Workday implementation and integration consulting
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The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and increased processing power have significantly expanded the range of problems that technology and automation can solve. These include the accounts payable process, which is becoming a growing challenge for many companies due to the uncontrollable nature of the invoice formats received from third-party vendors.
Ensuring timely payments to vendors requires thorough validation before releasing funds. But the sheer volume of data and the frequency of invoices make this a complicated process, which is further exacerbated by the diverse formats of the documents received—from Excel workbooks and PDFs to emails and faxes—from third-party vendors. While solutions are at hand to help companies manage this complexity, they can still face challenges in choosing, adopting, and integrating the right tools and technologies that align with business needs.
Accelerating AP automation and transformation
The challenge is that while off-the-shelf solutions incorporate sophisticated technology, they can still make errors and often require human intervention.
Off-the-shelf solutions are created to handle and analyze files based on specific formatting or requirements that the receiving company cannot control. When the format varies, companies need to consider alternative approaches, such as manual workarounds. But this brings its own challenges given the need to manage the high volume of adjustments required for files that deviate from the solution's expectations.
The good news is that with the development of new AI models and machine learning, it is becoming possible to read invoices in various formats that can be transformed into a data model. While this sounds like the ideal solution given the time and cost savings and improved accuracy of financial records, it comes with the same drawback as off-the-shelf products: what happens when it fails?
Overcoming the accounts payable challenge
To overcome the challenges of the accounts payable process, companies need to carefully select the right tools and technologies, ensure proper integration and alignment with business processes, and effectively manage change. For those able to put the right solution in place, the results can be powerful. In our work helping organizations eliminate manual data entry and automate the matching and reconciliation of invoices and payments, we have seen how companies have been able to significantly improve their relationships with suppliers and customers by ensuring timely and accurate transactions.
To help companies quickly achieve these outcomes, we have developed what we call the next generation of finance automated managed services. By working with professionals experienced in both technology and corporate accounting, companies can go beyond traditional outsourcing or point accounts payable solutions to benefit from guidance and recommendations on simplifying the accounts payable process, improving financial operations, and maturing your technology adoption. This expertise overcomes the challenges of various formats by having a human in a loop that is continuously adjusting the AI model to achieve much higher levels of automation.
Are you looking to better align accounts payable solutions with your business needs?
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