Paying supplier invoices on time is critical to maintaining the financial health and efficiency of any organization. That’s why avoiding invoice approval backlogs is good practice to keep organizational costs down and protect supplier relationships.
However, when invoice approval backlogs do happen, it can be challenging to catch up while processing new invoices as they come in.
AP automation is the perfect solution to mitigate the risk of invoice approval backlog while streamlining your AP processes to save on costs and improve efficiencies.
Understanding invoice approval backlogs
When invoice approval backlogs occur in your AP department, your team might ask themselves how it happened. Some of the more common causes of invoice approval backlog include:
Using a manual approval system
Working solely with paper in your invoice approval system can contribute to backlogs. Information can take a long time to manually key into the system, paper invoices can easily get lost or misdirected when forwarded for approval, and if the invoice contains errors, manual correction can also slow down the process.
Breaks in the approval workflow
The AP workflow can easily be broken if there is a lapse in timely responses and approvals from individuals. For example, a paper invoice can languish on someone’s desk for days or weeks while awaiting approval. This breakdown can hold up the entire system, causing significant delays and leading to a backlog that can take time to clear up.
High invoice volume
Sometimes, the influx of invoices during specific periods can overwhelm your AP team. For example, they may experience a high volume of invoices at the end of each fiscal quarter, causing them to fall behind and a backlog to grow. Additionally, if they rush to prevent a backlog, there’s a higher chance that they will make errors when recording invoices, leading to further delay and an even bigger backlog.
Invoice approval backlogs can seriously impact your AP team’s efficiency, cost you money through late payment fees, and negatively impact your reputation with your suppliers.
The good news is that invoice approval backlogs can be quickly and efficiently solved with a custom AP automation solution.
The role of automation in invoice processing
AP automation solutions streamline the invoice processing system to help improve accuracy, increase invoice processing times, and prevent invoice approval backlogs. It accomplishes this by using modern technology to remove the need for manual intervention in the approval process.
For example, invoices are scanned into the secure, cloud-based system instead of keyed, removing the risk of data entry errors. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology extracts the information directly from the paper invoice, using machine learning to correct any ambiguous text, minimizing the chances of errors.
Once the invoice is scanned, it can be sent digitally for approval. Only authorized personnel in the approval workflow can access, review, and approve the online invoice for payment processing.
Benefits of automation in clearing backlogs
Whether you’re currently mired in an invoice approval backlog or want to proactively prevent one, implementing AP automation can improve the process while giving your AP team access to several unique benefits, such as:
Faster invoice processing times
As soon as you start using an automated AP system, you’ll notice a significant increase in invoice processing times. That’s because automation eliminates all the workflow’s manual steps, which can delay the process and lead to invoice approval backlogs.
Increased efficiency and productivity
A digital system keeps all invoice data in one secure, centralized, cloud-based platform, eliminating the need to chase paper invoices and improving your team’s efficiency. The time saved dealing with paper also increases their day-to-day productivity and allows them to focus on more value-added tasks.
Enhanced compliance and audit trails
Automated AP systems help eliminate the risk of fraud with built-in validation checks and compliance controls that ensure every invoice meets all regulatory and internal compliance standards. Invoices can be easily retrieved online for auditing, reference, or compliance purposes.
Improved financial control
Clearing up and preventing invoice approval backlogs with automation gives business owners real-time visibility into their financial processes to better track outgoing payments, helping them take advantage of early payment discounts, avoid costly late payment penalties, and improve the company’s financial position.
Addressing and clearing invoice approval backlogs with AP automation can help the company reap these benefits while preventing future invoice delays and backlogs. This makes AP automation technology a wise investment in your company’s future. When you’re ready to maximize growth opportunities and save money with an AP automation solution, call Ash Conversions International (ACI).
Prevent invoice approval backlogs with a custom automated AP invoice processing solution from Ash Conversions International
For over 40 years, Ash Conversions International (ACI) has helped small, medium, and large companies adopt efficient, cost-effective, tech-based solutions that transform how they run their daily operations, including their accounting processes.
Our automation solutions provide complete AP invoice visibility, easy approval routing, one centralized cloud-based location for invoice processing and retrieval, robust workflow reporting, and many more features to ensure sustainable cost savings while mitigating the risk of invoice approval backlogs.
ACI’s team of experts will get your system up and running quickly to help you reap the many benefits offered by one of our AP automation solutions, along with a customer service experience unparalleled in our industry.
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.
