Accounts payable (AP) is still a manual process for many businesses.

It’s a slow one, too, thanks to the finance team having to manually capture and organise information contained within documents and invoices.

This valuable time would be far better spent elsewhere, and with digitalisation, finance teams can not only save time, but gain instant access to business-critical information, too.Financial slip-ups and dented supplier relations

Finance departments rely heavily on up-to-date information, but manual processes often make that hard to come by.

Outdated processes and systems will slow down the paying process for suppliers and creditors. This can lead to serious financial problems and damaged supplier relations.

Process should never get in the way of productivity, and digital transformation offers the best opportunity for businesses to speed up invoice processing and cash management - the lifeblood of any organisation.

The benefits

There are two clear benefits that come from digitising accounts payable.

These relate to gains made in the internal back-office, and those that spread far wider across the organisation and out to suppliers.

For instance, if you’re part of the back office team, you’ll benefit from increased visibility of payments coming in, spend far less time manually capturing and organising information and the business itself may gain early payment discounts.

Automation is a huge part of digitisation, too, and will help the accounts payable team:

• balance their workload and increase invoice throughput;
• capture supplier invoices digitally;
• improve relationships with vendors;
• respond immediately to exceptions and audit requests; and
• deliver the right documentation to the right people for review and approval.

When it comes to the wider benefits of digitisation, organisations can use a digital accounts payable operation to strengthen relationships with key partners, reduce their exposure to fraud and lower operating expenses.

This results in a far more efficient, lean, cost effective finance team and accounts payable process that is no longer hampered by the need for manual intervention.

Businesses that have already embraced digital transformation have been able to streamline their accounts payable operation by capturing invoices from anywhere and extracting the relevant data without human intervention.

There are quick wins to be had from digitising accounts payable; a cleaner view of your financial status provides the basis for far better decision-making. And that’s before you realise the cost-savings and productivity boosts that come with it!