Is It Time to Automate Your Accounts Payable?

Doing the work is only step one. Step two is getting paid and paying others—the vendors, contractors, and others your organization depends upon. And it’s step two, the accounts payable process, that presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses and nonprofits.

You probably experience the challenges every month. Bills stack up. Invoices are in various stages of the approval process. Checks are … Where are the checks again? Being printed, waiting to be signed, in the mail? These details and many more need to be recorded, without a single error, over and over again.

And therein lies the opportunity. If you can find a faster, more accurate way to handle accounts payable, you can devote more staff time to more valuable projects. Plus, you can build your organization’s reputation and keep vendors and contractors happy. That’s the opportunity available when you switch to an automated accounts payable solution.

Is Automation for You?

Small businesses might not need to switch to an automated accounts payable solution—at least not yet. But if your business is growing, or you expect it to soon, automation is likely to be a smart investment, so you can stay ahead of increased workloads.

Other signs to look for that will indicate you should seriously consider an automated solution include:

Missing payment deadlines
Making data entry errors
Struggling to get payment approvals
Losing track of bills or constantly swimming under a stack of them
Hiring new accountants who prefer or are accustomed to automated solutions

The Advantages of Automation

A variety of automated solutions are available, the best known of which is probably Bill.com. With these automated systems, you no longer have to manually perform every step of the accounts payable process, from processing and routing bills to getting approval and recording transactions.

Instead, you simply create bills, enter them into the system—often a cloud-based payment platform—and move on to other tasks since the payments are sent automatically. If bills require approval, you enter approvers into your account, and they’re automatically notified when they need to review a payment, which they can do in seconds.

You’ll want to make sure that whichever automated accounts payable solution you choose, from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct, will sync with your accounting software. That way, you can ensure that your accounting books are always fully up to date.

Need Advice or Support?

Whether you want advice on switching to an automated accounts payable solution or are considering outsourcing some or all of your accounting functions, Insero & Co. can help. Our financial professionals have decades of experience working with nonprofits and businesses and are available to help you find smart, efficient solutions to your accounting challenges.