Whether you’re talking about your COO, CFO, CIO or the entire executive suite, these folks are probably juggling a lot of moving parts. If they are hesitant to invest or even spend time discussing AP automation, it’s probably because they are dedicating their busy calendar time to what they are passionate about.
Let’s face it, those of us who get excited about accounts payable are unique bunch. But your team likely has IT projects in the hopper that include customer facing technology like ecommerce, or operations management solutions, patient care solutions in healthcare… the list goes on and that’s just a few possible IT projects. There’s also other projects like mergers & acquisitions, product development, new service offerings and so on.
So how do you get your AP project to rise to the top of this list? Check out these three awesome facts that will help get their attention.
You may have seen demonstrations where AI falls short at one task or other, but when it comes to data capture on your vendor invoices, AI seriously out performs human capabilities. Nobody wants to get left behind in the AI revolution, and AP is a nice piece of low hanging fruit for your team to start modernizing accounting processes.
Entering invoice data manually is quickly becoming obsolete. Because invoices require intensive data entry and the consequences for mistakes can be harsh, it has been a sore spot for many organizations for years. With the right AI automation tools, you get more accurate results and save serious time and money.
When people who have worked on big IT projects before think about accounting software implementations, many want to put them off as long as possible. This might be because financial data is highly sensitive. Plus, new implementations for solutions like Enterprise Resource Planning are huge, costly, disruptive to business and risky.
AP on the other hand, can be a different story. When AP automation is designed right, it requires no big implementation at all.
With the right solution for your software infrastructure, AP automation is really simple to get started. Our Fidesic AP solution for example, which is designed for Microsoft Dynamics ERP, can be implemented with six clicks of the mouse and you see ROI in the first month.
If your organization is in growth mode, then managing and driving growth are everyone’s top priorities. Pitching your AP automation project within this context is going to be super important.
If you are reading this, odds are that your up to your neck in invoices. Maybe your organization is rapidly acquiring new lines of business or it's expanding locations. Whatever the case may be, there's a good chance it's becoming increasingly impossible for your small AP team to keep up with invoice processing.
One of our customers in the dental industry went from 80 to more than 250 locations in less than two years with no plans to slow down. After they adopted Fidesic, they quickly doubled again to more than 500 locations over the next 18 months.
That kind of growth leaves a company with only two options. Hire a team of AP clerks or get new AP software.
The small AP department were able to scale their process alongside the business without adding staff.
Even if you aren’t growing at this kind of pace, just a handful of new locations might mean piles of new vendor invoices. It's a good idea to make growth enablement a key part your pitch for AP automation.
There are of course a lot more reasons for adopting AP automation than the three listed above, but we’ve talked about many of them extensively. For this post we just wanted to give you a few fresh takes on the subject.
The classic argument that is hard to leave out is that AP automation creates cost and time savings. If your solution isn't doing this, it's time for an upgrade.
When compared to a manual process, cost savings are almost guarantied with AP Automation. The fact is that every time a new customer comes to us with a very manual invoice process, we save them 50-80% per invoice.
One of our franchise customers in the automotive service industry was spending 10 days a month processing invoices. After the first month with Fidesic they cut their process down to 5 days per month. In other words, their small AP team freed up a whole week each month for each of the three employees. That’s 15 hours of monthly payroll that can be spent on more strategic processes and analysis.
You are going to want to frame your pitch for AP automation depending on who you are trying to convince. CIOs and CFOs have differing priorities. So understanding what is causing stress in their day and what their goals are, is key. Showing them how the solution will provide value to them personally is going to go a lot further than simply listing the generic benefits of automation. We talk about this subject extensively in our free ebook: "Get the Green Light for AP Automation."
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