The food and beverage manufacturing industry is more competitive than ever. Although packaged food producers, wineries, grain mills, confectioners, and other food manufacturers vary in their products, they have many common concerns regarding finance and profitability.
Cash flow is of particular interest, with companies always looking for ways to improve margins, increase efficiencies, and keep their suppliers happy. Manually processing supplier invoices can often be overwhelming and work against companies achieving these goals.
Accounts payable automation offers a viable, cost-effective solution to streamline processes, minimize errors, and improve profits by ensuring the timely, efficient payment of supplier invoices.
What is AP Automation?
Accounts payable (AP) automation is a tech-based solution that digitally manages the entire accounts payable process, eliminating the need for manual paper handling and processing.
The system uses cloud technology that can be securely accessed from any location with a WiFi connection, ensuring ongoing productivity, even when your AP team is working remotely.
Importance of AP Automation in the Food & Beverage Industry
Forward-thinking food and beverage manufacturing leaders understand that relationships, especially those with their suppliers, are critical to success. Ensuring invoices are paid early or on time is one of the best ways to keep production moving.
AP automation effectively improves internal efficiencies and eliminates invoice processing or handling errors that can hurt your reputation and cost your company thousands of dollars in late payment fees.
Challenges in AP Automation for Food & Beverage Manufacturers
Unique Invoice Processing Needs
In food manufacturing, invoice visibility on demand is critical to staying on top of invoice processing and paying your suppliers on time. If you can’t find the invoice, you can’t pay it, which can cost you more money and cause supplier issues that can slow production and hurt your business.
Complexity of the Approval Process
Invoice approvals can take time, especially if they must pass through several hands before payment can be processed. Questions or issues with the paper invoice can take time to address and resolve, and the document can sit on someone’s desk unchecked if the person is away.
Difficulty Handling Large Volumes of Invoices
When invoice volume is high, paper documents can be lost, misplaced, or misfiled in a sea of filing cabinets or boxes stuffed with papers. If an audit is necessary, finding specific invoices can consume hours of your accounting staff’s valuable time.
Benefits in AP Automation in Food & Beverage Companies
Time and Cost Savings
AP Automation helps you eliminate time-consuming manual tasks so you can delegate your team to higher-value activities. Streamlining your accounts payable process with automation also allows you to take advantage of early-payment discounts and avoid late payment penalties resulting from slow manual invoice processing.
Increased Accuracy and Efficiency
Advanced invoice capture technology prevents errors and duplicate invoices that can result from manual human data entry. Historical references within the system creates a reliable audit trail, allowing you to review all previous actions as the invoice moves quickly and efficiently through the approval and payment processing chain.
Better Invoice Management
With an automated AP process, there’s minimal risk of invoices being lost, misplaced, or misfiled when manually routing them through the approval process. Invoices are always available with just a few keystrokes, resulting in better invoice management and cash control.
Features to Consider When Choosing an AP Automation Solution
Interfacing with Accounting Systems
The automated AP system you choose must have the ability to seamlessly interface with your ERP or accounting system for accurate and efficient syncing of invoice information, payment details, purchase orders, due dates, and more.
Customization and Flexibility
Your new AP automation solution should never be “out-of-the-box”. Ensure your new solution is designed for your company’s unique needs and structure.
User-Friendliness and Ease of Implementation
AP automation is supposed to make your accounting team’s lives easier, not cause frustration. Review any systems you’re considering for interface usability, remote access, and ease of use.
Affordable AP Automation Solutions for Food & Beverage Manufacturing
For over 40 years, Ash Conversions International (ACI) has specialized in transforming how companies run their daily business processes with efficient, cost-effective solutions. We developed two tech-driven options that will optimize your AP processes:
AP Assistant™
Put the full power of AP automation to work for your enterprise business with this robust, cost-effective solution
AP Assistant Lite™
An innovative hybrid solution specifically designed for SMEs that need to improve efficiencies, cut costs, and reduce manual tasks
Both of these solutions provide complete AP invoice visibility, easy invoice routing for approvals, one centralized cloud-based location for invoice processing and retrieval, robust workflow reporting, and much more.
Reap of the Benefits of AP Automation with ACI
Automating your end-to-end accounts payable workflows improves the overall efficiency of the invoicing processes. Eliminate the risks of manual processing and add to your bottom line with an AP automation solution from ACI.
For more information on how your organization can benefit by automating the accounts payable process, call us at 800-719-9621 or click the button below.
