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3 Big Questions AP Needs To Answer
When you’re looking at your AP department to make sure it’s up to the challenges of the modern business world, there are a few key questions you need to ask. How you answer them will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your AP department and decide where you need to focus improvements.
Are You Using Your Time Effectively?
This question gets to the heart of what the AP department can do to help the company. If your employees are spending all their time manually processing paper-based invoices, then you’re not using them effectively. And if your digital system is clunky and generates large amounts of exceptions, it’s not much better than paper-based processing.
Quality automation software solves common AP problems and frees up employees from time-consuming, repetitive tasks. It’s also easy to learn. Instead of spending time manually entering data, laboriously checking for errors, and paying late fees, AP employees can focus on more value-added activities for the company.
What Are You Doing To Improve Margins?
Your company basically has two options to improve their finances: make more money and/or cut costs. The AP department can definitely help with the latter. According to APQC research, companies that qualify as “bottom performers” are spending 2-1/2 times as much money to process each invoice as “top performers.” Make yourself a top performer and you’ll save the company money.
Automation is the biggest difference between companies paying over $12 to process each invoice and those spending less than $5. By speeding up your processing and cutting the amount of time employees spend on each invoice, you can improve your margins significantly.
How Are You Addressing Payment Fraud?
AP is a prime target for fraud. It’s where money leaves the company, so criminals see it as an easy way to get money into their hands. Invoice fraud is on the rise and your AP department needs a plan for detecting and preventing employee fraud as well as fraud that originates outside the company.
Automation can help with that by enforcing internal controls and enabling faster fact-checking. It also lets you give legitimate vendors controlled access to the system so they can accurately update their own information. You can also segregate important financial duties by getting a third-party involved in securely outsourcing payment solutions.
NextProcess automation software can help you answer these three questions in the best way for your company. Get in touch with us today for a free demonstration and see the time, money, and security benefits for yourself.
