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3 Things You Need to Know About the Ways Accounts Payable Automation Helps Simplify Audits
Audits are something no one looks forward to. We know how valuable audits can be as an internal tool for evaluating business processes, but that doesn’t make them fun. We also know external audits are a possibility that companies would do well to prepare for, but that doesn’t mean we like to hear they’re coming.
Whether audits originate inside or outside your company, they’re generally considered a time-consuming hassle for the audited department. But you can make audits easier with accounts payable automation. Automation is especially important today, as companies work to create a viable post-pandemic payables strategy.Implementing accounts payable automation now makes future audits much easier to deal with. We can’t promise audits will be all sunshine and happiness, but NextProcess software will help simplify the auditing process. AP automation makes audits much less painful by creating an electronic audit trail and streamlining the process of auditing. The software does this by enforcing regulations, providing easy data access, and showing real-time information.
1) Streamline Regulation Compliance
One of the great things about AP automation is that everyone in the company uses the same system. This single, centralized system means there aren’t different styles of doing something or shortcuts that circumvent company regulations.
Cloud-based accounts payable automation from NextProcess is secure. It’s also easy for your employees who have the correct security permissions to access the system from anywhere they have Internet. You can add as many employees as needed to the system, at no extra cost, to make sure that every AP process goes through the same system and is made simple for everyone involved.
AP automation processes every invoice quickly and in accordance with your custom tolerances. Automation also gives you better control over invoice processing. This reduces errors and ensures compliance with tax laws, internal policy, and industry regulations. All that increased compliance, greater visibility, and more accurate data mean simpler audits.
2) Instant Access to Important Data
It can take several days, a week, or even longer to audit a paper-based accounts payable department. Paper documents can be lost, misplaced, altered, or damaged. Even when all the files are accounted for and neatly organized, the challenges of sorting through paper files make for an auditing nightmare.
AP automation makes it easy to access records. The automated NextProcess system sets up an online document repository to keep all your invoices, old and new, right at your fingertips. That repository is easy to search and simple to sort through. In addition, our bulk download tool lets you easily download images for a bundle of invoices at once. This makes it easy for auditors to access and work with financial records.
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3) Track Changes and Events
Accounts payable automation software doesn’t stop at storing digital images of each invoice. It also tracks and saves information about how the invoice was processed. Change and event tracking gives your company, and auditors, quick access to all the details of an invoice’s history. This information also updates in real-time for invoices currently being processed.
NextProcess lets you give auditors read-only access to your AP system so they can view all the records they need without any risk of them accidentally altering, deleting, or misplacing files. Our system makes it much simpler for them to perform a useful, accurate audit. This also means your employees are taking less time away from regular work to help with the audits.
A Simpler Vision for Accounts Payable
Though you may never look forward to audits, with the tools accounts payable automation provides they’re no longer something your company needs to dread. By streamlining regulation compliance, simplifying access to accurate data, and tracking processing information as well as data from the invoices, AP automation software gives you peace of mind when facing audits.
The advantages of accounting automation don’t stop with simpler audits. Automating your AP department also reduces costs, increases your control over company finances, and speeds up invoice processing. We’ve found that companies who fully automate accounts payable save an average of $14.93 per invoice compared to companies with manual invoice processing. Automation also reduces the average cycle time to 5.4 days, and the system typically processes invoices with purchase orders in less than 12 hours.
If all these advantages plus simplified audits sound good to you, contact us for a free demonstration of our software. We’d be happy to show you a vision for how AP software can make your life easier and improve financial processing in your company.
