Automating invoice processing: Important elements Finance leaders need to consider

Automation is key for all kinds of Finance workflows, including invoice processing.

Around 60% of finance leaders said they “absolutely” or “strongly” agree that automation saves them time at month end, according to Sage’s 2022 Close the Books Survey. And automating invoice processing can help make month end go much smoother for A/P, preventing issues like burnout.

Improve invoice processing for A/P

Document management software provider Docuware offers some points CFOs should keep in mind when automating invoice processing to streamline A/P’s performance.

• Make sure the solution makes invoices easy to find. It’s one thing to be able to search for digital invoices, but it’s another to easily have them at A/P’s fingertips. Any automation solution should make it simple for A/P to centralize their invoice workflow and find invoices quickly.
• Solutions should be able to automatically pull key details from invoices. Look for solutions that can extract details from invoices such as names, dates and amounts owed. This will allow the solution to index the invoice to help A/P locate it later when needed.
• Prioritize mobile-friendly solutions. It’s essential that A/P staff have the ability to review and approve invoices on mobile devices. That way, they can work from anywhere if necessary.
• Automation should simplify your audit trail. When automating invoice processing, it’s essential to maintain your audit trail. Your Finance team must be able to find archived invoices and other relevant documents quickly to streamline the audit process – both internally and externally.
• Solutions that give the team the full picture are essential. With automated invoice processing, your team should be able to easily see how many payments have been processed, how many are in the queue, and how much money is coming in and going out. Finance should also have full visibility of due dates so the team can take advantage of benefits like early payment discounts.
• Automation should help standardize Finance’s core workflows. To get the most out of your investment into an automated solution for invoice processing, you need to look closely at your current manual workflows and find a solution that can make them run seamlessly without disrupting your Finance processes.
• Be sure to consider the vendor onboarding process. Even in many companies that have taken advantage of automation in Finance, the onboarding process for suppliers is still full of manual steps. A complete solution for invoice automation also considers onboarding, allowing you to have supplier info digitized from the start.