It doesn't take an analyst or data scientist to see that more tasks are being automated at an increasing pace in contemporary offices. Accounts Payable automation in particular has been a boon to accounting processes in offices all over the world. This is because when performed manually, AP processes are tedious and very vulnerable to costly errors. You can find out more about the benefits of AP automation here. In this post we'll discuss some of the benefits of Electronic Payments in AP automation software and how AP automation enables a company payables department to reap the benefits of electronic payments.
Electronic Payments for business includes methods such as Automated Clear House (ACH) and wire transfers (ACH vs. Wire).
Benefits of Electronic Payments in AP Automation Software
Improved Security – When electronic payments are automated out of the AP software with user sign-on, risk managers can easily monitor, track and audit payments from anywhere. Compared to paper checks, electronic payments have been shown to be less vulnerable to fraud. In fact, 74% of organizations experienced check fraud in 2019 (more).
Simplicity – Lets face it, printing paper checks feels unnecessarily complicated when we compare to our personal lives where everything has been digitized. Electronic payments eliminates check printing costs and requires no envelope stuffing, check tracking, or postage. With AP automation software that supports electronic payments, payments are literally just a click away as you can pay right from your accounting system.
Cost Savings – We already mentioned that electronic payments reduce the costs of printing and sending checks. Electronic payments also reduce manual labor. With payments automation and electronic payments, you can rest easy knowing you'll never lose a check, overpay or rack up unnecessary late fees for those vendors.
How AP Automation Enables Electronic Payments Benefits
The key benefits you can expect from Electronic Payments in AP Automation include:
- Direct ACH payment straight from your bank account to your vendor's
- Automatic creation of the ACH file and delivery to the bank
- Secure way for vendors to opt-in (store data in an encrypted way)
- Payment approval that works like a “virtual signature” for people that are used to (and comfortable) manually signing checks.
Of course, the need for paper checks still exists, so a good AP automation solution will let you pay via ACH or paper.
Fidesic AP allows you to simply pick the invoices you'd like to pay out of Microsoft Dynamics GP, and our team will take care of fulfillment, whether that's via paper check or ACH.
