Is Your Organization’s AP automation Stuck in the Past?

AP automation can make all the difference, but not all AP automation solutions are created equal. Outdated AP automation systems are downright slow compared to their modern counterparts.

Despite its importance, accounts payable (AP) is often among the first areas organizations look to when it’s time to downsize, boost efficiency, or reduce costs. As a result, many companies opt for automated processes to streamline their AP or work with an outsourced AP provider to automate their AP.

No matter your intention — automation, outsourcing, or a combination of both — modern AP departments need to be able to transition from a world where 75% of all business transactions are still made by paper check to an increasingly global one with increased reliance on digital and electronic forms of B2B payments.

Can your AP automation solution adapt to our increasingly digital world? Can it perform effectively without excessive document preparation, invoice matching, and exceptions — all of which take up a tremendous amount of your AP staff’s time and energy?

If you’re unsure, your organization’s AP automation solution might be stuck in the past. Here are a few more signs that it’s time to reevaluate your AP automation strategy and look into a better, more efficient alternative.

Paper + Digital Don’t Play Nice

If you’re still scanning PDFs or printing invoices for entry into your bookkeeping system, we feel your pain. Scanning PDFs and printing out invoices just creates more work for AP teams. After all, it’s easy for hard copy invoices to get lost, which could mean hours of hunting down one invoice out of a sea of papers. 

On top of that, outdated AP automation systems aren’t truly automated, which means manual inputs and potential mistakes and complications.

It’s an entirely different story with a modern AP automation solution. Instead of wrangling paper invoices, manually creating new templates, and entering missed information, you can step back, focus on more business-critical tasks, and let your AP automation solution handle the bulk of the work.

For example, Rossum helped the Master Trust Bank of Japan (MTBJ) reduce its manual workload by 75% compared to their old, conventional OCR solutions. These outdated systems previously required MTBJ to assign 40 staff members to enter information from each document for further processing manually. 

With its advanced AI engine, Rossum quickly trained an extraction model, helping streamline and automate document processing. Instead of dedicating 40 extra workers to manually entering data, MTBJ only needed one human operator assigned to document processing to validate the data automatically captured by Rossum, allowing the trust bank to focus its resources on more important matters.

You’re Manually Coding Your AP Software To Make It Work For You

Your automation solution shouldn’t make you work harder, but that’s often exactly what outdated AP automation software does. With a less advanced solution, you may find yourself dedicating time to manually coding your AP software so it can meet your needs. It’s a labor-intensive, time-consuming, expensive, and often frustrating process, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Rossum’s modern, custom-built APIs and pre-built integrations mean it’s far less hassle to connect to your existing AP systems. Integrating Rossum with existing systems and workflows is much easier and faster than traditional AP automation solutions. 

You Don’t Have An Expedited or Instant Approval Process

If you’ve ever worked in accounts payable, you know what it’s like to be on either end of a pending invoice. It usually means waiting, waiting, and even more waiting, which can slow everything down. It can lead to awkward inquiries, late payments, and a poor reputation. 

However, with the right automation solution, payments can be instantly approved and processed, giving users, clients, and customers results as soon as they submit their information.

But modern AP automation solutions aren’t just faster. They’re also more accurate, which makes everything easier. Some of today’s AP automation systems can reach 99% character recognition accuracy, meaning there’s little to no need to manually correct data, sort out misplaced decimal points, or handle the resulting overpayments or underpayments. Plus, AI-powered solutions like Rossum will only grow more accurate with time, further accelerating the approval process.

You — Or Your Team — Refuse To Automate

Change is scary, but that’s no excuse to stay stuck in the past. Saying and believing things like, “It’s always worked this way,” or “it’s just how we do it,” is holding your AP team — and the entire organization — back. You’re letting the competition get the upper hand by refusing to stray from traditional AP automation solutions. Not only are they becoming faster than you, but chances are their employees are more satisfied now that they do less tedious data entry and template configuring. Happier employees mean lower turnover rates, higher levels of engagement, and increased productivity, all of which can have ripple effects across a company.

On the other hand, if you embrace today’s efficient AP technology instead of getting bogged down with outdated solutions just because you’re stuck in your ways, your entire AP team will be able to work smart, not harder. Automation will lighten everyone’s loads, giving them more time and energy to concentrate on fulfilling, profitable tasks.

Step Into The Future With Rossum

AP departments run the gamut from 100% manual processing to outdated AP automation solutions that still require quite a bit of manual input to modern AP technology that effectively and accurately tackles a variety of documents. With billions of invoices processed annually, that difference adds up, so using a powerful AP automation system can make all the difference.

There are plenty of AP automation tools on the market, but Rossum is head and shoulders above the rest. Trusted, secure, and equipped with a highly adaptable AI neural engine, Rossum can quickly and accurately process your incoming invoices, saving you from the costs and headaches of outdated AP automation systems.

Contact us today if you want to learn the difference between Rossum and other AP automation solutions or receive a demonstration to see the difference for yourself!