Less Paper, Less Problems: Decongesting Your Accounts Payable Department

With the advancement of technology, paper is quickly becoming a nuisance in the workplace. Using paper records for document storage and invoicing can cause a lot of problems, clogging up your ability to do business in a timely and effective manner.

By automating your invoices, you have the ability to quickly send, retrieve and update all of your accounts payable with ease. This will free up time spent tracking down stacks of paper that may have been misplaced or sent to the wrong department and allows your billing department to stay streamlined and collecting the money your company is owed. Here are a few other ways that automating your accounts payable department can save your business time and money.

Automation Reduces Transaction Costs

Traditionally, your billing department would create a paper invoice, send it out and then wait for payment. If the due date passed, they may have to write another invoice as a reminder or create a new one that incorporated late fees. All of this costs money: not only the actually cost of paper, postage, etc, but the cost of not getting the money you’re owed in a timely manner.

With automation, all of these things are done electronically, which means that it not only saves you money on supplies, it can get those invoices out more quickly and keep track of them more readily than a person can. This can lower your total overall costs and it can also help you get paid on time or earlier. Automated services will also alert you to any late payments or invoices that are way past due so you can stay on top of them and take the necessary steps. For more information, you can visit www.dataserv.com/solutions/ap-automation.

Automation Plugs Cash Leaks

Cash leaks in your invoicing chain are small yet constant irritations. They prevent you from getting the total amount of money that you should and may even be difficult to spot on your own.

Automation can help with this, too. Two of the most common cash leaks are late payments and failure to capture early-payment discounts. Whether you fail to take advantage of discounts when you pay your invoices, or your customers fail to pay their’s early, automation will keep track and let you know if there is a constant problem. This will give you a chance to fix the problem quickly before it becomes a larger problem. The same goes for late payments. When customers are late, they are denying you access to cash that should already be in your coffers, and when you make late payments, you are just throwing money away for no reason. An automated system can watch for these leaks closely so you can take care of them.

Automation Keep You in the Loop

Another great thing about automating your accounts payable is that you will always know what’s going on. Whether you’re at the office or at home, you don’t have to worry about finding out whether one bill or another has been paid.

Automation gives you the flexibility to be alerted to any changes that you like. You can use automated systems to notify you by email, text or reminders about any number of concerns. If you want, you can set it up so you are notified every time an invoice is paid, sent out or received. You can also choose to be notified when an invoice becomes past due. This way, you will always know what’s going on with the accounts payable department so you can step in and make any necessary moves that will get you your money faster or take care of your outstanding bills sooner.

Automation Improves Audits

If you want to improve your audits and stay competitive, automation is a wonderful tool that can help you with everything from keeping track of records to keeping you compliant with regulatory standards.

You can set up an automated service to retain and destroy documentation to whatever standards you like, making it easy to keep track of everything throughout the year. Some studies have suggested that you can be up to 85% more efficient and compliant with your standards by using an automated service than by using personnel alone. This translates into a better view of your overall business and less work whenever you perform audits. As far as your billing department is concerned, you will have much less to worry about with automation than without it.

Ben Yates writes about business topics, mostly covering HR topics having the most experience in that area.

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