Top pressures driving focus on A/P improvement:
- lack of visibility into invoices and A/P documents
- corporate directive to lower overall costs
- need for better cash management
- difficulty finding or managing archives of paper-based documents
- need to reduce risk of fraud and abuse
- inability to capitalise on early payment discounts
Strategies for improvement:
- automate the IR&W process
- integrate e-payables solutions with other systems
- centralise A/P IR&W processes
- standardise IR&W processes
- conduct internal assessment of current A/P capabilities
- use data analysis to identify high-impact improvement areas
- secure executive sponsor / champion for IR&W automation
Impediments to A/P automation:
- lack of internal support for change
- difficulty integrating IR&W solutions with other systems
- lack of supplier adoption of e-invoicing
- non-standard nature / multiple formats of invoices
- securing executive support for A/P transformation
- lack of automation of exception / discrepancy handling
Centralisation of key A/P processes:
- payment
- reconciliation
- PO issuance
- scanning
- indexing
- approval
- receipt
To achieve best-in-class performance, companies must:
- gain a clear picture of the current state of their A/P departments. Review policies and performance, consult with functional counterparts, and discuss improvement opportunities with top suppliers
- improve and expand performance measurement. Lay the groundwork now for increasing the data available for management to make strategic decisions regarding competing areas for improvement, and set a benchmark against which to measure future results
