Intacct AP Document Management (Without the Headache)

It can be said that documents are the lifeblood of accounts payable and financial management. Every transaction, new vendor, and employee expense generates a pile of paperwork – not to mention all the emails, letters, contracts, proposals, and certificates involved in day-to-day AP operations.

Staying on top of all that documentation can be tough. Take employee expenses, for example. Say every expense report contains at least four receipts. If your business is processing 10,000 expense reports per year, that’s 40,000 receipts that need to be tracked and stored on-premise. And if your business still stores paper receipts, that’s a lot of real estate just for paper.

If the volume of paper isn’t enough to keep AP managers up at night, there’s also the challenge of finding all those documents. They can be anywhere – attached to an email, stored on an employee’s phone, or sitting on a desk (or copier) – except where they should be. And when it comes time to check a document, during an audit, for example, it can be a wild goose chase to find them.

Sage Intacct includes cloud-based document management capabilities that customers can use to keep track of documents. 

First, Intacct includes Attachments and Folders, which link documents and files to specific records and organize Attachments so they can be tracked and found easily. 

Second, it includes document entry capabilities that customers can add to the Intacct Accounts Payable functionality. While not a purpose-built document management system, these features can help businesses stay on top of things. However, better solutions may exist if your business has complex accounts payable (or accounts receivable) needs.

Read on to learn more about how to manage AP, expense, and vendor documents in Intacct and how an AP-specific document management system may better meet the needs of a complex, growing business.

Why managing accounts payable documents is important

In 2021, Stampli surveyed finance leaders on their document management challenges. Among the top answers, over one-third of leaders said their biggest challenge was that their team was handling too much paper. Another third named workflow bottlenecks, and just under a third said it was time their teams spent on low-value tasks such as manual, paper-based processes.

In a 2023 Stampli survey, 80% of finance leaders said they expected an increase in the volume of invoices their AP teams would need to process, and 53% said they expected invoices would become more complex.

Clearly, document management is a challenge that isn’t going away.

How document management software helps

You might be surprised to learn that security is the primary reason to invest in an accounts payable document management system. Think about it: AP documents may contain sensitive business information like pricing, contract terms, and order details. In the wrong hands, this information could damage your business. 

Implementing a document management system lets you ensure these documents are accounted for and secure. In a paper document world, this means locking them in file cabinets and controlling who has the keys. Now, with optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning (ML) technology, businesses can easily scan and digitize documents to organize and store them electronically.

Along with security, another big advantage is that a document management system makes it a lot easier to preserve a complete audit trail – and ensure documents can easily be found when auditors ask for them.

Manual document management systems can be effective (or at least better than nothing), but they aren’t easily scalable and are not great for hybrid or remote work environments. For example, if your company doesn’t have a central address for vendor communications, invoices and other documents can end up anywhere.  Or in the case of paper documents, things can easily get lost if employees get overwhelmed by growing volumes of paperwork.

Implementing a paperless document management software solution is more efficient if the solution includes these features:

• Incorporates automation and templates to handle repetitive tasks
• Tracks documents
• Stores documents safely 

Sage Intacct provides two ways to manage accounts payable documentation.

Document management functions in Intacct

First, you can enter transactional documents such as invoices directly into Intacct’s Accounts Payable module, which then uses the document information (vendor name, line items, PO number) to verify the invoice and process it for approval and payment.

Second, I can use Intacct’s Attachments and Folders features to attach documents to vendor, bill, expense, transactions, and other records within Intacct. For example, Attachments can be used to attach scanned or electronic receipts to an employee expense report to make it easier for approvers to review them. 

Folders are used to organize Attachments within Intacct. For example, I can create a folder to organize documents associated with a project. Then when my project management, procurement, or AP team attaches a document to a record associated with the project, they can store it in the project folder so they can easily find it later.

Let’s look at how this works for three core AP functions: invoice processing, employee expenses, and vendor management.

Invoice processing 

Intacct offers two Account Payable solutions. Each is different in how they handle vendor invoices.

The first, Intacct Accounts Payable, provides basic AP functions such as invoice management, verification, and invoice approvals. It requires vendor invoices to be entered manually into a new bill record by my AP staff. My staff also needs to manually verify the invoice details to ensure the bill record is accurate. Although Intacct Accounts Payable does allow us to enter bills in batches, its reliance on manual invoice entry means it’s best suited for a business smaller than ours.

The second solution, Intacct Accounts Payable Automation, leverages the core AP solution with added features such as automated data entry and invoice routing. My team can email or drag and drop electronic invoices into Intacct, and the AP automation module scans and automatically populates the invoice details into a new bill record. Intacct Accounts Payable Automation vastly improves invoice processing, especially if we upload bills in batches. However, we still need to scan and digitize paper invoices before they can be entered, so it isn’t an entirely automated solution.

Employee expenses

Intacct’s Time & Expenses module automates the employee expense reporting and approval process and eliminates paper expense reports, receipts, and other documents. When one of my employees prepares an expense report, they can use the app to add scanned receipts and other documents to the report as Attachments. Then, when the report is routed to the approver, the approver can open the attachment in the approval dashboard to review the documents. 

As with Intacct Accounts Payable, replacing the paper process creates efficiency gains and helps us stay on top of expense documents. However, the process requires employees to keep receipts and scan them manually when they complete the expense report.

Vendor management

I can add a new vendor in Intacct by manually creating a new vendor record. This process lets me add all the new vendor information, such as vendor name, address, contact information, banking information, preferred payment method, 1099 information, vendor type, and more. If I want to add vendor documents such as contracts, certificates, and insurance policies, I can attach them to the vendor record in an Attachment. I simply need to replace the Attachment with one containing the updated documents to update these documents. 

Note that this process requires my AP team members to obtain the vendor’s information and enter it themselves. Also, Intacct doesn’t secure or encrypt Attachments, so if I need to attach any vendor documents containing sensitive information, such as pricing, I will need to secure or encrypt them before attaching them to prevent unauthorized access.

Intacct’s document management features are more efficient and offer more control over my documents than a manual document management system. However, they are not easily scalable and, in some cases, still rely on manual processes to enter, store, and update documents, so they aren’t ideal for managing ‌accounts payable documentation. I need an AP-specific document management solution to meet my needs.

Automated document management is the better way 

AP Automation solutions are specifically designed to optimize and streamline AP document processing workflows and business management. They use OCR and ML to scan, digitize, and code paper documents and capture and enter electronic documents, making my document intake processes more efficient and accurate. Solutions like Stampli also offer Advanced Vendor Management functionality to streamline onboarding and manage key vendor documents.

With an AP automation solution, I can automatically associate documents with transactions and communications to ensure that all the transaction information is available in a central and secure location. Doing this makes it easier for my AP team, approvers, and auditors to access and review key documents.

Here are a few key benefits of using an AP-specific document management solution:

Streamlined invoice entry

AP solutions automatically capture, digitize, GL code, and store my invoices in a secure central location. They also link the invoices and other relevant documents and communications to the appropriate transaction, so my team members can review a transaction at a glance.

Automated three-way matching of invoices

AP solutions automatically perform real-time, three-way matching to verify invoices against purchase orders and receipts. If the solution detects an anomaly, it flags it for review and alerts my AP staff.

Centralized secure digital storage

All my accounts payable documents, vendor records, and transaction data are digitally stored in a central location, which helps provide a complete audit trail and makes it simple for my finance team to reconcile records. It also cuts paper consumption, which saves me a bundle on filing cabinets and storage space.

Access control for sensitive documents

The AP solution lets me set permissions to control access to sensitive documents, and it keeps track of who has accessed or downloaded those documents.

Advanced Vendor Management

I can easily and efficiently onboard new vendors through an Advanced Vendor Management portal. The portal makes it easy to onboard new vendors and manage vendor records. It directs vendors to provide their details and upload invoices and key documents directly to the portal, which saves time for my AP team and ensures that my vendor documentation is complete and up-to-date.

Seamless ERP integration

My AP solution automatically syncs vendor and transaction data, invoices, expense reports, and communications with my ERP, CRM, or accounting software to ensure we have a single source of truth for our AP data.

Because AP automation software solutions are designed to address the specific needs of my AP team, they’re the ideal comprehensive document management solution. Advanced solutions like Stampli are tailored to the unique challenges facing accounts payable. 

These solutions go beyond simple document management to automate document processing functions like GL coding, vendor onboarding, and three-way matching. They’re worth considering if you need a flexible and powerful AP document management solution to help you get the most out of Intacct.

Simplify Intacct document management with Stampli 

Stampli’s industry-leading AP Automation solution is purpose-built for Accounts Payable. It centers all communication and documentation on top of each invoice, eliminating the need for tracking and storing AP documents inside Intacct ERP. Stampli gives your AP team full visibility ‌and control over your AP documents.

Here’s how Stampli helps you stay on top of your AP documentation:

• Automatic invoice processing: Efficient and accurate document capture, coding, approvals, and more.
• Centralized collaboration: All invoice documentation and workflows are centered on top of each invoice so teams can check info at a glance.
• Billy the Bot™: Automates manual document management tasks by adapting to your unique business processes and business structure. 
• Collect & maintain vendor information such as payment methods, bank account details, and key documents such as contracts, certificates, and insurance policies.
• Efficient expense reporting: Increase team efficiency by making it simple to submit expenses and supporting documents.
• Document lifecycle management: Track renewal dates for every document and notify vendors when updates are required.
• Seamless Integration with Intacct:  Automatically sync documents, transaction data, and communications with Intacct, Sage 100, and other Sage software, with no IT work needed.

Contact Stampli today to set up a free trial and take control of your AP document management.