Why AP is Important Now — During an Economic Downturn 

In early 2023, many finance leaders are cutting costs to operate during the economic downturn. PwC’s report on CFO concerns for 2023 discusses several topics that impact costs:

• Talent shortages: Costs to hire and retain talented workers will be higher

• Pricing pressures: If prices can’t be increased, it’s more difficult to generate higher cash inflows and profits

• Rising inflation: Increases the costs to produce a product or to deliver a service

If business costs are rising and prices can’t be increased, profitability will decline. In this environment, it’s more important than ever to analyze business operations and find ways to reduce costs, and to minimize cost increases. 

In this Stampli webinar, The CFO’s Playbook for the 2023 Economy, three CFOs discuss costs, product pricing, and cash management. They point out that managers need timely data to make decisions on accounts payable and cash outflows.

Stampli’s end-to-end accounts payable (AP) Automation platform gives you full control and visibility over all your corporate spending from cards to invoices to payments — all in one place. With Stampli, you can proactively control spending and approve invoices in far less time, and Stampli offers a seamless AP automation integration for a number of ERPs.

Start your analysis by considering the tasks that your team must complete each month.

The Costs to Complete Routine Tasks

Think about these routine tasks: purchasing, producing a product, delivering a service, marketing, and accounting. These factors impact the cost of a particular task:

• Complexity: A task that requires more steps takes longer, and the risk of error is higher. Payroll is a complex process, because each individual’s tax withholding on income may be different.

• Training: Well-managed businesses document each routine task in a procedures manual, and train employees using the manual. Using a manual clarifies how each task is performed, and makes training easier. When you crosstrain employees, you can maintain productivity when employees are out of the office.

• Level of automation: Manual tasks require more time and generate more errors than automated processes. If a firm is manually calculating tax withholdings on payroll, the process is time consuming and may result in numerous errors.

Review each task that you perform, and ask your staff to update the procedures manual, if needed. Companies that process AP without leveraging technology spend more, generate more errors, and don’t have access to timely information.

Outdated, Expensive AP Processing

These factors make an AP processing system inefficient and expensive:

• Vendor document intake: Vendors send invoices and other documentation to several different email addresses. The AP staff can’t easily determine the total number of invoices received, or the total dollar amount.

• Document sharing: The AP team, approvers, and vendors send documents by email, and documents may be missing, not legible, or lost when they are shared.

• Communication is siloed: Stakeholders communicate by email or phone call, and each communication is one-on-one. There is no central location where all stakeholders can review the status of each invoice, and all communications related to each invoice.

Every step in the AP process, from invoice receipt to coding, invoice approval, and payment takes more time. This outdated system leads to miscommunication, more errors, and late vendor payments. Management is spending far more for AP processing than is necessary, and managers can’t get timely data on approvals and payments.

Using Stampli’s AP Automation solution will lower costs and help you make faster decisions.

Improve AP Processing Using Stampli

Businesses need tighter controls over spending during challenging economic times. Strong controls help managers avoid late fees and take advantage of vendor discounts. You need systems to ensure that all spending is approved, including corporate card expenses. AP Automation frees up your staff’s time to work on tasks that add more value.

Automate three-way matching

The best AP automation systems automate the process of matching three types of data:

• Purchase order information
• Invoice data
• Goods or services received from a vendor

Stampli provides three-way matching of AP data, so you can quickly approve each purchase. Automation helps to identify duplicate invoices, and reduces the risk of fraud in the AP system. 

The benefits of AP assignments

Stampli’s AP assignments tool routes invoices to the right AP team members and approvers. Here are several ways that the AP assignments solution improves the payables process:

• The platform provides flexibility to accommodate a company’s invoice process, including businesses that operate multiple companies, or use multiple ERP systems.  

• Ability to create any number of sources that can be assigned to any AP user.

• Strong internal controls: Individuals can only view and take action on invoices assigned to them, and users only see the data that they need.

• Assignments are available for coding and payment authorization.

Stampli allows you to use a single AP automation system for multiple companies, and for two or more ERP systems. The Stampli solution is particularly useful if AP processing takes place in more than one location. The coding system ensures that the activity for the two companies is kept separate, and that the correct general ledger accounts are used.

Streamline expense management 

Customers use Stampli Expenses to streamline expense data collection, approvals, payments, and expense reporting. Our solution reduces manual data entry, automates the approval process, and ensures expenses are recorded quickly and accurately. 

Stampli allows your business to post transactions, manage receipts, and process expenses in one platform. Stampli Expenses offers a more integrated process with fewer steps to complete, allowing cardholders to submit receipts, request and receive approvals, code expenses, and sync back to your ERP. This solution is the only corporate credit card with Stampli inside, which provides end-to-end management over all employee expenses.

Effective vendor management 

Stampli’s Advanced Vendor Management functionality vastly improves your ability to onboard vendors, collect data, communicate with vendors, and to pay invoices using verified information in one central location.

Collect any type of vendor information (names, addresses, bank information), and set up requirements for vendors to provide documents. You can customize the information and documents you need to collect by vendor, provide onboarding forms, and send auto-reminders. Vendors can submit and update forms, ask questions, and review vendor status through a single vendor portal. 

Make Better Decisions Using Timely Data

To thrive during an economic downturn, you need to adapt quickly to change. With AP Automation, you can make better decisions using accurate, timely AP data. Don’t just manage spend, control it using Stampli.