Automating Accounts Payable Processes With Kofax

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October 3, 2023

by Bill Mariani

Vice President, Ecosystems

How effectively does your operation handle invoices? A healthy business begins with confidence in such fundamental workflows. Despite decades of development, many of the contemporary best practices don’t always produce the best results. There’s still too much wiggle room for items to fall through the cracks. Today, automation has rewritten the entire playbook for executing accounts payable at the highest levels. Automating accounts payable processes can set the stage for strengthening your company.

The accounts payable team ensures the lights stay on, and they deserve the most reliable support possible. The Kofax Intelligent Automation platform provides a robust framework for process transformations that save money, speed up work, and prepare you to respond to new opportunities at larger scales. To illustrate how much AI, machine learning, and robotic process automation can change the game, we should explore why new tools are necessary.

Where do today’s AP processes fall short?

Transitioning from the usual way of doing things is always a daunting proposition. Explaining the purpose and value of such a change to key stakeholders isn’t always easy. Framing automation as a serious problem-solver for AP teams makes everything clearer. What are the issues plaguing teams today that Kofax automation can solve?

Processing costs are too high

It costs money to spend money. The hours your AP team works translate into payroll costs. Cost per invoice is a simple calculation involving dividing how much your department spends versus how many invoices they process over the same period. With slower traditional processes, your CPI can reach unsustainable levels.

Teams aren’t efficient enough to handle higher volumes

As your business grows, accounts payable will need to manage even more invoices. Achieving efficiency at scale could prove impossible without expanding payroll and adding more team members. Again, CPI remains high while processing can bog down, sending payment times soaring.

Poor insights into daily cash flow and other vital indicators

Paper-based processes, manual workflows, and data silos all mean that AP is often too opaque at higher levels of the business. This lack of visibility complicates C-suite decision making. It could even obscure actual issues with the health of the company.

Unhappy vendors due to poor process management

Slow invoice processing leads to missed deadlines - translating into late fees, penalties, and a bad reputation with vendors. Poor processes in this area can lead to real costs.

Too many touches lead to errors and bottlenecks

Are too many employees handling invoices? Every touch creates another opportunity for error. Approval processes that demand too many stops before final authorization can leave invoices stuck in a bottleneck for days.

Why intelligent automation is the future of AP

It sits at the intersection of rules-based solutions, such as RPA, and cognitive solutions that include ML and AI. Together, you can streamline repetitive processes and deploy tools that learn and adapt to your business processes. Using AI in cognitive capture tools for automating invoice ingestion is one excellent example use case.

Such a system could understand what type of document it is, what information it contains, and how to extract that data. Using accounts payable robotic process automation could move and manipulate that data into different business systems as needed. With connectors and pre-built solutions for this platform available in the Kofax Marketplace, you can extend the reach even further. Automate document processing, integrate with SAP, and more—all with little added development time.

How does the Kofax Intelligent Automation Platform Solve Problems?

With AI-powered capture solutions, workflow automation for transforming approvals and exception handling, easy ERP integration, and more, the Intelligent Automation Platform is a transformative tool. How does it help you target and address the major pain points of today’s work in AP? Here’s what you can do.

Streamline capture and transfer to reduce touches and errors

Ingest documents from every possible source simultaneously—email, fax, scans, and more. The Kofax platform features industry-leading OCR plus AI capabilities that reduce time spent matching and verifying extracted data. Automatically route invoice data into the appropriate systems for action.

Slash costs per invoice

Automation opens the door to rapid invoice processing. You can even create a workflow where some invoices may need little human interaction before payment with the right solutions from the Kofax Marketplace. Intelligent automation can determine when invoices fit the rules you’ve set and issue approvals straight away. Rapid drops in CPI are possible with less time and fewer touches required to handle every invoice.

Equip your business with the power to scale

A key benefit of today’s RPA and AI solutions is that they never sleep. Work can continue continuously. Through integration with highly scalable cloud solutions such as Microsoft Azure, you can prepare your business for success in its next growth stage.

Track and report on data in real time

Deploy pre-built dashboards from the Marketplace to centralize data visualization. Use tools included with the platform to track KPIs, such as invoice aging easily. Ensure you’re in compliance with service-level agreements and monitor for exceptions. Ensure that major players in the company can quickly gauge the health of these processes.

Secure early payment discounts and boost vendor satisfaction

With cognitive capture, OCR, RPA, and everything else working together, you can ensure you pay your vendors right on time. With better overall visibility, it’s possible for intelligent automation to help suggest the ideal moment to pay invoices.

Such an effort can ensure ample cash on hand, avoid missed or late payments, and even secure early payment discounts before they expire. Your vendors will appreciate regular and prompt remittances, while your accounting teams will enjoy the enhanced flexibility.

Uncover the Future of Accounts Payable Workflows Today

Integrating RPA, AI, and other tools into your business through the Intelligent Automation Platform can yield real, visible improvements to the daily workflows that keep your company running. From reducing errors to improving vendor satisfaction—and improving your own reputation by extension—there are actual benefits you can recognize quickly.

Automating accounts payable processes with Kofax and extending your reach with solutions available in the Marketplace lets you prepare for the future of work right now. Start exploring what it could mean for your company today.