How to Overcome Accounts Payable Challenges - Part 1

Accounts Payable challenges regulary include the areas of invoice receipt, data extraction, invoice matching and exception handling, and approval workflow. Sound familiar? A common theme with these Accounts Payable processes is that they rely on paper and people, and many companies are finding that adding staff doesn't always solve the underlying problem. Manual processes are not only expensive and inefficient, but they also increase the change or errors and expose companies to many risks. Here are a few examples of Accounts Payable issues:

ISSUEIMPACT

Invoice processing cycle time

• Delays in posting expenses
• Waste of cash (inability to capture early payment discount, late payment penalties)
• Damaged relationships with suppliers

No automatic validation

• Overpayments for billing errors
• Duplicate payments
• Tax errors

Lack of process visibility

• Difficulties in budgeting, planning, and forecasting
• Lack of control and higer risk impacting audit standards compliance
• Challenges for accurate and on-time closing
• Difficulties in responding to vendor invoice status inquiries

Invoice processing costs

• Invoice dispute resolution
• Exception handling
• Escalation and approval of problem invoices

Check back soon for Part 2 of this topic where we'll go into more detail of how to rectify these problems with a simple solution.