Deterrents that the accounts payable managers encounter

Deterrents that the Accounts Payable managers often encounter one or more of the following issues:

High Transaction volumes - Organizations struggle to cope with large volumes of transactions that increase geometrically with business growth.

Traceability and accountability - Maintaining a clear audit trail of all activities on an invoice from sending for approval, approver comments, queries, clarifications, final approval and payment is difficult especially when communication on an invoice is through multiple channels – email, phone, etcetera.

Multiple delivery channels for invoices - Unlike purely paper based invoices in the past, invoices may be delivered through email, fax, EDI, or just appear as entries in credit card statements. Processing invoices received through non- traditional channels is a challenge.

Vendor Management - The lack of visibility into current status of an invoice makes responding to vendor queries a difficult task. The challenges are compounded by long lead times for release of payments, inability to define and maintain standard processing times, and inability to estimate expected payment dates.

Document Management - Since vendor invoices could potentially be received at any location, obtaining approvals require the transmission of invoice copies either through email, fax or by mail. There is always a risk of loss of paper documents. Retrieval of supporting documents and approvals during audits puts a huge strain on accounting resources.