How Innovation Attracts Top Talent

In today’s highly competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent is crucial for the success of any organization. Innovation is one of the key factors that can make a significant difference in attracting the best and brightest to a business. Embracing innovation signals potential employees your business is forward-thinking, adaptable, and open to new ideas, creating an attractive, desirable environment.

Accounts Payable (AP) automation is a prime example of business innovation, leveraging technology to streamline and optimize the AP process. Not only does it help reduce manual tasks to improve overall efficiency and plays into the broader significance of talent acquisition and retention.

The Accounting Workforce: Rising Demand with Continued Scarcity

Labor shortages are being felt across the board in professional settings, making hiring top talent more competitive. Unfortunately, the accountant role has been considered underpaid and underappreciated, leading to fewer individuals pursuing accounting degrees and further shrinking the talent pool. There’s also the issue of experienced employees reaching retirement age, making it even more crucial to find new talent for accounts payable teams.

With the United States workforce shifting to majority Millenial and Gen Z employees, the values these generations hold closely need to be considered, such as flexibility and access to technology that helps them work smarter, not harder. Attracting top talent from this new workforce is essential, so it’s necessary to embrace new technologies, forward-thinking, and an environment conducive to personal and professional growth.

Showcase your organization’s commitment to innovation with cutting-edge technology and groundbreaking initiatives to attract and retain top talent while ensuring a competitive advantage in the market.

Utilize a Modern Tech Stack

The modern financial workforce demands tasks that offer a true sense of responsibility and helps others instead of simply completing mundane tasks. This is where technology and tech stacks become essential, removing the routine, “mind-numbing” tasks from their plates.

It’s no secret that manual work hurts efficiency, whether it’s mailing paper checks or searching through filing cabinets for the necessary documents. In fact, if you’re relying on filed documents, you could further delay processes if they’re not easy for employees to find. According to an employment survey, millennials were four times more likely to get lost when looking for paper files than older, baby-boomer coworkers. Training a younger accounting team to accept technology may not be as difficult as it seemed in years past as these generations grew up with it as an integral part of their lives.

Integrating a modern tech stack into your accounting workflow allows employees to participate in tasks such as:

Financial Analysis: Allow your team to provide improved decision-making, driving progress toward the company’s long-term goals.
Cash Flow Management: Plan for the future using reliable insights into current budgets and payment activities.
Process Evaluation: Identify and address opportunities for improvement.
Risk Management: Protect your organization from overspending in cases of error or fraud.
Vendor Relationships and Contract Negotiations: Ensure spending is optimized to drive ROI and protect margins.

A modern tech stack not only helps current team members but showcases to prospective employees that your business is dedicated to staying ahead of the industry. Innovation attracts top talent as those individuals typically seek forward-thinking companies that understand the need for personal and professional growth.

Understanding the Capabilities of AP Automation

Fully appreciating the impact of innovation in attracting talent means first understanding the capabilities of AP automation. Using technology and software solutions, automation helps streamline and automate your accounts payable process by digitizing and centralizing invoice processing, reducing manual data entry, improving accuracy, and providing real-time visibility into financial data.

The right AP automation requires a solution that empowers organizations to optimize their processes. As a leading provider of AP automation solutions, DataServ offers capabilities such as intelligent data capture, automated invoice matching and approval workflows, real-time analytics, and seamless integration with existing enterprise systems. Using these capabilities and features helps streamline operations and leverage data-driven insights to make better decisions for your business.

The Benefits of Automation and Innovation

Innovative automation, like AP automation, benefits organizations and attracts and retains top talent. The AP industry relies on continued innovation to keep practices relevant, keeping up with new technologies and client and customer expectations. Here’s how:

Traditional Benefits of AP Automation

Keep Your Business Competitive

In today’s talent marketplace, staying competitive is essential. Implementing such innovation as AP automation will prove crucial to attracting and retaining top talent. It will demonstrate your commitment to staying ahead of the curve and adapting to evolving market trends.

Top talent will seek out organizations that embrace innovation and provide opportunities for growth and development. By incorporating AP automation and other innovative technologies, your business can position itself as forward-thinking in order to attract those that value continuous learning and advancement.

Enhance Efficiency And Accuracy

AP automation streamlines processes and eliminates manual tasks to free up valuable time for top talent to focus on more critical and strategic-thinking tasks. By reducing the administrative burden, automation enhances efficiency and allows employees to allocate their energy and skills to areas that drive innovation and value creation.

In addition, AP automation minimizes the risk of human error. By automating invoice matching, data entry, and approval workflows, businesses can significantly reduce mistakes and ensure greater accuracy and compliance with financial regulations. This increased efficiency and accuracy will positively impact the entire organization by promoting smooth operations and effective resource allocation.

Empower Employees With Digital Tools

AP automation also empowers employees by equipping them with digital tools and technologies that facilitate their work. Automation handling routine tasks gives employees more time to engage in strategic decision-making, problem-solving, and innovative initiatives. This level of empowerment fosters a sense of ownership and autonomy – key factors for job satisfaction and employee retention.

Furthermore, the availability of real-time data and analytics through AP automation allows employees to make informed decisions and gain deeper insights into the organization’s financial health. This data-driven approach enhances their ability to contribute meaningfully to business growth and innovation.

Improve Collaboration And Communication

Collaboration and communication are vital to a thriving work environment. AP automation streamlines team collaboration by providing seamless access to real-time data and facilitating efficient communication. Automated workflows and centralized information mean team members can easily collaborate on invoice processing, approvals, and financial reporting.

As businesses continue to participate in remote work, efficient collaboration and communication become even more essential. Automation enables remote collaboration so teams can easily work together regardless of their physical location. This kind of flexibility promotes cross-functional collaboration, fosters innovation, and encourages knowledge sharing among team members. AP automation strengthens teamwork and enhances productivity by creating a more cohesive, innovative work environment.

Boost Employee Satisfaction And Engagement

Implementing AP automation improves the overall employee experience. Automation reduces the frustration and monotony associated with manual tasks by simplifying and streamlining the accounts payable process. This positive shift in the work environment leads to higher job satisfaction and increased employee engagement.

Automation also minimizes conflicts and errors that can occur from manual processes, resulting in a more harmonious workplace. Employees will feel more supported and valued when their time and efforts are directed towards strategic, innovative tasks rather than repetitive administrative work. Employees who are satisfied and engaged are more likely to stay with the organization long-term, helping you reduce turnover and ensure continuity.

Attract More Tech-Savvy Talent

Not much appeals more to top talent than innovation and digital transformation, especially to those who have a tech-savvy mindset. Implementing AP automation and showcasing a commitment to innovative practices allows your organization to position itself as an attractive employer for those tech-savvy professionals.

Quality candidates will seek opportunities to work in environments where they can leverage their technological expertise and contribute to cutting-edge initiatives. By highlighting the innovative culture fostered by AP automation, your business can attract a pool of top talent eager to be part of an organization that values progress and embraces emerging technologies.

Modern AP Automation Benefits

Improved User Experience for Employees

New automation solutions offer intuitive, easy-to-use user interfaces that ensure an excellent user experience for everyone who utilizes the system. The improved experience promotes wider adoption across team members to ensure your company receives the greatest benefit of accounts payable process automation.

Creates Intake Workflows to Achieve Multi-Stakeholder Compliance

If the procurement process is being tied to accounts payable, intake needs to be incorporated at the front end of the process. Making intake the first step of the process means the approval workflows for all stakeholders are built into the system, ensuring the full invoice approval process is followed prior to any payment or booking.

Improved Collaboration and Support for Remote and Global Team Members

Since the pandemic, businesses and employees alike have seen the benefits of remote work, particularly related to the work-life balance, but it hasn’t always been an easy task for accounting professionals. AP automation helps support a more collaborative workflow, making remote and global work possible. By utilizing one user interface for all purchasing, you can ensure there is consistency and compliance across all your operations.

Integrate Operations with a Broader Tech Stack

As more digital solutions emerge, it’s important to have interoperability across automation solutions. Many modern AP automation solutions integrate into other financial tech stacks, such as ERPs, HRIS systems, business systems, travel booking, and card networks.

Multiple Payment Options

Your automation solution needs to have the capability of offering and accepting multiple payment methods. Whether you receive checks, ACH, vendor credits, international wire transfers, or all of the above, your system should be able to keep it centralized.

Improved Fraud Protection

Modern AP automation solutions have integrated additional methods for fraud protection, including suspicious activity alerts and notifications regarding vendor bank account detail changes. There is also system monitoring to identify issues and implement solutions quickly and effectively to keep your business running with less worry.

Make AP Automation Implementation Simple

The importance of innovation in attracting and retaining top talent is something that cannot be overstated. Embracing AP automation and other innovative practices for your business can help you enhance efficiency, empower employees, improve collaboration, boost employee satisfaction, attract tech-savvy talent, and stay competitive in the talent marketplace.

Ready to implement AP automation in your organization? Contact DataServ. Our unique initialization process guarantees your automation will be successful, and our expertise in AP automation solutions will help streamline your accounts payable processes and unlock the benefits of innovation for your business. We expertly combine industry best practices with custom tailoring, with configurable industry-specific capabilities to cover everything you need. Our solution is a complete accounts payable software with no add-ons necessary, giving you all the tools and support you need to get automated.

Embracing innovation and digital transformation will benefit your employees and create a more efficient, future-ready organization.