How Automating AP Can Help Government Manage Invoices From Anywhere
You’d think that ensuring healthy cash flow would be enough for government finance teams to worry about. But the truth is, cash flow is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AP responsibilities. Because today, finance professionals must also support agency growth and planning, contribute to employee satisfaction, and more.
With both time and staff often in short supply, inefficiency can’t exist on any level of a government agency’s operations. Yet, even with growing demands on finance departments, and an increasing number of suppliers, many agencies continue to use outdated, manual processes for vendor invoices, approvals, and payments.
The reasons for this can vary. For some, spreadsheets, paper invoices, and e-mail are status quo solutions that are “good enough” and don’t need an upgrade. Other times, agencies struggle to justify using taxpayer dollars to invest in a modern invoice management system.
Whatever the reason, the combination of more responsibility and no room for inefficiency or error means that agencies simply can’t afford not to invest in modern, mobile-friendly AP software. By getting away from manual, paper-based systems, your agency can automatically capture, validate, and approve every invoice either in the office or remotely, shorten processing times, and avoid late fees from vendors.
Additionally, when you connect a modern AP system with automated travel and expense management, you can centralize and gain visibility into all agency spend, detect and prevent fraud, and plan budgets based on accurate spend data.
Making the case for automation
There’s no question that the road to implementing modern AP management is difficult. And finding the right solution for your agency is just the start. Once you do, you’ll then need to clear many hurdles and have countless conversations to get a new AP solution approved.
To help state and local government leaders determine whether or not to upgrade their AP management system, SAP Concur and GovLoop came up with a handful of key questions that every leader should ask:
- Will a new spend management solution drive policy compliance that is better tomorrow than it is today?
- Will a modern solution allow all spend data to flow into a single, integrated system?
- Will a better AP management experience eliminate manual data entry, increase productivity, and improve employee satisfaction?
- Does my current process empower my agency to spend directly with preferred vendors?
- Will a new solution provide deeper data insights and help us plan more strategically?
If you answered "yes" to all five of these questions (you did), your agency may be due for an upgrade to its spend management system. With this, leaders can connect a number of puzzle pieces that prevent unnecessary costs, improve and increase employee satisfaction, and give teams more time to focus on serving constituents.
To see how SAP Concur solutions can help your agency automate and integrate its entire invoice, expense and travel management system, check out our public sector page, or download our e-Book to learn more about bringing AP automation to your government agency.
