Leveraging Accounts Payable Automation to Address and Overcome Challenges

By: Andrew Blackman | Founder & CEO of EZ Cloud, a TekStream Partner

Accounts Payable (AP) is an integral part of the way organizations operate. While recognized as a support in maintaining profitability, AP departments have traditionally completed processes manually. Why though? It can be inefficient, prone to error, and can be costly. Unfortunately, many companies experience the same AP challenges:

  • • While your particular business processes have evolved and progressed, your accounts payable methodology may still rely heavily on paper. Even if invoices are received via email, many organizations still require that invoices to be printed, processed, approved, and stored manually. This further complicates an already tedious process.
  • • Paper dependency exists even though companies have an ERP system (or multiple ERP systems, including but not limited to E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards). ERPs are meant to handle the accounts payable process in an efficient manner.
  • • Employees may only be proficient in one system and not others. Who has time to learn yet another system?
  • • Other employees need to process or approve invoices, but they don’t have ERP authorization.

Maintaining the accounts payable methodology the same way “it’s always been done” is a risk.

However, maintaining manual processes may be stifling organizational growth. AP is a historically manual and time-consuming process that often contributes to delays. While other aspects of business have been made more efficient through the use of automation, often, AP departments have still had to rely on manual processes. Accounts Payable automation offers an improved user experience and rich toolset to streamline invoice data entry, focusing on the automation of invoice data input.  This high level of automation will lower the number of data elements keyed, which in the end reduces the number of possible clerical errors.

Leadership is seeing a greater need to keep up with the times and transition to leveraging Accounts Payable automation technology in improving their tech stack. An organization having visibility into AP via an automated system is incredibly helpful for promoting growth and development.

Investments previously made in other areas of your business can be leveraged.

  • • Integration points, based on standard defined points within your ERP, quickly retrieve the purchase order and vendor information. From there, it will match the data to the invoice often before a user has any visible interaction with the invoice.
  • • Any current validation routines present in your ERP are honored, as data is validated before its delivery to the ERP for ingestion.
  • • Any existing approval hierarchies from the ERP can be reused for workflow approvals which can often be simply approved via email.
  • • Your existing corporate security model and infrastructure can be used to enforce authentication and authorization of invoice information.
  • • Invoice-related documentation can be attached to the invoice, and subsequently viewed in the ERP.

Integrating with your existing ERP(s), EZ Cloud’s Accounts Payable automation solution supports your current workflow needs while digitizing and automating processes. Recognizing that no ERP is ever deployed “out of the box,” EZ Cloud and TekStream work together to tailor the solution to your specific needs. Once manual processes are left behind, your AP department will quickly thank you!

Contact TekStream today to learn more about how our team can help to solve challenges in the accounts payable process.