The Elevated Risks Of Not Automating Procure To Pay Through Software
DEFINITION OF PROCURE TO PAY PROCESS
The lack of software or automation utilization in procure to pay processes can create an elevated risk to an organization from both financial and operational standpoint. Financial Executives can be forced to monitor these processes closely in an effort to prevent fraud and protect against the financial risks of non-compliant payments and misallocated funds.
From an operational perspective, considerable time and resources can be lost when manual processes predominate in procure to pay cycles. Finance teams end up spending more time verifying and validating documentation, creating additional workloads for accounts payable staff with additional training requirements incurred due to any resulting errors.
Automated procure to pay processes offer significant cost savings, as these solutions can be configured to detect errors or compliance risks quickly and often at fraction of the cost of manual processes. An automated solution offers powerful tracing capabilities, enabling auditors to ensure that supplier payments are accurate and timely in addition to providing an audit trail that allows users to track processes over multiple cycles. By leveraging automated accounts payable software, organizations are able to manage and control the procure to pay cycle while leveraging real-time visibility capabilities throughout the process.
Beyond the obvious financial and operational benefits, automate procure to pay processes provide robust reporting capabilities that can help management understand the short and long-term costs associated with the process. All expenses can be tracked, for instance, to validate any discounts, rebates, or other changes to invoices or contracts. In addition, advanced analytics tools make it easier to identify trends and anomalies in spend, further enabling finance teams to gain better control and governance of their spend.
Without holistic approach to automate the procure to pay process, organizations risk wasting resources in an effort to manually process and validate invoices, while risking material misstatements when they are not timely corrected. Organizations must strive to use modern financial technology to ensure the velocity of their procurement process in order to protect their bottom lines. The best accounts payable automation solutions offer finance teams more precise control over the process and reduce the financial and operational risks associated with manual processes.
