How AP Automation Can Help SMBs Gain Better Control Over Spend

The challenges of 2020 and beyond revealed  organizational inefficiencies in small to midsized businesses (SMBs). A recent Oxford Economics report found 82% of businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees said they identified new gaps in their cash flow management tools and finance processes as a result of COVID-19.

Now, many SMBs are focused on accelerating their recovery and growth, even in uncertain economic terrain. While most companies have adopted some technology to improve their financial processes, many aren’t sure which solutions will stick. But they see the need to adopt meaningful change is fast approaching.

Of the organizations surveyed for the Oxford Economics report, 53% said the pace of digital transformation within their organization is speeding up. For those company leaders, revenue growth is a top focus in the upcoming years (39%), following by cost savings and margins improvement (34%), and increasing efficiency and productivity (31%).

But it takes having a clear, accurate, and up-to-date picture of your finances to accomplish those goals. In most cases, this is where a manual, paper-based AP process can leave your business in the dark, especially as your business grows and becomes more complex. But here’s how fully automating your AP processes can help.  

Benefits of AP automation 

The Oxford Economics report found that although 63% of businesses surveyed have made at least minimal progress toward digitizing their invoice management (just 4% had fully automated processes), of the respondents who digitized their invoice management:  

• 43% saw increased organizational agility & resiliency 
• 29% saw increased functional collaboration 
• 28% saw increased process efficiency 
• 25% saw increased visibility into company spending 
• 25% saw reduced costs 

What can your business gain by fully automating its AP processes? Try this calculator to see how much you're spending on your AP management. And see how agile your business is now by taking this three-minute assessment.
 

How AP automation can support recovery and growth

By adopting full AP automation, using a solution like Concur Invoice, you can get an up-to-date view of your spend at all times, so you can be sure you’re getting the most out of your budget.

With the right solution, you can easily and accurately capture and process invoice data so you—and your employees—don’t have to waste time manually entering it. You also reduce costly human error that's common with manual data entry.

And when you integrate with payment providers, you create a simple, secure, and streamlined way to pay your vendors.

And from a bigger-picture standpoint, AP automation can give your finance employees the gift of more time to do their best work on business-critical functions like getting a handle on compliance and risks and optimizing cash flow and profitability.

Read more: What Expense and AP Automation Really Means for Your Job

How can Concur Invoice help SMBs accelerate recovery? 

Concur Invoice automates your invoice management, giving you clearer visibility into spending, creating a more efficient workflow, reducing errors and fraud, and capturing all the data you need—in near-real-time—to make smarter business decisions.

Watch the latest video on how Concur Invoice helps a business when there’s no spend to waste.

To see how Concur Invoice helps you seamlessly capture, process, and pay invoices, try this self-guided demo.