Challenges With Accounts Payable That Can Be Avoided With Workflow & Document Automation Solutions

Oct 30, 2018Accounts Payable, Document Automation

We all know how critical managing  accounts payable is for your business. This process guarantees you can obtain the necessary assets to keep your business process going without overpaying or underpaying. With that in mind, you may face many accounts payable challenges as time goes by. One of the single most powerful tool that you can invest in to overcome some of your biggest accounts payable challenges is a workflow and document automation solution. Here are a few of the biggest challenges we hear from consumers before investing in document automation solutions.

Delaying of Processes

With a paper-based document management system, every processed accounts payable invoice requires multiple emails, printed and delivered documents, verifications and authorizations. The process is drawn out and can take up most of your valuable time. If a single link in this chain is broken or dead – like personnel being on vacation – the process can be even longer and create stress that in turn could be avoided with document automation solutions. A digital document management system like the one stated previously expands account data visibility between your company and the note holder, and allows authorizations to be handled much faster.

Where’s the AP Documentation?

As manually managed documents start to pile up, confusion begins to settle in. People will be unsure about where a document goes or where it even came from. Assumptions begin to occur and misrepresentations begin to appear. As a result, important documents will be lost or even destroyed; your accounts payable documents are not excluded from this. A workflow and document automation solution will filter your accounts payable documents away from everything else for better organization and representation, and even protect the documents to prevent accidental deletion.

Data entry errors that potentially cause over and underpayments

If you have accurate information, paying an accounts payable invoice should be simple. Matching the invoice with the purchase price and the total amount paid on the account is all that needs attention. One of the biggest challenges people face is cutting corners and trying to get something done quicker without the proper technology to do so. This in fact causes errors and the most common error is of course, human error. If you have document automation solutions it would deliver accurate invoice and payment data in real-time to ensure accuracy and cause less error in the future.

Late payments

The last thing you want to do is pay your bills late. A mistake like this can lessen your ability to acquire assets, harm business relationships and cost you tons of money in penalties and over night shipments. Regardless of whether or not your company has the funds, late payments can happen due to a small mistake such as placing an incorrect date on the invoice or neglecting to schedule a payment. A document automation solution will help prevent errors like these from occurring by automatically scheduling accounts payable payments until the account is settle after you initially establish the account. You can spend less time worrying about making a payment on time and spend more of your valuable time on other important matters.

Double payments

Paying a company twice is a mistake you don’t want to make. A duplicate payment – especially on a large accounts payable can cost you and your company an extremely large amount of money. This could ruin your budget and potentially cause you to pay more than you owe. Hindrances and miscommunications in the accounting process can lead to duplicate payments. For example, the company holding your note could send out an invoice that reflects your balance before you made the payment; your team could assume that the invoice is correct and make a second payment without knowing it. A document automation solution centralizes the entire accounts payable payment process so that all of the numbers are reconciled and up to date.

BSC partners with Upland’s FileBound to provide cloud-native, end-to-end applications that automate the flow of work to optimize AP processes. You can focus on the need’s of today’s knowledge worker. We deliver document and workflow automation that is easy to implement, configure, use and modify.

Workflow & Automation Document Solutions

The most complex invoice can be automated with a graphical, user-friendly configuration tool, enabling quick deployment. It’s mobile friendly as we want you to have the fastest responsive technology that can deliver an optimum experience, regardless of the device, eliminating bottlenecks in approvals and other tasks.

Because an Accounts Payable department is a common department in most industries it shouldn’t be avoided when their are proven solutions to increase productivity and lessen the chance of human error and duplicate payments, etc.

Throughout the southeast, BSC helps busy AP staff manage the tasks associated with everything from invoice processing, to audits with ease.

Some benefits of Workflow and Document Automation for AP include:

  • Shorter cycle times
  • Better service
  • Secure storage of documents
  • Reduces time and materials needed to maintain paper records
  • Readily integrates with existing accounting systems to improve effectiveness

We provide document automation solutions to AL, MS, TN, and the surrounding southeast region. We are headquartered in Birmingham, AL where our staff is ready to help you save up to 50% of labor costs while accelerating the time it takes to process invoices in your accounts payable departments. Contact a local BSC representative for more information at (205)988-3300 or via email at info@bscsolutions.com.