We all know that one of the primary goals of any business is growth – grow your customers, grow your sales, grow your profits. But what about growing expenses? In today’s fast-paced business environment, that success comes with more invoices, tighter deadlines, and mounting complexities. Many organizations do not have the appetite nor the luxury of continually expanding headcount to keep pace, leaving existing staff struggling to maintain productivity and risking burnout. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Empowering teams to scale efficiently with your business is exactly where accounts payable (AP) automation can provide value.
The Hidden Cost of Manual AP
Traditional AP processes are heavily manual and can mire AP staff in a never-ending drudgery of keying invoices, routing approvals, fixing errors, and chasing down vendor information. These processes are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to mistakes. With invoices taking an average of 50 minutes to process manually from invoice receipt to vendor payment, AP teams spend hours each week on manual, low-value tasks while having little time for more impactful strategic work. These slow and time-consuming processes are kryptonite to efficient growth and scaling as a business.
How AP Automation Changes the Game
As a critical function of supporting business growth, AP automation can dramatically reduce both cost and effort within existing AP processes. Vendors can be onboarded in a fraction of the time, with services like our Advanced Vendor Onboarding taking the work off the AP staff and gathering that information directly from the vendors themselves. Invoices can be processed up to 75% faster, with greater accuracy, leading to faster vendor payments. Additional automation through features like OCR Scanning and three-way match further eliminate the need for manual data entry, slashing errors and accelerating workflows.
By leveraging automation for efficiency gains, businesses can scale faster than ever without staff expansion. The numbers speak for themselves – SquareWorks customer see an average of:
- 80% reduction in Vendor setup time;
- 95%+ improved invoice accuracy;
- 60-80% reduction in payment processing time;
- 75% overall faster approval cycle times.
Strategic implementation of automation in the AP space benefits both the business and the AP team – automation doesn’t replace people, it reallocates their time to more impactful efforts like managing exceptions, improving vendor relationships, and providing financial insights.
The financial impact is compelling as well, with some firms reporting an ROI in excess of 300-500% in the first year of implementation. The top 20% of businesses with the lowest invoice processes cost and cycle times are consistently those that leverage technology like AP automation to streamline their processes, resulting in 79.5% lower invoice processing costs and 81% lower processing time compared to the industry average. Automation also unlocks better cashflow management, early discount capture, and penalty avoidance.
Best Practices for Scaling Without Adding Headcount
To get the most from your AP automation – and scale effectively without adding headcount – consider these best practices:
Start Small
Begin with high-impact areas like invoice capture and vendor onboarding, then expand incrementally to maximize adoption and ROI.
Ensure Seamless Integration
Opt for AP automation partners like SquareWorks, where embedded functionality works within your existing ERP, minimizing risk and product switching.
Engage Stakeholders Early
Ensure all relevant members across finance, procurement, and IT are involved from the start to gain alignment & buy-in, and to reduce resistance.
Track Performance Metrics
Monitor processing times, error rates, and other relevant metrics to continue to refine your automation and celebrate efficiencies.
Enable Vendor Transparency
Fast and accurate invoice & payment processing strengthens vendor trust and reduces risk.
Scaling AP operations no longer requires expanding your team – by harnessing automation, organizations are able to process more invoices, with greater accuracy, and faster turnaround, all while maintaining the same workforce. AP professionals can instead focus on more strategic roles, delivering insights and value beyond the numbers. With short time-to-value, substantial ROI potential, and streamlined operations, AP automation isn’t just an enhancement – it’s a growth enabler.
Want to learn how to scale your AP process without adding headcount? Register for our upcoming webinar below.
