What is Accounts Payable Automation?
Accounts Payable automation refers to technology that is used to streamline and automate accounts payable processes, removing manual tasks and providing better visibility and control over important financial data.
Accounts payable automation enables companies to touchlessly process supplier invoices without any human intervention by providing a digital workflow to manage steps previously handled by an AP staff member.
Holistic accounts payable automation starts with capturing invoice data in a digital format, usually through a form of scanning or capture method, such as optical character recognition (OCR).
Accounts payable automation can provide significant cost savings for a company beyond the expected savings from eliminating manual tasks. Companies can optimize their vendor portfolio, avoid duplicate or erroneous payments, and take advantage of early payment discounts.
How to select an accounts payable software?
Companies looking to add automation in accounts payable should research different AP automation solution options carefully to ensure the best fit for their organization. It is critical that the accounts payable automation software selected can support every invoice processing scenario to ensure true automation of accounts payable and hard savings in time and cost.
In addition, it is important to understand how the new AP automation solution integrates with the existing ERP to ensure synchronization of data and a streamlined process removing manual tasks and delivering automation of accounts payable.