Why automate your accounts payable workflow?

Learn the benefits of an automated accounts payable workflow and how you can implement it for your business. The accounts payable (AP) workflow describes the entire process of completing your company’s payment transactions, from start to finish. It can be complex and prone to errors if done manually. For example, an invoice might end up in an inactive inbox and not get paid on time, causing credit issues.

When it comes to repetitive tasks like this, it’s best to let a computer handle them. Learn how accounts payable workflow automation can help your business.

A sample AP workflow.

To make it clear what we’re talking about, let’s imagine a manual AP workflow. It could look like this:

The AP manager receives an invoice from a vendor in the mail.
AP sends it to the finance department for approval.
There’s an issue with the invoice, and finance sends the invoice back to AP with notes.
AP corrects the issue and returns the invoice to finance.
Finance finally approves the invoice and AP starts processing the payment.

All in all, this process could take anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on your organizational structure.

Benefits of AP workflow automation.

AP workflow automation digitizes the AP process. You or your employees can send and receive documents over the internet, making the process much faster. If there are no issues, the invoice can get approved with just a few mouse clicks.

The automated workflow also allows you to predetermine your recipients, making it much less likely that invoices are lost. You’ll be able to track the entire process and establish a simple audit trail. Good AP software also integrates with your other business applications, meaning there’s no need for manual data entry.

Quickly automate your AP workflow.

Acrobat Sign comes with the visual Workflow Designer tool that makes it easy to create an automated workflow. Set your recipients, request signatures, track the process, create workflow templates, and more.