By The Direct Commerce Team
Make sure your AP Automation provider can configure their solution the way you want it.
Desperate to simplify AP processes? Afraid of monolithic solutions that require massive changes to your tech stack? You’re not alone. According to PYMNTS, 85% of companies want AP Automation. But 59% of businesses haven’t implemented any form of it yet, often put off by the massive change that “full suite” platforms provide. Still, automation brings incredible opportunities to cut costs, save time, and improve process efficiency. The enterprise leaders of the future are looking for automation that’s fully configurable from providers who can understand their complex workflows and bring in solutions that perfectly fit their needs.
In a complex enterprise environment with multiple business systems and processes at play, financial professionals don’t have time to reconfigure their systems to fit into a rigid automation solution. To keep operations running smoothly, it’s crucial to find an AP Automation provider who is able to adapt to your business rules and scale with you as your needs evolve.
When evaluating AP Automation solutions, we recommend you ask providers plenty of questions and make sure that they can offer configurability particularly in these four areas:
1. Forms
The main goal of process automation is eliminating paper and the steps accompanying that data entry. Enter: forms. Make sure your provider can customize forms inside your AP Automation tool to gather the information that is important to you and let your suppliers upload their data directly. Within this environment, you control the form fields, layout and branding elements like colors, logos, and typefaces. You get exactly the information you need, eliminating errors brought on by manual processes. And your invoice-processing times will show it.
2. Workflows
Configurable workflows are vital to meet specific business process needs for invoice approvals, vendor management, dispute resolution, and more. With AP Automation, you need a provider who can automate whatever processes you have, no matter how complex. At Direct Commerce, we believe you should also be able to define the specific business rules and requirements around authorized users, data access, approvals, alerts, and any other factor necessary for your success. Configurability enables sophisticated rules for processes like multi-level approvals and automated notifications and escalations.
3. Integrations
Look for an AP Automation solution with an open application programming interface (API) to integrate your existing systems for accounting, ERP, CRM, and reporting right from the start—and give you the flexibility to add or change your business systems in the future. With solutions like Direct Commerce, your data will always live inside your applications, while our AP Automation software manages your workflow and gives you a complete look at your spend. Another benefit of integrations? They allow you to validate business rules so you can eliminate issues before they end up in your ERP and free up time and resources.
4. Solution Modularity
At Direct Commerce, we understand that companies may not need all of our AP Automation services, so we allow you to pick and choose the modules that make sense for you and then add on other components as needed. And, whether you choose one piece of our solution or the entire suite, we help you gain data-driven insights for better business intelligence, while creating a paper-free work environment that will save money, boost productivity, and free up your help desk.
When you look at AP Automation providers, solution modularity is key to getting you exactly what you need, without the overhead of a full solution suite.
Want to see what true configuration really looks like?
We understand that flexibility is the key to success when it comes to AP Automation. That’s why we never ask you to adjust your processes: we configure our software to meet your needs. If you’d like to see what platform configurability looks like, we’d love to show you. Contact us today and we’ll walk you through our solutions and the features that will make the greatest impact at your company.
