APOC

Ultimate guide to account payable digital transformation

In today's digital economy, customers have come to expect same-day shipping and instant payments. So, vendors waiting days or weeks for invoice and payment processing can put you at a severe disadvantage. And if you have transformed only parts of your accounts payable process, you leave yourself vulnerable. But deciding to digitally transform your accounts payable function and embracing accounts payable automation is the way to go if you want to survive.

Is your business ready for for digital accounts payable transformation?

AP transformation with end-to-end accounts payable automation solutions is a must if you want to survive in today's market. But first, you need to determine if your business is ready to embark on the AP digital transformation journey. If your answer is “yes” to any of the following questions, your business is ready for AP transformation:

• Have you automated parts of your AP functions (like receipts or invoice approval)?
• Do you have different protocols for check processing, virtual cards and electronic payment?
• Are your vendors unhappy with the invoice processing and payment experience?
• Have you been a victim of AP fraud?
• Do your team and leaders need more visibility across your AP functions?

Benefits of accounts payable digital transformation

And if you follow through on your attempts for AP digital transformation, you open yourself up to a world of opportunities for growth and sustainability with benefits like

• Simplifying, streamlining and digitising AP workflows.
• Increased visibility across end-to-end AP functions for better request tracking and transparency.
• Improved supplier and vendor relationships.
• Better fraud detection and protection.
• Improved accessibility for remote and hybrid work environments.
• Improved time and cost-efficiency of AP processes.
• Eliminating human errors and processing delays for more efficient and accurate AP processes.
• Facilitating regulatory compliance.
• Facilitating business growth and scalability.

And with these benefits, you can use future-proof end-to-end AP automation solutions to build a sustainable competitive advantage and help your company stay ahead of the competition.

Selecting your digital accounts payable transformation partner

But if you want to leverage AP digital transformation to make your business future-ready and stay ahead of the competition, selecting a well-suited digital accounts payable software solution partner digital transformation partner is a must. Five points to consider when choosing your AP transformation partner are:

• Your financial goals:

  For AP digital transformation to have a positive impact, you must first understand and outline your financial goals and then seek out solutions that can help you meet your goals and balance cost savings and investment in AP automation solutions.

• Streamlining and digitisation of processes:

  Opt for streamlining and digitising end-to-end AP processes, from invoice processing to payments. Also, consider how easy the automation solutions are to use and if they can integrate easily with your existing business systems.

• Vendor adoption:

  Without vendor adoption, AP automation cannot succeed. So, select the solutions that are easy to use for your vendors, integrate well with their systems and are compatible with your vendors' expectations.

• Process security:

  Detecting and preventing AP fraud is one of the biggest motivators for AP digital transformation. Choose a technology partner that can ensure data security and fraud detection for your AP operations.

• Future-proof solutions:

  The AP technology landscape is dynamic, which necessitates an agile response to evolving technologies. Selecting a transformation partner that can help you adapt to next-gen technologies, evolve, and scale is critical for AP transformation success.

Best practices to improve digital accounts payable automation

Once you select the best-suited technology partner and embark upon your journey of AP digital transformation, some of the best practices that can help you improve AP automation are:

• Prompt invoice entry for faster invoice processing. Scanning or inputting invoices as they come in is one of the only manual processes you will need to do, and can guarantee you miss no invoice.
• Centralise data management to promote end-to-end visibility, improve invoice processing efficiency and simplify and speed up AP processing.
• Take control of your vendor data to ensure you have current information on each vendor and that there are no duplicate, incomplete or fake vendor profiles in your system.
• Digitise your records to eliminate the need for paper records, reduce storage space requirements, eliminate the possibility of human error and improve your AP efficiency.
• Calculate tax liabilities as the information comes in so you won’t face challenges during tax season.

These best practices, with end-to-end AP automation solutions, can help you simplify and digitise the complex and challenging AP functions to ensure better efficiency, effectiveness and stakeholder experience.

For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of AP software services is doing exactly that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.

How can Infosys BPM help?

Infosys BPM Accounts Payable on Cloud (APOC) SaaS platform is the ultimate partner in your accounts payable digital transformation journey. Turn your invoice processing into drivers of growth and efficiency, and enhance your stakeholder experience with APOC service offerings like end-to-end AP workflow, self-service supplier portal and AP cockpit. Leverage the next-gen technology solutions for accounts payable automation to save 90% of your time and free up your resources to improve your effectiveness, unlock high-performance efficiency and turn your AP processes into a profit centre.