Did you read our first blog?
Last month we posted a blog titled “5 Higher-Value Tasks Your AP Processors Can Work on Instead of Dealing with Paper” that garnered immediate engagement when it hit social media. On the other side of the world, this topic resonated with an Accounts Payable (AP) Coordinator in Melbourne, Australia (at his request, we won’t include his name or company affiliation).
But as anybody who has worked in AP can attest, the pains of manual processing know no geographical boundaries. If there are mountains of paper to work through, the days are just as tedious in an exotic locale such as Porto Heli, Greece as they are in Toledo, Ohio.
Our ideas are echoed around the world!
This Australian AP Coordinator identified with the pain points we outlined instantly. Not long after our blog was shared on Linkedin, he wasted no time in offering eight additional high-value tasks that AP processors can work on when AP automation frees them from manually processing paper all day long. His list is as follows:
- Deal with internal clients to strengthen links and discuss arranging preferred vendors with associated discounts
- Review purchasing contracts for pay terms and further discounts
- Review all internal policies for AP relevance and then ensure they are up to date
- Review supplier statements for missing invoices, lost credits and unallocated payments
- Audit transaction data for errors or duplication and, when appropriate, obtain a refund
- Create/maintain a detailed AP procedure manual for all tasks, no matter how small
- Cross-train all AP staff using the aforementioned procedure manual
- Review options on the creation of new policies and processes to further aim for best practices
Great job, sir! Not only do we appreciate you engaging with our content, but we liked your suggestions so much that we wanted to make sure they were given a significant platform so that they could be read by your AP peers around the world.
For further insights into how AP automation can remove low-value tasks from your AP process, click here to watch a video with Angie Englert, AP Manager at Express Scripts. She has been a DataServ client since 2015. Angie explains the impact DataServ’s AP automation solution made in her department, and she outlines the low-value tasks her processors no longer have to worry about.
