Pitfalls of Manual Data Entry
One of the biggest reasons’ companies switch to accounts payable automation is because of the many pitfalls of manual data entry. The AP department is a daunting department to manage because of the numerous opportunities for errors – and these errors can significantly impact the company’s bottom line for better or for worse. Fortunately, these errors can be prevented by switching to automation. Here are two common AP department problems and how accounts payable automation can solve and even prevent them.
Problem 1: Data Entry Errors
Data entry errors are among the biggest issues an AP department will face when their department isn’t automated. As professionals manually enter data from invoices into the computer, errors are inevitable.
Mistakes can be as simple as adding in a single extra digit but can have devastating consequences when left unchecked. For example, if you were supposed to pay a supplier $900, but added an extra 0 in the end, you could have accidentally cost your company $8100! An easy mistake can be a costly one. When this mistake is multiplied across the AP department, the money adds up quickly. Human error is natural, but that does not mean it should have a place in your department.
Problem 2: Inefficiency
When a mistake is made (and hopefully caught by either the AP department or the supplier) the time intensive process of going back and forth with revised invoices begins. An invoice that could have been corrected electronically in real time instead takes days or weeks to correct and reprocess when done through paper.
This inefficiency is not just costly because of all the time spent on a singular invoice – the time spent costs your company the opportunity for early pay discounting, possibly even causing you to incur late fees.
Solution:
Enterprise-level accounts payable automation solves data entry errors by reducing human interaction with invoices through electronic invoicing. AP professionals no longer need to spend hundreds of hours and labor entering figures into the computer. This way, data entry errors become a thing of the past, and data accuracy improves substantially. AP automation leaves no room for costly mistakes, and pitfalls of manual data entry become a nightmare of the past.