Article written by Stephanie Onofri
Have you ever considered the amount of time that you would save by electronically capturing invoice line items simply by scanning them into an enterprise content management system tailored to integrate with your existing ERP system? Or what it would look like to actually meet forecasted goals by simplifying and automating your Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable processes?
Well, you’ve got to start somewhere! And if there is one department in which companies can make the most cost-effective, cost-saving, and profit-yielding improvement to optimize their enterprise, it’s in AP.
Accounts payable and receivable is the core of an entire business’s enterprise, affecting virtually every other company department. Sales, Procurement, Compliance, Marketing, IT, and Human Resources all depend on the smooth transactions that occur in Accounts Payable Receivable. But because managing accounts is such a document-intensive process and these documents have to be passed around between so many parties (from the mail desk, to data entry, to audit review, payment, and whoever oversees document retention), departments often have difficulty meeting company goals in the forecasted time period.
So an efficient and sustainable system of document storage, recovery, and workflow is crucial to ensure that company goals and visions are met. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is compatible with your company’s familiar ERP system, allowing employees to retrieve invoices, goods receipts, check images, vendor contracts, and even historical correspondences from said systems without a hitch.
When paper bills or invoices for services arrive at an AP department, they are usually manually entered into accounting software by line item, then passed on to a party responsible for updating and/or approving vendor information (when it applies), sent for audit reviews, processed for payment, and finally stored in the company’s records. It’s all pretty straightforward, except for the fact that many clerks will literally pull straws to decide who gets to endure one the painstaking task of data entry, and a single invoice can take several days to complete its cycle. So why not eliminate data entry altogether and automate the Invoicing process?
Here’s how accounts payable automation software can help:
- Accurate records management and information management in general is essential for Audit processes and compliance to company regulations. Electronic capture of data eliminates the risk of human error associated with painstaking data entry.
- Automating approval processes means the electronic distribution of invoices to a variety of parties at once, without the need of physically passing files along.
- A document Imaging System (BPO) intelligently stores document data in electronic format to an Enterprise Content Management System (ECM); once the data is stored in this manner, it can be accessed by appropriate parties for the purpose of editing/updating vendor information, attaching notes, adding signatures, etc.
To learn more about having a successful paperless accounts payable department, watch our webinar recording below – “Next Steps Toward a Paperless AP Department.” Or Contact DataBank to speak with one of our Software Solutions Experts today!
