The accounts payable team doesn’t always get the full story. They are bombarded with calls of “Where’s my money?” and have to handle the pressure of balancing the demands of cash flow and early payment discounts.
If that weren’t enough, they have to check back to ensure that the deliverables were received, that there weren’t any duplicate invoices, and that any special terms are honored.
Just one small mistake can create hours of headaches: invoice numbers, payment terms, and exceptions hidden in email chains.
The vendor payment process is complex even in the smallest of companies. Most companies use sophisticated accounting software to handle their books, but the AP team is still dependent on email and phone calls to other departments to ensure that everything was handled correctly. Creating an effective automated payment approval process can be a challenge.
Vendor Payment Automation
When you create a vendor payment workflow, you link together all the parts of the story to make sure your accounts payable team has all the information they need.
The workflow starts once the invoice is received. The finance team inserts important information like the vendor name, invoice date, invoice number, purchase order number, amount, and then attaches the invoice. A good vendor payment automation tool will allow you to reference a dataset of your vendors complete with their address, primary contact, and other important details.
As a part of the workflow, the accounts payable team can choose the purchaser from a list of users. This way, the workflow stays the same regardless of who did the purchasing.
After the data is entered, the form goes to the purchaser. They confirm that they received the goods and send it back to AP, who then processes it for payment.
Pro Tip
If you link your workflow software with your accounting software, you can create an automatic journal entry as soon as the payment has processed. You can integrate KiSSFLOW with Zapier, which can then be connected to all of the latest cloud-based applications.
Conclusion
Maintaining an efficient vendor payment workflow involves more than just your accounts payable team. They need to be brought into the story and have instant communication with the people who requested the items in the first place. When creating your automated vendor payment process, remember to create consistent datasets that you can refer and have a way to bring your whole team into the picture.
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