Overcoming Resistance to Accounts Payable Automation
Maybe you’ve already heard about the benefits of enterprise-grade accounts payable automation. You might have even taken advantage of a free, no-obligation demonstration and realized that this is the way forward for your company. So, you passed it up the ladder and… you got the old shrug-off. Now what? How are you supposed to go about overcoming resistance to accounts payable automation?
No worries. Resistance to change is human nature, and it can and will be overcome with a little effort. But first you might have to readjust your own thinking. You see, what you just ran into is that ancient, unsaid question, “What’s in it for me?” as in, “Why would I agree to something that makes just your job easier?”
The answer is easy: because it makes everyone’s job easier. And it adds to the company’s bottom line.
Labor hours spent inputting data from paper invoices, chasing after approvals, replicating lost documents, and producing checks and mailing them will become a distant memory with electronic invoicing. Employees will be freed up to concentrate on value-added accounting tasks. Maximizing their talents, by allowing them to play a more valuable role, will reflect well at review time.
Additionally, streamlining the invoice workflow from start to finish will give your AP department the opportunity to save money. Not only will your company stop paying late fees, your department can actually add to the bottom line by taking advantage of early-pay or dynamic discounts.
Another great benefit is the confidence everyone will feel in complying with any state and federal regulations, such as HIPAA. With an advanced accounts payable automation solution, records don’t get lost or misplaced. Instead, they’re easy to find, analyze, and check against other documents. Even better, AP automation makes fraud and theft far more difficult to get away with than it was with paper checkbooks and ledgers.
Enterprise-grade automation speeds things up, and it gets everyone involved in the process by making data available for inspection and approval right from their own computer, so long as they’re given approved access. Suppliers are on board as are the departments responsible for approving invoices. The whole feeling changes from trying to get the job done one at a time to a real team effort.
Now we come to that final, but all-important point of resistance: cost. Accounts payable automation is an investment like any other. Yet its cost can be recouped in as little as one year. From there, it will pay for itself over and over for years to come. So, while overcoming resistance to accounts payable automation can take time, it helps everyone see the benefits it will provide in the future.