#Blog Published On August 21, 2024
Collaboration in Accounts Payable process
In today's fast-paced world, organizations are continuously looking for ways to maximize efficiency and provide better results. Yet Accounts payable (AP) and procurement—two essential departments in many businesses—frequently continue to operate in isolation. These divisions are necessary to procuring goods and services and financial management, but their lack of cooperation might impede overall success.
Procurement and accounts payable (AP) are two crucial organizational responsibilities that frequently work independently of one another. Accounts Payable (AP) is in charge of overseeing invoice payments and making sure that suppliers are paid on schedule and correctly. Contrarily, procurement concerns finding products and services, settling contracts, and upholding connections with suppliers. Although both departments are essential to managing money and acquiring resources required for a firm to succeed, their inability to work together can lead to inefficiencies. Operations that are siloed result in lost opportunities to save money, redundant work when managing suppliers, and late payments, and ultimately impede the organization's ability to succeed as a whole.
When they work together, they can more successfully align their objectives and tactics. AP can offer insightful feedback on procurement decisions early by disclosing information about supplier performance or impending costs. Procurement can also notify AP of any modifications or delays affecting payment schedules.Collaboration between AP and procurement has major benefits beyond better communication. For example, simpler processes lead to enhanced efficiency. By better coordinating purchase orders and invoice processing schedules, organizations can minimize errors and improve accuracy and compliance. Additionally, AP and procurement can pool their knowledge to negotiate better terms and pricing structures when they work together during contract negotiations or vendor selection procedures. This not only forges closer bonds with others but also maximizes the company's cost savings potential. Nonetheless, certain obstacles may prevent these two roles from working well together. Overcoming these obstacles requires unlocking the full potential of AP and procurement's functioning together.
A typical challenge faced by organizations is a need for more knowledge and communication between the procurement and AP teams. They frequently function in isolation, needing help understanding one another's responsibilities. Regular gatherings or cross-functional sessions address this and promote improved information exchange and communication. Technology can also be a significant factor in addressing obstacles related to collaboration. Integrating solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, can facilitate smooth information sharing between the AP and procurement teams, optimize workflows, and give real-time visibility into financial data. Moreover, process bottlenecks and inconsistencies can be eliminated by standardizing procedures for procurement and AP services. This can entail implementing digital platforms or approval workflows for processing bills, managing vendors, processing purchase requests, and other related tasks. Organizations can empower their AP and Procurement departments and propel them towards greater success by tackling these challenges head-on with effective strategies like enhanced communication channels, aligned objectives combined with technology integration, standardizing procedures, and fostering a collaborative culture!
Kanverse in-app Collaboration transforms AP Invoice Automation. Seamlessly collaborate with cross-functional teams while processing documents.
Kanverse comes with in-app AP collaboration suite that helps users improve communication with team members through collaboration that is Messaging based, Task based and Information Based.
Messaging based collaboration: In-application collaboration helps users to effectively communicate, share knowledge and additional documents, provide meaningful directives, and offer guidance with the help of synchronous chats, along with real-time notifications. It also enables other team members to pitch in with information as required.
Task based collaboration: Kanverse facilites task completion while AP invoice processing. AP team can use the Kanverse collaboration framework to assign documents to specific users or groups for collaboration scenarios with other departments, so as to let them perform task outside Kanverse such as collaborating with Purchasing department for PO amendments to accept more goods (Qty update) or services (Amount update),or for awaiting new Vendor creations etc.
Methods of invoice data capture
Information based collaboration: This enables team members to collaborate in the context of an invoice and provide information or feedback in the document itself, for example scenarios such as GL Code entry required from the collaborator, or for GL amount distribution where the collaborator knows how the invoice amount is to be allocated between multiple GL codes. The collaborator is only allowed permission to edit only the required fields in the document. Once the information is provided by the collaborator the document can be processed by the AP specialist.
Improved communication is one of the main advantages of using a platform like Kanverse for AP and procurement process automation and improving coordination between the teams. The AP and procurement teams may effortlessly exchange data, documents, and updates in real time using appropriate tools and solutions on the Kanverse platform. This removes the need for protracted phone conversations or email exchanges to get clarification on purchase orders or invoice details. Since our collaborative systems keep precise records of every transaction, it helps improve compliance with regulatory obligations. Kanverse also ensures that appropriate controls are in place throughout the automation process and offer transparency into the data. Kanverse also removes geographical constraints when it comes to collaborating on projects or quickly resolving problems. AP and procurement specialists may work together efficiently from any location with remote access. Furthermore,invoice automation with Kanverse speeds up cycle times and decreases human error, eventually resulting in quicker supplier payments.
Learn more about AP Invoice Automation
Table Of Contents
Related Blogs
- What is an Accounts Payable Vendor Portal and how can you benefit from it?
- Revolutionize end to end Invoice Processing with Automated Capture, Extraction
- Essential Guide to Accounts Payable (AP) Fraud Prevention in 2023
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation: Weapons in the Battle Against Account
Kanverse Accounts Payable Invoice Automation?
AI-powered Kanverse helps enterprises build "Zero-Touch" document processing workflows. It automates the processing, validation, and filing of unstructured, semi-structured, and structured documents. Save costs, reduce cycle time, turbocharge productivity, and boost team morale.
Kanverse Accounts Payable Invoice Automation digitizes document processing for enterprises from ingestion, classification, extraction, and validation to filing. Extract data from a wide gamut of documents with up to 99.5% accuracy using its multi-stage AI engine. Say goodbye to manual entry, reduce average invoice processing time from days to seconds, optimize the average cost of processing an invoice by up to 80%, minimize human error, and turbocharge the productivity of your team. AP automation software like Kanverse APIA (AP Invoice Automation) is built to do the heavy lifting across your AP cost centers while your staff can focus on productive and business-critical activities.
About the Author
