Are you ready to reach the next level within your AP team? Account payable automation solutions can be life-changing for businesses that struggle to keep up with invoice processing.
Selecting the right option can be a daunting task, but luckily there’s one secret that can help to detect the correct solution for your business.
How Do Account Payable Automation Solutions Work?
Sure, you know that AP automation means you no longer have to manually process invoices, but how does it work?
It’s a quick 3-step process:
- Incoming Invoices – The first thing you need for the software to work is invoices. Invoices should flow through to the software so it can begin processing them.
- Data Capture – Next, your AP solution will capture the data from the invoices. Digital invoice data is automatically read and understood, while scanned invoices must first go through OCR recognition to turn the information into digital data.
- Data Workflow – The AP invoice data then gets processed and categorised under useful descriptors so you can quickly locate the information you need.
It’s as easy as that!
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Accounts payable automation software demo
How To Determine Which Account Payable Automation Solutions Are Best
Here's a checklist to go through when researching AP automation solutions:
Helpful Staff
There’s nothing worse than signing up with a company that offers round-the-clock support only to find that you’re speaking to a machine, not a human. Don’t skimp on support when you’re selecting your accounts payable software.
Advice tailored to your situation will be crucial as you implement the new workflow automation solution in your organisation.
Don’t put up with a company that will be hands-off once you’ve signed on the dotted line. Partnering with Affinda, you’ll find that we are there with you every step of the way to ensure the product’s success in your business.
Affinda is famous amongst our clients for our support team being extremely knowledgeable about our products. They aren’t just a sales team, but a group of tech-minded people who are excellent at answering even your most curly questions.
Existing Enterprise-Level Clients
If enterprise clients already trust an automation solution, you know it must be good!
Keep an eye out for account payable automation solutions that are already used by ERP consultants to optimise the workflows of enterprise clients.
Ultimately, you know that if software can suit a complex and challenging enterprise use case, it is certainly robust enough to be good for your business!
Ultimate Accuracy
The success of implementing a new ap automation software hinges on how accurate it is. After all, you’re spending a lot of time and money researching the best option – it needs to be worth it in the end.
The idea behind automating accounts payable processes is to avoid the human error associated with manual data entry, thereby reducing costs.
Luckily, the accuracy levels of any AP workflow software should be easy to get your hands on well before you commit to one product. Ask the company how accurate their solution is, but also go ahead and test it for yourself.
If your company uses specific invoices that invoice processors find tough to read, don’t despair. Many AI solutions can be trained to specifically get better at reading your invoices.
Seamless Integration
Have you ever implemented new technology into your organisation, only to be disappointed when the integration with your existing ERP system didn’t go as expected? Not all automation software is made to play nice with the other AP solutions you already have in place.
That’s why you need to select a solution featuring a versatile API. An API allows systems to integrate easily with each other without a ton of work from your developer.
Or look for a solution with an online tool that anybody can use!
Free Up Your Accounting Team
Do you have staff that spend hours each week processing invoices? That doesn’t have to continue forever! If you are one of the many businesses that need to process enormous loads of invoices in record time, an accounts payable automation solution can allow you to do that.
But do you know what speeds you should be looking for? No, accounts payable automation software doesn’t run in km/h. Instead, it runs in minutes per invoice.
Let’s say you have 100 invoices that need processing each week. It takes a staff member 10 minutes to process each invoice – a total of 16.7 hours spent. Even if you could shave off 2 minutes per invoice, that saves 3.3 hours a week!
What other work could your staff get done with all that extra time on their hands?
Multiple Languages
Do you deal with invoices in a variety of different languages? Then a tool that processes invoices only in English isn’t good enough.
Affinda’s invoice parser can read invoices in many languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, and many, many more.
Even better, the accuracy is just as high as it is for invoices in English. Don’t compromise on quality just because you’re an international company. Why would you when you already have the ideal multilingual invoice automation solution?
AI – No Longer The Technology Of The Future
The parsers of old relied on template methods to parse invoices; and that worked well enough when no other options were available.
Choosing a template-based parser in our current world of AI technology? Honestly, not a good idea.
As you know, invoices never follow an identical format, so parsers based around templates aren’t flexible enough to process every type of invoice you’d see in a month.
By finding a solution that leverages AI to be able to read any type of invoice, you’ll be much better off.
Artificial Intelligence essentially teaches English to computers, allowing them to understand invoices in the same way that you and your staff can.
The Secret Factor That Could Make Or Break Your Choice
You likely haven’t forgotten that a secret was promised to you – a secret that could be the ultimate deciding factor when choosing an account payable automation solution.
TEST THE PRODUCT.
That’s right; you should be able to get your hands on the software well before you fork out any money for it. Before committing to anything, you need to feel confident that the AP automation solution works for your unique business.
Without testing it on your invoice data, how will you know if it will be a good choice? For someone else, maybe, but what about for you?
Test the product by processing a whole bunch of invoices and checking the accuracy. Once you think you’re done testing, test it again!
You can’t be too careful when it comes to your accounts payable processes, so take your time to ensure that you’re making the right choice.
Interested in how an Account Payable Automation Solution could benefit your business? Give the friendly Affinda team a call today.
