The New Metric: Accounts Payable as a Profit Center
We all know that “profit” and “loss” are the two terms that drive the business world and its metric(s) more than any others. Everything a company does is looked upon with one overriding question: Is it making us money or costing us money?
This simple analysis applies even to individual departments within a company. Sales, for example, can be seen as a profit center, as it contributes directly to the bottom line whether profit or loss. Accounts Payable, on the other hand, was always seen as a cost center. Lots of outflow and expense with no direct contribution to the bottom line. Thus, management’s metric was always to look closely at what the profit centers were doing in terms of profit and loss, while the cost centers were largely left to themselves, so long as the expense of running them was reasonable.
How would you like to change where AP stands in that metric? Thanks to high-level accounts payable automation, many AP departments are starting to flip their status from cost center to profit center – and getting the attention and accolades they deserve.
How?
InvoiceWorks®, an iPayables accounts payable automation solution, has revolutionized the AP department’s function, so that it now can contribute to the bottom line. Utilizing its dynamic discounting feature, an AP department is able to get a discount for paying invoices far faster than it used to. This translates into real, measurable savings that contribute dollars to the bottom line.
Most AP departments are happy just to avoid late fees by getting paper invoices paid on time, but with InvoiceWorks’® E-invoicing streamlined, point and click process, which can be accessed from anywhere in the company, invoice processing is lightning fast, making late fees a thing of the past. The new name of the game is paying out less than procuring managers expect and agreed to pay.