Benefits of AP automation for CFOs and financial controllers
Changing the accounts payable system of a business can be an extremely tricky and difficult task. The AP department is always overloaded with receipts, payments, and documents and has many more things to take care of.
Appealing for AP automation before the executives of the company is a challenging task because you need to have a very compelling case in order to successfully onboard AP automation software.
A CFO looks for an automation solution that is cost-effective, helps save time, provides real-time information, and helps in making decisions by providing accurate data and insights.
Instead of just showing repetitive information, some actual insights and a central database would be loved by CFOs.
AP automation can immensely help businesses in building a solid foundation, avoid the risk of fraud and errors, and also sidestep all overpayment and late payment scenarios.
CFOs needs access to all-time update, easily reachable, and simple to understand data. When all this is automated, the CFOs can focus on the more important tasks they have line tending to strategic and ROI-related matters.
Here in this article, we have listed many benefits of AP automation for CFOs and financial controllers managing the AP process manually. Also, to get a deeper understanding of AP automation, be sure to check out our CFO’s guide to AP automation for insights on streamlining financial operations.
7 Benefits of AP automation for CFOs and financial controllers
1. Optimizing the company’s working capital
All that a CFO or controller wants is more transparency into the AP insights and real-time data updates so that they can make viable decisions.
An AP automation software can give exactly that — a detailed dashboard providing transparency into all types of data.
The dashboard displays all KPIs, like invoices that are pending to be paid, any early payment discounts which can be grabbed, cashbacks and rebates earned, the total amount of invoices, and accrual reporting.
2. Easy control over corporate spending
The dashboard provided by the accounts payable automation solutions gives real-time updates and details about the company spending and projects accurate analysis.
This helps CFOs to build an implementable budget, forecast the forthcoming cash flow of the business and make strategic future conduct plans, sidestep any compliance issue and determine opportunities to reduce the costs of the business.
3. Early payment discounts
Making early payments to the suppliers can get you huge discounts on the invoice due amount. Earlier the payment, the larger the savings. Hence this remains one of the biggest benefits of AP automation.
Businesses that make regular purchases and regular early payments get huge discounts, as the payment helps the supplier with their cash flow.
Along with this, the business itself can reduce the total cost of purchasing goods and services and also avoid supply chain disruptions. However, you won’t be able to get any of these benefits until you have automated accounts payable software.
This is because only through an automated solution can a business process a large number of invoices in a very short time span and also meet the early payment discount window.
4. Cash-back rewards and perks
One very beneficial way of paying your vendors is by virtual cards. Making payments through virtual cards makes your business eligible to get cash-back rewards.
Based on the total amount of payment made through the card is used to determine the cashback amount.
This helps the business to reduce the operational costs of the AP departments and also make new amendments to the business tasks or take up new ventures.
Anything that improves the profit margins is a plus point for a CFO.
5. Ease of managing multiple invoices
With AP automation software, you can manage multiple invoices in a shockingly short span of time. You can upload invoices by either scanning or by using the attachment sent in an email.
Once the invoice is in the system, it will automatically create a bill and fill in all the important information from it into the accounting sheets and the database.
The only thing which would need to be done by humans would be approving the invoice for payments. Payments can also be made in just a few clicks.
You can create specific vendor accounts and individual virtual cards for each vendor.
6. Huge savings from using AP automation software
There is no doubt that accounting automation software can help you save large sums of money.
This happens because all the hidden or extra added costs that the business has to incur when the accounts payable process is done manually are all eliminated.
These costs include manual labor salary, third-party accountant costs, charges of making payments, and extra costs incurred to rectify errors.
With automated accounts payable software, you can easily get all the tasks done through just one platform and save all the money which was otherwise illogically spent.
7. Longer days payable outstanding
Some of the primary job responsibilities of a CFO or a controller are to identify or create ways to free up money and pay the business debt, make investments.
Look for growth opportunities and implement changes to escalate the research and development part of the business.
Amongst the many ways to do this, one way is to extend the average amount of time taken to make payments to the suppliers.
By using a particular virtual card, businesses can instantly get extend their Days Payable Outstanding (DPO). This can be done without payment terms being altered.
Related read: How does AP automation help in avoiding duplicate invoice payments?
How is Volopay helping CEO & CFOs manage their company expenses?
Volopay is an all-in-one spend management platform with all the features a business needs to streamline its financial operations and save money and time.
These features include corporate cards, multi-currency international wallets, reimbursement systems, budgeting tools, data analysis, low-cost credit lines, consolidated dashboard for multi-entity finances and much more.
However, the most attractive feature for a CEO or CFO is the benefits of AP automation and automated accounting integration feature with Volopay.
The platform uses OCR technology through which you can easily scan receipts/invoices and upload them into the system or capture the invoice directly from your email, using which the system would automatically create a bill.
All the invoice information gets reported into the database, and all the processing and three-way matching is quickly done by the system. The only thing the managers would have to do is approve the payments.
Along with this, all expenses are reported in real time, which would help the CEO or CFO to make sound business decisions. Volopay is your one-stop shop to solve all business financing issues.
Volopay provides businesses with features like direct accounting integration, OCR scanning technology, multiple approval system, virtual cards, and vendor accounts for efficient AP management.
Yes, Volopay supports the system to scan invoices, and an alternative option is to directly upload the invoice from your emails.
Any domestic transfer takes 1-2 business days. International vendor payments may take up to five business days.