Employee Experience
Four Ways to Simplify Invoice Management for the Flexible Work World
We are living in the midst of a work revolution.
What was once a gradual shift toward hybrid work hit seismic proportions over the past two years. Working faster and smarter are no longer just business priorities – they are essential to work-life balance and employee satisfaction. As we have seen, entire economies and operating requirements can turn on a dime.
The question is, are you ready to turn with them?
As an employer, you must be able to keep pace with the changing work needs of your people and your company. Nowhere is this more critical than in finance and accounts payable (AP). Without consistent, disciplined spend management processes and complete and unified spend data, you lack the visibility and control you need to make the most of every pound.
Here are four ways that the Concur Invoice solution can get you where you need to be.
Automate, Automate, Automate
There’s nothing that slows your AP team down and creates errors and rework more than outdated, manual paper-, e-mail-, and spreadsheet-based supplier invoicing. When you automate and connect your invoicing with expense report and p-card processes, things like workflows, approvals, and audits can be done from anywhere. Plus, the act of automating is a great opportunity to evaluate your current invoice management processes to identify redundancies and bottlenecks. You may even find new spend categories that make more sense for your business or see that some of your suppliers are really stepping up whereas others may no longer be making the grade.
With Concur Invoice, you have the tools you need to streamline spend management across your company, increase spend visibility, and allow your employees to work smarter, not harder – no matter where life needs them to be.
Integrate Across All Systems
A comprehensive spend management solution is great. But if it isn’t fully integrated with your back-end ERP, finance, and accounting systems, you’re still manually pulling data from one place and entering it in another. Connected systems mean accurate up-to-date data, greater visibility, and one source of truth. Not only does this save time and reduce errors, it gives your finance teams the information they need to make critical, in-the-moment decisions about cash and capital.
SAP Concur solutions offer multiple ways to connect and integrate your data. From built-in connectors to scheduled and on-demand import and export tools and custom-built API-based Web connections, you can find the right connection method to meet your business and IT needs – whether your people are at the office, on the road, or working from home.
Close the Process Gaps
Nothing throws a wrench in an AP professional’s day like finding an invoicing error or missing piece of information. They have to stop everything and sift back through previous steps – contacting suppliers or buyers to get the information they need. Add global time zones and remote work schedules to the mix, and you could be looking at days of delay.
Your goal should be to find an invoice management solution that flags errors and missing information before they get to AP. In other words, there should never be a piece of critical information that doesn’t make it into a report or a PO that comes through without the correct approval.
With Concur Invoice, your invoice management processes and data are connected and your supplier invoicing rules are applied automatically – reducing the number of exceptions you need to manage in the first place.
Don’t Forget About Payments
Why automate every aspect of your invoice management except that critical last step? There is no need for AP teams to waste time cutting checks or manually verifying electronic payments.
SAP Concur solutions offer multiple ways to incorporate integrated, controlled, and automated payment processes through banking and financial service partners. And because it all runs in the cloud, you can roll it out quickly without rehauling your ERP or finance system.
Whether you’re already using the Concur Expense solution or are taking the first step in transforming your spend management, it’s time to make life easier for your AP team across every step of the invoice management process.
Find out more about how Concur Invoice can give you the efficiency and insight you need to make smarter spending decisions. Then visit us online to get started.
Read our latest eBook, 4 Ways to Boost Productivity in a Flexible Work World to learn four ways SAP Concur solutions can help you make it happen.