Digitizing Payments in a Hybrid World

Companies are starting to set terms for the gradual return to office, and employees are opting for all kinds of settings – fully remote, hybrid, in the office. With these varied preferences, accounting team need a set of tools and systems that will help them operate as normal and keep the business running.

One study with 9,000 employees revealed that 83% respondents want to work within a hybrid setting, forcing companies to adopt tools that offer flexibility and security. Based on trends, we can say that that accounting industry is on pace to make the transition towards automation. 2021 State of Accounts Payable study found that accounts payable automation is the top investment priority for 83% of 600 finance professionals.

Here’s why businesses are investing in an AP solution to in the hybrid world:

Approving invoices online:

70% of all invoice processing takes place on paper. It can take up to six days on average to process one invoice manually, and the cost can be as high as USD $15 per invoice. There are several factors that contribute towards the slow processing time, including scanning, sorting, routing, coding and filing. Approval routing and follow-up can be particularly time-consuming.

A survey conducted with 200 AP professionals found that they spend approximately 20% of their time per week on managing approvals. That’s roughly one in five days spent on approvals and follow-ups.

“A flaw that we had with that system was that there was no way to see if the invoices and purchase orders had received the proper level of review and approval. We had to document that through emails,” says Jose Breton, CAO at Brickell Biotech.

With automation, companies can fast-track this process by approving invoices in the cloud. Reminders can be automated, so employees don’t have to do the chasing. Managers can access approval documents via web or mobile. Cost to process invoices also goes down to USD $5 or less.

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