Acts of AP Automation

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Next business trip? The cloud. Transferring your Accounts Payable system to a cloud-based, end-to-end payables solution is a long-term stay with lasting benefits. Moving away from paper-based invoicing solutions to automated invoicing and transaction processing will have powerful reverberations across your company’s entire business organization, setting you up for greater success and productivity.

We’ve outlined three of the most critical benefits.

Cost Reduction
Keep a closer eye on your ROI. According to the Hackett Group, e-invoice payment processes cost, on average, 60 percent less than paper-based solutions. When you calculate your current spend on invoice processing this could be a difference of thousands of dollars.

These savings are an obvious hook, but it’s important not to overlook the added value of workflow transformation. With a streamlined process and greater insight into cash flow, your team will be in a better position to make the critical financial management decisions that affect the bottom line. When it comes to costs, automation is about small changes and the big picture.

Improved Productivity
Money comes and goes; time only goes. And where your time goes matters. A few questions to consider:

• How many days does it take to process your invoices?
• Are you manually keying them into the system?
• What’s the lead time for each process step?
• What’s the lead time for each user and approver?

Though transitioning to cloud-based processing may seem like a massive undertaking—“We have too many projects going on right now!” “Our IT resources are limited!”—automation offers long-term efficiencies that far outweigh the time it takes to evaluate your current invoicing processes, develop a plan based on diagnostics, and begin implementation of a new system. Decreased risk of human error. Faster processing, approvals, and deployment. The ability to step back and strategize. Put in some time upfront, and you’ll find freedom on the other side.

Increased Data Protection
A recent survey by Paystream—Data Security in Age of Digital Transformation—revealed that companies ranked “improved security and control” as the third most important reason to migrate their AP process to the cloud. It makes sense: Paper can get stolen; emails can be poached. A cloud-based automation platform offers safeguards these options don’t, including an encrypted supplier portal, user login validation, and data segmentation on private servers. In our current landscape, data security is more than an option—it’s a non-negotiable.

As you consider these benefits, remember: Feet on the ground, invoices in the cloud.