By Daniel Ball, SVP Innovation at Medius
Accounts Payable teams have struggled with monotonous and time-consuming manual processes for decades, spending valuable time on repetitive tasks. With the pandemic revealing the importance of efficient cross-border work and cloud-based workflows, many companies are only now discovering the advantage of a paperless accounts payable software to help mitigate the impact.
International enterprises must now work to disaster-proof cross-border accounting and invoicing strategies to allow for seamless invoice approvals, vendor vetting, and other essential work in real-time. As a result, businesses that adopt this level of paperless automation will remain productive, profitable and will be gifted with constant remote communication via the cloud, despite any future disruption.
The benefits are clear, but how can a daunting paperless AP process be put in place?
Analyse Current Processes
Before researching for the AP software solution you think best suits your needs, businesses must analyse current accounts processes to find pain points. Common AP issues such as extensive invoice approval processing times, security gaps, and time spent responding to financial reporting inquiries must all be highlighted at this stage. The AP team should then present these pain points to the C-suite and show the hours and money wasted on manual processes, versus the time and money that could be saved by going paperless and touchless. This can be done using industry benchmark reports which clearly outline the workflows of automated AP teams globally such as the recent Medius AP Benchmark Report.
This time taken to assess benchmarks and map out ROI will help senior management feel confident in the move, and to include investment in upcoming budgets.
Work With the Team
Secondly, once senior leadership has signalled buy-in, account leads must then discuss the possibility of new technology with colleagues in a bid to get key peers on board.
Open forums, employee surveys and training will all be useful tools in this process. The key is to clearly demonstrates the ways this transformation will help employees’ day-to-day workloads, and how these changes will give them time for more revenue-producing tasks, such as negotiating discounts with vendors for early payments.
Junior to mid-level teams are the missing piece of the puzzle to get company-wide support for this new way of working, and implementing a new paperless process should not go ahead without this critical step. Once this is communicated and C-suite is aware of the company-wide appetite, the move to paperless can take the next step.
Establish Goals for the Transition
When everyone is on board and ready to automate, AP teams will need to establish goals for transitioning from manual to automated processes. These commitments could include:
- Integrating with the existing ERP systems for maximum visibility and faster approvals
- Minimizing labour costs and improving work conditions with the elimination of manual processes
- Reduction of errors by removing the dreaded paper chase
- Improving supplier access to invoice and payment status to enhance inventory flow
- Enabling collaboration and approval remotely for real-time updates to stay on top of financials
In addition, teams will need to discuss to what extent paper will be part of future processes. Of course, paperless accounts payable software aims to reduce or eliminate this altogether, but the most successful implementations are the ones which are realistic and work with the people who will be using the software, not against them.
Choose the Right Paperless Accounts Payable Software Provider
The paperless office has been a dream for decades, yet the average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper annually, with corporations spending more than $120 billion on printed forms, typically outdated within just three months.
PDFs and artificial intelligence (AI) to expedite the processing of documents and the information within them are options when going paperless. AI software can look at a document, for example, and identify that it’s an invoice and route it to accounts payable. However, for most companies, cloud automation is the most intelligent choice because of the access to real-time data and automatic updates.
From integration to training and updates, working with the right partner enables companies to maximize ROI instantly. Most businesses comfortably transition within a few weeks or months, which enables money-saving discounts for early payments, reduced labour costs, and other measurable savings.
Paperless can be a daunting change for any business, but for big enterprises, this is a complete culture overhaul which should be handled delicately. Every employee is a key stakeholder, and every benefit must be mapped out for senior leadership. Only then will AP teams see a successful paperless implementation across the board.
