How Customer Success Teams Optimize AP Automation Tools

Thousands of businesses are investing in technology to gain a competitive advantage. Forbes explains that automation helps companies save time, boost productivity, and increase profits. In addition, automation frees up your staff’s time for projects that add more value to the business. In this podcast episode, Jeff Cross, the CFO of BrandMaker, explains how automation and planning allows businesses to scale.

Managers can find IT solutions that automate many routine tasks, including accounts payable (AP). However, to get the most out of AP Automation, you need a company with an experienced customer success team that can provide live support quickly. Stampli is an AP Automation leader that is #1 in Customer Satisfaction and a Top 100 Software Product on G2. 

This discussion explains the benefits of AP Automation, and how an effective customer success team can optimize your AP Automation platform.

How Buyers View Customer Service

Customers make decisions based, in part, on the level of support they receive from the seller. Consider these customer service statistics from Khoros:

• 65% of customers said they have switched to a different brand because of a poor experience.

• 83% feel more loyal to brands that respond and resolve their complaints.

• 75% prefer an authentic human voice over a perfectly crafted brand message. 

• 68% will spend more money with a brand that understands them and treats them like an individual.

Forrester points out that: “Service delivered by human agents (not robots) is what drives positive customer outcomes. The pendulum is finally swinging back from hyper-automation to human-led conversation.”

Finally, customer success teams must be proactive, as AllBusiness explains: “Customer success teams don’t wait for the customer to reach out. They are constantly monitoring signals to understand how the client is doing in terms of driving outcomes—and proactively engaging to get them there.”     

Investing in automation helps businesses to save time, reduce error rates, and prepare to scale. Many routine business tasks can benefit from automation, including AP. Here’s an example of an AP system that is not fully automated.

An Invoice Processing Example

Superior Home Remodeling purchases materials from a number of vendors, and also hires contractors to work on remodeling projects. Here is Superior’s invoice processing system, which requires purchase orders (POs) for purchases over $500. 

Managing vendor invoices, approvals

All invoices are emailed to one of three people in the AP department. If a PO is required, the vendor emails a copy of the PO with the applicable invoice. Invoices are printed and used to code the data into the accounting system, and the PO and invoice are filed in the AP department. Copies of the PO and invoice are then emailed to the operations manager.

When goods are received, the operations manager compares the invoice and PO (if applicable) to the shipping receipt. If the information matches, the manager signs the invoice approving payment. The operations manager also approves payment for services provided by vendors.

Paying vendors

The operations manager emails all of the documents (signed invoice, PO, shipping receipt) to the AP staff, and AP generates a check for payment. The owner performs a final review, confirms that the operations manager approved payment, and signs the check. The check and a copy of the invoice are mailed to the vendor.

Superior’s invoice management process is inefficient, and requires a great deal of manual effort. Consider these issues:

• Vendor invoices and documents are sent to multiple email addresses, which makes it difficult to know if all the data has been captured by the AP team.

• Since invoice coding is not automated, the AP team spends far more time on input and the risk of error is high.

• Documents are shared using email attachments between vendors, coders, and approvers. Superior does not have a central hub where all communications and documents can be reviewed by any stakeholder.

Stampli’s end-to-end AP platform gives you full control and visibility over all your corporate spending from cards to invoices to payments — all in one place.

The AP Automation Solution

Take control over invoice and bill processing with smart, intuitive, and actionable AP Automation.

Stampli is a complete Accounts Payable Automation (AP Automation) software that brings together accounts payable communications, documentation, corporate credit cards, and ACH or check payments all in one place. The platform allows AP to have full control and visibility over corporate spending and reduces the risk of shadow spend.

By centering communications on top of the invoice itself, AP departments collaborate and communicate better with approvers, vendors, and any stakeholder involved with purchases, allowing approvals to happen 5x faster.                       

Stampli’s AP Automation software solution uses Artificial Intelligence technology — Billy the Bot — to automate AP invoice processing and learns an organization’s unique patterns to simplify GL-coding, automate approval notifications, and to identify duplicates.

Automating accounts payable in this way gives users visibility into bill activities, statuses, and ownership with greater transparency and accountability. Audit-ready histories of approved bills are stored in the Stampli AP Automation system, and invoices can be accessed anytime.

To get the most out of AP Automation, you need an experienced and responsive customer support team. 

Customer Success: The Stampli Difference

When you buy a product or service to solve a problem, you need customer support to get the most out of your purchase. Think about AP Automation situations that require immediate attention:

• Managing high invoice volume: A retailer is processing a high volume of invoices as it prepares for a busy holiday season. 

• Changing procedures: The CFO asks the AP team to add additional coding to invoices, so that management can generate reports by company division. 

• Providing audit trail data: Your CPA firm is performing the annual audit, and you need help to generate accounts payable reports for the auditors.

In each case, your AP team needs immediate help from an AP expert who can quickly provide answers. Stampli’s Customer Success team is the best in the AP Automation category.

We offer the fastest setup in the industry with unlimited, ongoing support in the form of an on-demand AP professional. Our experts support your business from implementation, to onboarding, training, and beyond. We’re rated #1 in Customer Satisfaction in the AP Automation category on G2’s Fall 2022 report.
Get started with AP Automation in days — not months — as our Customer Success team guides you through a fast and easy setup process, and our experts work with many ERP integrations. Automate your AP process with confidence using Stampli.