Trend Spotting – Four Opportunities with AP Automation

Far too often, Accounts Payable (AP) teams are left behind when it comes to automation, leaving employees stuck manually inputting data and spending hours matching supplier invoices. And when automation does come around, it can be confusing to know which program is best suited to your needs. 

Any confusion around selecting the most suitable solution can lead to delays in implementation, not to mention the chaos of trying to recover paper invoices in an emergency or losing your digital ones to clunky, out-of-date technology. 

There are many misconceptions around AP automation and how it will affect finance teams, whether it’s employees fearing they’ll lose their jobs or it’ll simply cost the business too much. We debunk these myths and more in our article, Common Misconceptions Around AP Automation.

But the positives far out way the negatives and we’ve spotted some emerging trends and opportunities that AP automation brings to your whole business.

Trend #1 – Increased Visibility

As a result of the pandemic, many organisations have digitised the receipt of their invoices, but an email shouldn’t be considered as automation. They still aren't able to identify how many invoices are out for approval, which ones were blocked, how long they’ve been blocked and why, without spending hours building and maintaining spreadsheets. 

By utilising finance automation, you’ll gain visibility into every part of your business and provide reporting capabilities that go beyond the AP team. You won’t need to worry about managers chasing AP teams for information during month end anymore as you can schedule reports to be delivered automatically straight to their inbox.

Once you have visibility over the status of invoices, as well as how much your business is spending, you can:

• Optimise AP processes and see where you can make cost and time savings
• Analyse data to provide insights that help you make informed decisions
• Identify preferred suppliers and strengthen vendor relationships 
• Control spending so you can cut down on unnecessary costs

Trend #2 – Improve Accuracy 

When AP teams have to rely on manual processes, it’s inevitable that there will be duplicate invoices or typos on those invoices. After your team have manually processed 70 invoices in one day and spent hours looking at the screen, can you really blame them for miscounting the number of zeros on an invoice? Or whether it’s an I or a 1? 

Using tools like SAP Concur allows you to put rules and logic in place to avoid incorrect accounting combinations, which is often an issue reported by accountants. Less typing means fewer typos which ultimately benefits the wider finance team.

Overall, SAP Concur solutions customers see a 68% reduction in invoice processing times by digitising paper and removing manual indexing in data capture, which then reduces human error. On top of this, by offering mobile approvals, your business approvers can log on to the system anywhere, at any time. 

Trend #3 – Identify Cost Savings

Cost savings made from utilising AP automation come in all shapes and forms, whether it’s reducing duplicate invoices, eliminating late payment fees or giving time back to AP teams to engage on analytical tasks. 

With AP teams focusing on manual processes, they don’t have a chance to realise their potential. Far too often employees are bored out of their minds after processing 50 invoices in the system. By giving them this time back, they can focus on elevating their analytical and technical skills. By reskilling and retraining employees rather than spending money on recruitment, your business can save money. 

With more time to play with, employees can identify savings opportunities through consolidated invoicing, look at spend trends across the business to support procurement initiatives and negotiate better pricing. And with more time, you can identify potential discounts for early payment. All of this puts money back in your organisation’s pocket.  

Trend #4 – Integrated Solutions 

It’s no secret that AP isn’t just about processing invoices. There are also PO matching processes to consolidate or employee spend processes that also come into the mix. Having all three of these on one connected platform will drastically reduce the time spent on checking, combining and consolidating data from multiple platforms or sources, both for your finance and operational teams. 

Being able to spot trends in the way your business runs is imperative if you want to ensure business continuity, reach business goals and grow effectively. AP automation helps you identify these trends so you can make better business decisions and navigate moments of change with certainty. 

To find out more about how SAP Concur solutions can help your organisation, check out the Concur Invoice demo.