How AP Automation Can Improve Collaboration in your Business

Expanding your business is an understandable ambition, but there is a consequential challenge to keep things running smoothly. Documentation builds up, processes come under pressure and project teams can feel the strain. Effective collaboration is the secret to overcoming such challenges, and AP Automation the key that boosts it.

Accounts Payable departments depend on collaboration, so much so that any clear improvement to collaboration culture is welcome. It’s not just a matter of giving the okay to paying invoices, it’s also about providing transparency across all aspects of the business, such as reconciling accounts, issuing purchase orders and keeping track of deliveries amongst other things.

The significance of collaboration has been proven. According to study carried out by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), companies that have a collaborative working culture are 5.5 times as likely to be high performing.

Of course, the purpose is a major factor in the success of any collaborative culture; in essence, the time spent sharing information and working together must have a definite definable aim, if it is to be of any real use. This means all elements of a process should benefit from the overall collaboration culture.

Another study, from Chapman University, discovered that effective collaboration is dependent on employee incentives to encourage a collaborative culture (usually monetary rewards), while other research points to factors like the layout and design of the working environment, and (most importantly) how information flows through an organisation.

With Accounts Payable departments concerned with so many different elements, the value that AP automation has is quite substantial. Here are a few of the ways in which it can boost collaboration, and in doing so enhance the overall performance of the department, and the business itself.

Greater Accuracy and Efficiency

AP automation negates the threat of human error to ensure accurate invoicing every time. Human error can be a major issue, and while we know that collaboration is a positive culture, on this occasion, collaboration (double- and triple-checking the numbers, often across departments) is not needed.

Accounts payable tools allow you to feed data into one system, so even where different teams are entering the data, the same procedure is followed, ensuring consistency in your AP process.

Faster AP Process

As we’ve already mentioned, the Accounts Payable process has to incorporate a lot of information, making the process quite complicated and time consuming. Collaboration is necessary to ensure all of the facets are noted and accounted for.

Because AP automation tools contain all relevant information in one place, collaboration is easier and every aspect of the AP process greatly improved.

Improved Visibility

An automated Account Payable system is not just a list of figures and names, as per an Excel Sheet. The programmes available today, such as Kefron AP, offer a visual representation of the details, and this means a higher level of visibility for AP executives to base their decisions on. Every document is correctly filed and can be retrieved instantly, globally.

More crucially, it means that all documents can be easily tracked. And where regulatory commitments require data, it becomes simple to provide the relevant data within minutes.

Fast And Clear Communication

A successful business needs to have different divisions and departments running in tandem, like cogs turning smoothly in a mechanism. Clear communication is vital if this is to be accomplished, especially where different skills and knowledge are spread across the organisation, and no more so when it comes to planning.

A primary advantage of AP automation systems is that important information can be shared amongst decision-makers in one easy-to-access system. Communication is, therefore, not only clear but immediate, ensuring the AP department and other key areas are kept informed.

To find out more about Accounts Payable Automation click here.