vendors don't get paid on time or get paid at all - who's the one that always gets the blame? Yup, AP. This is just a short list of challenges in accounts payable departments. Which ones can you relate to? What would you add to this list?
What else can you add to this list? Getting started with Vision360 AP Automation may be easier than you think. Of course any project starts with a discussion about your current payables process, where the bottlenecks are, any slow downs and what is costing your AP Staff in time, energy and money.
Do I need to purchase anything for Vision360 AP Automation?
An AP Automation project generally has these milestones:
If you're payables process relies on paper invoices, uses emails as approvals, purchase order invoices are manually matched, and your AP Staff is hand keying data into your financial system - then it wouldn't hurt to give this some thought. Corporate finance teams, specifically Accounts Payable, spend on average 80% of their time manually gathering, processing, searching, verifying, consolidating, entering and reporting on data. This leaves only about 20% of their time to analyze data for better business decisions. Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), finance teams can leverage its automation to process and complete routine tasks the same way a human would. This allows companies to accelerate business processes such as processing supplier invoices for payment. RPA can significantly reduce processing times and costs while giving finance staff more data and more time to focus important tasks. RPA in Accounts Payable can assist in streamlining the processing of supplier invoices a number of ways:
With RPA from Vision360 Enterprise, businesses now have the ability to manage AP processes from a centralized dashboard with minimal staff involvement. RPA provides the ability to identify potential risks, process bottlenecks and resolve problems without the need to consume a lot of resources. By optimizing Accounts Payable by utilizing RPA automation, you can reduce risk, improve efficiencies at levels that were previously not achievable, eliminating manual tasks and streamlining processes, while significantly reducing and controlling costs. To learn more about RPA and our Vision360 Enterprise Accounts Payable Automation solution please contact us today, Contact Sales or call 603-437-1400. Imagine this....
Now, imagine that....About: Vision360 Enterprise powered by BlueCreek Software, empowers AP departments with an easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy AP Automation Solution that connects the accounts payable process with any ERP system. Vision360 Enterprise eliminates the non-essential, manual tasks that burden AP departments and cost companies time and wasted money. Our clients trust Vision360 Enterprise to eliminate manual invoice processing, eliminate manual invoice entry and realize a 60 80% savings over traditional paper based AP processing.
With Vision360 Enterprise Robotics Process Automation (RPA) companies can completely eliminate the process of manual data entry of supplier invoices.
Any company that uses labor process and enter Accounts Payable invoices or where people are performing high-volume, highly transactional process functions, Vision360 Enterprise will boost their capabilities and save money and time with robotic process automation. More and more companies are turning to RPA in order to automate mundane tasks like manual data entry and enabling staff to perform higher-value tasks in alignment with their expertise and training. Vision360 Enterprise RPA automation will capture, interpret and validate supplier invoice data for invoice processing that can be utilized in communicating with the ERP system as well as for invoice approvals, purchase order matching, auto-GL-coding and posting. Vision360 Enterprise RPA can complete specific tasks automatically that were once performed by human intervention. No-Cost Webinar: Learn How To OPTIMIZE Your Payables Process
If you're interested in ways to OPTIMIZE your accounts payable process then this is a webinar you don't want to miss. Learn how to: - Completely eliminate paper invoices forever - Simplify invoice approvals for everyone - Monitor your AP process from dashboards - Automatically match PO invoices - Correctly apply GL codes to invoices - Completely eliminate manual data entry once and for all - Reduce AP process costs, increase efficiencies & save money When: Thursday June 7th, 2018 Times: 11:00 am & 2:00 pm Eastern Time Register Today This is webinar is perfect for anyone responsible for the processing of supplier invoices including CFO's, IT Directors, VP's of Finance, Corporate Controllers, Accounting and Accounts Payable Manager or anyone just looking for ways to OPTIMIZE payables!
Getting your manual accounts payable process automated has never been easier. In 3 easy steps you can go from drowning in manual processes, paper and high labor costs to lean, efficient and optimized AP invoice processing.
Step 1: Let's talk. (estimated time: 30 minutes to an hour or two) Let's spend a few minutes discussing your current AP challenges, your goals and objectives. Once we understand your current situation and what you want to achieve AND ONLY THEN we will match you with a solutions that will meet your needs. Within a few hours of our initial discussion, you will receive our written proposal in hand. Step 2: Discovery. (estimated time: 8 hours to 16 or 24 hours) Our experienced team of business analysts will take a close look at your business needs, business processes, approval rules, PO matching and integration requirements. This will allow us to tailor an implementation that does not interfere with you running your day-to-day business needs. Step 3: Implementation. (estimated time: 30 days to 60 days) Our professional services team will be assigned to you and ensure the smooth and successful roll-out of your new Accounts Payable Automation system. This will include testing and training with you and your entire team. After the roll-out things don't stop there. Our team will be in costant contact with you to ensure your AP Automation system continues to operate as smooth as silk and will be there with you every step of the way. Start your AP Automation journey today! Tell us a little bit about your AP process >> If you've been utilizing an AP Automation system for 3 years or more chances are your system has not kept pace with the needs of your AP department. Your AP Automation system probably has not kept up with the latest technologies in speed and performance, or business process efficiencies gains and compliance requirements. Many AP departments using older AP Automation system admit that there are limitations to these systems and that there is still a fair number of manual steps and intervention required by AP Staff to accurately process supplier invoices. Not to mention:
Does this sound like you? Vision360 Enterprise AP Automation accomplishes all of the above and much, much more. Organizations like Welch's, Yankee Candle, Harrington Healthcare, Ames Tools, MKS Instruments, King & Prince Seafood and many, many more are realizing incredible efficiency gains and savings utilizing Vision360 Enterprise AP Automation for processing their supplier invoices. When: Thursday April 5th, 2018
Times: 11:00 am & 2:00 pm Eastern Time Are you tired of chasing down supplier invoices for approval? Are you tired of all of the back and forth when it comes to processing supplier invoices? Are you tired of being caught in the middle when invoices don't get approved on time? Learn how to: - Completely eliminate paper invoices forever - Simplify invoice approvals for everyone - Monitor your AP process from dashboards - Automatically match PO invoices - Correctly apply GL codes to invoices - Completely eliminate manual data entry once and for all - Reduce AP process costs, increase efficiencies & save money When: Thursday April 5th, 2018 Times: 11:00 am & 2:00 pm Eastern Time Manufacturing organizations face different challenges to their counterparts in other sectors. The highly-competitive nature of the industry creates pressure to adopt a lean approach to delivering goods and services to customers. This has led to an increasing emphasis on customer centricity and faster, more robust supply chains. While there tends to be a focus on front-end process improvements, manufacturers realize that there is also a need to extend these improvements to their back-end processes, particularly in accounts payable (AP) and procurement. This white paper serves as a guide for finance leaders on the drivers for implementing AP automation and the value it adds to the manufacturing supply chain. It summarizes the issues that manufacturers are faced with, and the benefits that AP automation has delivered to a range of organizations, including, reduced costs, increased visibility, improved efficiency in AP processes, and enhanced vendor management. The paper highlights the ways in which AP automation can be integrated with existing ERP, procurement, and supply chain systems, and ensure tangible results including...
When: Thursday January 25th, 2018 Times: 11:00 am & 2:00 pm Eastern Time The new year is here and AP Automation will be a top priority for most CFO's, Controllers and AP Managers in 2018. If you're not sure what AP automation is all about or if you want to better prepare yourself for AP Automation then this free 30-minute webinar will be perfect for you. Learn how to: - Completely eliminate paper invoices forever - Simplify invoice approvals for everyone - Monitor your AP process from dashboards - Automatically match PO invoices - Correctly apply GL codes to invoices - Completely eliminate manual data entry once and for all - Reduce AP process costs, increase efficiencies & save money When: Thursday January 25th, 2018 Times: 11:00 am & 2:00 pm Eastern Time It is rare these days to find someone who is not at least a little familiar with the term, "AP Automation" or has some preconceived notion of what "AP Automation" is and how it works or should work. It's important to understand that AP Automation can touch many processes and internal systems. So, from that regard there may be a few moving parts to an AP Automation engagement. But not to worry as AP Automation, by today's standards has matured. If we look at the definition of "Accounts Payable", Wikipedia defines it as "money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created. SO WHAT IS ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AUTOMATION?Accounts payable automation or AP automation is a term used to describe the ongoing effort of many companies to streamline the business process of their accounts payable departments. The accounts payable department's main responsibility is to process and review transactions between the company and its suppliers. In other words, it is the accounts payable department's job to make sure all outstanding invoices from their suppliers are approved, processed, and paid. Processing an invoice includes recording important data from the invoice and inputting it into the company’s financial, or bookkeeping, system. After this is accomplished, the invoices must go through the company’s respective business process in order to be paid. This process is straightforward but can become very cumbersome, especially if the company has a very large number of invoices. This problem is compounded when invoices that require processing are on paper. This can lead to lost invoices, human error during data entry, and invoice duplicates. These and other problems lead to a high cost per invoice metric. The goal of automating the accounts payable department is to streamline this invoicing process, eliminate potential human error, and lower the cost per invoice. Some of the most common AP automation solutions include E-invoicing, scanning and workflow, online tracking, reporting capabilities, electronic invoice user interfaces, supplier networks, payment services and spend analytics for all invoices. With the increasing availability of AP Automation solutions, businesses are driving process improvement in AP even further. By applying end-to-end AP Automation to their accounts payable department, organizations can accelerate invoice processing speed and accuracy while improving operational costs. Some organizations report that by implementing AP Automation they have managed to almost completely eliminate human intervention from the AP process, thus saving 60% to 80% of the time that was previously spent on manual processing. In Summary
By centralizing AP, revising processes, introducing automation and reducing the cycle time from weeks to a few days, AP departments can give the CFO the increased productivity and information vital to meet his or her goals. Discount capture, spend analysis, and cost reduction are benefits that directly impact the margin needed by companies in this day and age, at the same time giving the C-suite the visibility and audit capabilities they need to confidently sign off on the effectiveness of financial controls and management certification of results. "In the accounts payable department the phones are ringing! Vendors are calling looking for payment statuses! Auditors are looking for copies of invoices! Invoices need approvals! PO invoices need to be matched! Invoices need to be entered for payment! Checks need to be cut and the CFO wants to know, "Why is all of this taking so long!?"
Okay, okay, take a deep breath! breathe! breathe! But you get the picture! Right? With all of this you have to wonder why so many companies are so far behind the times when it comes to process improvements and accounts payable automation? Let's face it when your car is not running good, won't start is starting to have problems and show its age we begin looking at the cost to keep the vehicle in good shape and when the costs start to exceed the value what do we do? We trade it in or sell or worse, junk it! According to internal studies performed by many companies (as well as trade associations) the cost to process a single vendor invoice has ranged from $9 - $15 dollars as compared to AP Automation which has seen cost reductions between 60 to 80 percent or even higher! Well, if your accounts payable process is not able to keep up with the invoice volumes or manual processing costs are higher than they should be it might be time to take a look at ways to improve, right? Improving your accounts payable process can take on many shapes. At many companies the thought of AP Automation was just too much to bare, there were too many unknowns and many companies are often times paralyzed by FEAR! Is your company paralyzed by Fear of AP Automation? So what are some of the ways that AP Automation saved the day in Accounts Payable:
By centralizing AP, revising processes, introducing automation and reducing the cycle time from weeks to a few days, AP departments can give the CFO the increased productivity and information vital to meet his or her goals. Discount capture, spend analysis, and cost reduction are benefits that directly impact the margin needed by companies in this day and age, at the same time giving the C-suite the visibility and audit capabilities they need to confidently sign off on the effectiveness of financial controls and management certification of results. |
AuthorVision360 Enterprise Accounts Payable Automation Solution by BlueCreek Software reduces time wasted chasing down paper invoices by automating invoice approvals, eliminating manual data entry, eliminating paper invoices and reducing processing costs. Categories
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