Five Tips for a Successful Accounts Payable Workflow Implementation

Automating your Accounts Payable (AP) processes such as invoice approval, purchase order matching, and requisitions by implementing a workflow solution is no small undertaking.  While a well-executed workflow implementation can be accomplished in just a few weeks, implementations more commonly become bogged down for weeks, months, or even years by complications in the process itself.  Luckily, with a little foresight and a few common sense tips, many of these curveballs that derail a project can be avoided.

1)  Plan.  But don't over-plan.

It is tempting while planning your Accounts Payable automation to try to fix every problem or deficiency with every process within your organization.  Even though this seems like a laudable undertaking, it is often a recipe for a failed project.  A project with too many initiatives, as well as the requirement that every initiative must succeed in order for the project to succeed, may be doomed for failure or, at the very least, doomed to drastically exceed your planned timeline.

For example, let's imagine that, as part of your Accounts Payable workflow roll-out, you also decide to clean up the master vendor table in your ERP system.  You want to eliminate outdated information, resolve duplicate vendors, and send a letter to all of your vendors asking them to confirm their contact information... and you do not want to roll out the workflows until you have "clean" data to start with.  Now you've effectively delayed the implementation of the workflow system by weeks, months, or more.

If instead you focused on the workflow system first, getting that into place, you will not be any worse off than you are today using the same "bad" data that you've been using for quite some time. &...