Dealing with accounts payable is an involved and demanding process for any team. When issues appear, like errors or burnout, many companies try to fix it by hiring more staff. At present, there are 6,000 AP related positions open on indeed.com. Before advertising a role, consider how an AP Automation solution can get you back on track while keeping your current headcount.
The cost of human error
Invoice processing takes up too much of your team’s time. When rushing to get things done in a busy work environment, it’s easy to make mistakes. It has been estimated “The average cost of processing an invoice is roughly the cost of 30 minutes of work of the employee, usually ranging from €11 / £10 to €32 / £28. Most companies tend to underestimate [… the] disproportional time it takes to fix data errors.” For an individual invoice, this is too involved a process. This is compounded with fixing mistakes. Human error is inevitable with manual work. Fixing these errors is tedious and puts stress on your team, affecting productivity. This time and effort should be dedicated to more value-added tasks.
AP Automation solutions, such as Kefron AP, eliminate human error and save time. 200 Degrees Coffee has saved 86% of time processing month-ends and 99% faster invoice processing and approval with Kefron AP. Stephen Fern shared insights on a recent webinar. By getting rid of human error, AP Automation improves consistency and accuracy. On time, accurate invoice payments business relations as well.
Fraud in the AP process
Fraud is an ever-present problem for businesses. Globally, £4.37 trillion is lost to fraud per year, according to a study by the University of Portsmouth. Fraud causes a loss of £137 billion in the UK alone every year. Ensuring you are preventing fraud and complying with the relevant legislation is difficult. The more people involved in the invoicing process, the higher the risk of fraud. It is difficult to assign responsibility when several people can access the information.
Any AP Automation solution will maintain an audit trail throughout the process. This means that you can track what changes were made by who, and when. So should any issues arise, the person responsible is easy to find. Not only that but your Company Admin can assign different permissions to users. You control who sees what, significantly lowering the risk of fraud or a GDPR breach.
How do you know if AP Automation is really worth it
AP Automation solutions offer dashboards for better visibility and analysis. They offer a high-level view of the status of, and the time spent, on each invoice. This makes it easier for your team to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement. Kefron AP also offers a Return-on-Investment dashboard. This allows you to see exactly how much time and money your business saves with AP Automation. You can then make more informed decisions about cashflows and resources. All dashboards are updated nightly so you can be assured the data you are seeing is accurate and up to date.
Hiring more staff to handle your AP processing is like putting a plaster on an open wound. In the short-term it seems helpful but will cost you considerably. It’s hard to keep morale high when your employees are doing such admin-heavy tasks. This affects productivity and can easily lead to burnout. There is clearly a need for AP team members, but by ‘hiring’ an AP Automation solution you will save time and money. Invoicing is streamlined, allowing your staff to dedicate themselves to more value-added tasks.
Interested in finding out more? Get in touch to speak to one of our Kefron experts today.
