Why Are We Spending So Much Time Processing Payments?

Asking finance executives "where do you spend a majority of your time", their top response was reconciling the GL (see pie chart inserted). While reconciliation of your general ledger can be optimized by using tools that integrate fully so you do not have information on various islands that need to be consolidated and reconciled manually, in this post we will focus on the 20% that answered that they are spending most of their time processing payments.

A few weeks ago I was speaking with one of our customers about their accounts payable workflow before they automated. The Controller shared that she was spending about 1 and ½ full days each week just on processing payments. And that did not include the time it took for her CFO to handsign them all.

This is a common scenario we hear all the time from professionals in these roles. And it’s not something they are happy about.

Where does automation step in and help?

• You can automate payments via physical check, ACH, single use virtual card, or your own commercial credit card
• Centralize and standardize all payment types in one place
• Payments are sent directly from your bank account in the same fashion as if you were manually processing the payment
• Remittance details are transmitted automatically so vendors know when, why, and how they have been paid
• Payment automation system supports single and multiple payment authorizers
• Set thresholds to determine approval workflows and approval limits
• Approve batch payments to make payment processing run even faster

For Express Locations, automation reduced the manual time spent from 2:23 minutes to 1:03 minutes per invoice. Applying that logic to all 600 invoices, the team is now saving a combined 13 hours per month.

What could you be doing this summer with all the free time you save not manually processing payments? Check out this infographic for some fun ideas