"Accounts payable is a major headache". Just ask anyone who actually works in the department and they can verify that AP is actually not the worst thing! That said, it's safe to say that most people don't know much about accounts payable. Here are five things that you should definitely know about your company's accounts payable process – and probably don't have the slightest idea about it!
Thing number one, most people who actually work in accounts payable wish that they could switch everything over to an automated online system. Let's face it, keeping up with paper receipts and invoices in this day and age is undesirable, not to mention not very eco-friendly! Unfortunately, three fourths of all invoices received are still on paper!
Number two: since most of the invoices coming into the accounts payable process are still on paper, they can get easily lost or misfiled. This also makes the process take way longer than it would if the system was automated. Many invoices do not make it into the records until as many as 16 days after they arrive!
Number three: thanks to the alarming amount of manually entered invoice data more than 3.5 percent of invoices include errors. When your desk is a graveyard of receipts and invoices and the list is ever growing, it's understandable that typos and smudged ink may alter the figures on that invoice that came in last month, which can be pretty bad for your accounts control BTW. How could you possibly know where the numbers that aren't matching came from when you thought you've entered all the data correctly?
Thing number four, accounts payable employees are forced to jump through hoops when manually processing an invoice. And we're not talking about two or three hoops, we're talking about lots of hoops, sometimes 15 of them! The average number of steps to get an invoice entered and approved is 15! This is why manual processing is so lengthy and undesirable!
Last but not least, thing number five: cloud based technology and modern, virtual filing systems can make the ever-present headache that most people that deal with accounts payable process suffer go away! Automating the system would improve efficiency, processing time, and make all invoices instantly available to anyone with access, making sharing files a smooth and simple process not a scavenger hunt!
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