For many organizations, COVID-19 has brought to bear the need to remodel the way we work. The pandemic has forced many companies to have to reinvent their work models in a dramatic way; in particular – how they handle staff working remotely. Creating a ‘virtual workspace’ may have been thought to be necessary for the short term, but it may very well prove beneficial for the long haul – both for business continuity to be successful – and to be able to take advantage of significant resource savings!
Since the outbreak – organizations have been re-evaluating the necessity of many face-to-face meetings. In response to this and with an increasing restriction on travel – and with social distancing becoming necessary – a more remote, digital workspace model that incorporates self-isolation protocols is being embraced. Along with many businesses having moved to working remotely – meetings & conferences are also being handled virtually. Tools and platforms to facilitate meeting and handling business processes online are widely available – and enable businesses to continue working productively during the pandemic.
This increase in working remotely has been shown to increase productivity significantly. For starters – it has reduced the non-productive time and cost associated with the various levels of requirement to travel. Tools that allow businesses to reduce travel have been available for quite some time – but the pandemic has now forced a greater dependence on them.
Organizations that are being forced to work remotely during this global crisis are now focusing their resources on designing a new ‘@work’ landscape. Employees, clients and customers will invariably become accustomed to this model of work. One of the departments within this landscape that has been being redesigned over the last few years is the Finance Department – more specifically in the area of AP & AR Automation. With the advent of ‘The Cloud storage‘ – companies have been able to take advantage of the ability to store and access files and data in a way that allows them to be retrieved from anywhere in the world. Cloud-based platforms have been developed that handle all the processes involved in AP or AR workflows in a digitally automated fashion – allowing transactions to be completely automated – and accessed remotely. Business rules are created digitally to automate the handling of approvals – and exceptions can be handled remotely with ease – with exception requests sent electronically to those with the authority to make those exceptions or reject the payment – from wherever they are remotely located.
Companies that have already automated their AP & AR departments have been able to make a seamless transition to having their staff work remotely, without missing a beat with respect to processing their AP & AR transactions. With AP for example, the entire process – from receiving invoices to approving them for payment – happens ‘in the cloud’ – without any human intervention. When an exception arises – it is resolved electronically – and every newly resolved exception updates the business rules – eliminating that exception from occurring again in future.
Implementing cloud-based workflow automation is easier than you may think – and the dramatic reduction in cost-per-invoice transactions will provide significant justification for the implementation! We invite you to take a look at a working demonstration of an AP or AR environment that is completely automated – to see for yourself just how easy life can become by automating these areas of your Finance Department. It will help you during these uncertain times – and continue to provide value far in the future as well. Click the ‘Demo’ button below or call 1-800-719-9621 today to request a demo for your organization.
