Market pressures push AP automation from "nice to have" into "need to have"

Writing checks is expensive, time-consuming, and prone to bottlenecks-after all, the managers who are needed for approvals often are away from their offices.

"Accounts payable is one of most labor-centric areas under finance," says Henry Ijams, vice president of supplier solutions with AvidXchange, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based provider of accounts payable and payment automation solutions. "There are a lot of people pushing paper."

MSDynamicsWorld will host Ijams for the webinar How AP Automation for Dynamics ERP Benefits All Roles - From Clerk to C-Level, on Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 1:00 P.M. EST.

Automating accounts payable, while always important, has become even more critical, Ijams says. "Competitive pressures are pushing businesses to run faster and leaner in order to compete," he says. Automation provides companies greater access to information and insight, which can help them improve operations and performance. "You are holding them back with manual paper processing and data entry," he adds.

Moreover, the accounts payable landscape is changing in ways that make automation easier. For instance, companies can work with a service provider to manage incoming invoices, as well as approvals via web-based systems. They're as easy to use as home banking, Ijams says. "Imagine bill pay for businesses."

Ijams notes that automating accounts payable with third-party solutions is so easy, "it's almost a sin not to do it. The cost of manual processing an invoice typically runs between $6 and $8. That compares to about $1 per invoice in an automated process, Ijams notes.

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