Every controller’s job entails making sure their financial reporting and accounting practices are accurate and comply with all applicable regulations. While your accounting team is chasing payments, your controller is behind everyone, making sure they've filled out every form to the letter and tracked every payment to the cent.
Controllers value accuracy and clarity. In industries such as construction, legal, and other professional services, this skill helps you process payments faster instead of reconciling hours, material costs, and other minutiae with your clients. AP automation helps improve your accuracy and simplifies your controller’s month-end workflows, saving everyone time and effort.
Here's how it works.
What Slows AP Down (and Drives Controllers Nuts)
Your controller meticulously tracks expenses, project codes, costs, and other data to help your project managers set accurate budgets and to help your company meet its overall goals. Controllers are juggling multiple responsibilities that are all crucial for keeping your company in business, so making their job as simple as possible is vital.
Human Error
Unfortunately, manual invoice entry is prone to human error. Instead of rubber-stamping an invoice and paying it right away, your controller is stuck identifying errors and sending inaccurate invoices back to your accounting team. This delays your payments, which can disrupt your relationships with your vendors, especially if the delay is long.
Longer Processing Times
Manually entering and coding invoices is more labor-intensive, which also hinders your AP approvals. Your accounting team has to verify every invoice and note and resolve exceptions before anyone can enter the invoice into the system. When the team is working through a heavy stack of papers, it takes longer to identify these exceptions.
If your company is large and multiple team members are processing invoices manually, they may not notice duplicates. You could end up paying the same invoice more than once. In this case, your accounting team has to spend time on the phone negotiating credits for overpayments or getting the supplier to send your extra payment back.
Inefficient Audit Trail
Manual invoice entry also creates a disconnected audit trail. When your controller is preparing your month-end documents, or if you ever get audited, they have to dig through filing cabinets and email attachments to consolidate all of the relevant information.
What Automation Unlocks
Month-End Closeout Peace of Mind
AP automation makes the month-end close a breeze in construction accounting and other industries.
With AP automation, controllers are working with more accurate information during the month-end close, and at other crucial times. Having accurate financial information enables you to set financial goals, track your progress, and assess your overall financial performance. It also keeps your company in compliance with financial reporting regulations.
If your controller needs to access a particular document, a digital content management system can simplify the task. They can sort by a project or a keyword, or use an automated invoice management solution to find the right invoices faster.
Faster Routing of Exceptions
Human error works on both sides of the AP/AR relationship. Your suppliers and vendors may submit invoices with incorrect prices, quantities, or tax information, for example. When an invoice is sitting under a pile of older invoices, your team doesn’t see the error until it reaches that point in the pile.
AP automation solutions can scan incoming invoices for these errors and flag them before the invoice reaches your accounting team. Some platforms will automatically reroute these invoices back to the supplier with the error flagged so they can correct it and send it back as soon as possible.
How WorldView Supports Finance Teams
The finance team keeps your business running. Following your controller's tips, including implementing AP invoice automation tools, can speed up your accounting workflows with fewer errors, and your company will build more trust with your suppliers. You can save money on late fees, potentially negotiate discounts, and operate with a better overall cash flow.
WorldView's AP Workflow Automation instantly reroutes exceptions and automates approvals. Our tool can also import invoices from emails so your team can access them instantly.
Our enterprise content management (ECM) system serves as a centralized location for your invoices, purchase orders, and other relevant documents. Your team doesn’t have to mix and match files from multiple locations during the accounts payable process.
ECM Syncs With Your ERP Solution
ECM and ERP interoperability takes the AP automation process a step further. Your ERP can extract information from the invoices, purchase orders, and other data in your ECM. When your controller is closing at the end of the month or preparing for tax season, they have all the data they need, automatically.
Conclusion: Give Your Controllers the Visibility They Deserve
Controllers value accuracy and clarity. AP Workflow Automation gives them enhanced visibility into your company’s finances. Using digital AP solutions to automate your workflows and eliminate manual data entry will speed up the approval process. Enabling you to pay your suppliers faster.
Explore how AP automation can reduce friction and save time for your company. Contact us today to explore our solutions.
