Zig Ziglar, famed American author and motivational speaker, once said “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” As AP organizations look to transform themselves from tactical business functions to more strategic ones, they need to take an introspective look at where they are today and what is needed to move themselves to their next level of performance.

There are many next-level attributes that can contribute to a broad-based AP transformation and ultimately enable future success. Ardent Partners’ research indicates that there are several key factors that are essential for today’s AP executives and professionals to succeed. First and foremost; “Smarter” enterprise systems.  Traditional invoice automation solutions can drive tremendous value to the greater organization by automating key processes, eliminating manual tasks, reducing costs, and minimizing payment errors, as well as providing much-needed centralization of data and an essential system of record for financial information. However, the emergence of innovative technologies in recent years has the potential to radically alter the way business is done and help drive AP forward by leveraging this new and innovative functionality and technology. As organizations increasingly look to improve internal, inefficient operations, those accounts payable teams that have modernized and implemented newer, smarter technology are the ones best situated to lead by example and demonstrate their strategic worth. Blockchain, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) are just a few of new and exciting, potential-laden technologies entering the business world at a rapid rate that have the potential to help transform AP and help it achieve the next level of success.

Deeper, more agile analytics is another area with tremendous potential to significantly increase and elevate AP’s strategic value to the organization. Today’s AP functions require deeper analytics platforms that can dig deeper into enterprise spend, supplier information, and financial transactions. We’ve all heard the saying that “knowledge is power”, and knowledge comes from data or experiences. Accounts Payable departments have forever been sitting on a ton of data but for too long that data was locked away and unable to be accessed in a centralized location. Today, these limitations are increasingly self-imposed. Agile business intelligence tools with powerful reporting dashboards are available that can help drive value from the data that AP is sitting on. The ability to centralize, analyze, and share its data now allows AP to deliver operational and financial insights that it could only dream about providing only five years ago. Financial intelligence that AP can now deliver is more wide-ranging and more readily available than at any time in the past. The information gleaned from AP data will lead to stakeholders receiving better, more accurate intelligence more quickly and enable organizations to make better decisions. This ultimately can lead to AP taking a more active role in the enterprise, and even participating in working capital and cash management planning and strategy implementation.

Conclusion

For far too many years, AP teams were perceived as a tactical function that primarily processed invoices and handled supplier payments. The hard truth that no AP professional wanted to hear was that AP’s everyday operational processes were not value-added in comparison with other more strategic groups, such as treasury, finance, IT, or human capital management. However, this no longer has to be the case. The tools and technology exist, and more are coming to help take AP to the next, higher level of performance, as well as a higher perceived value to the organization. Perfecting the tactical tasks associated with the function through automation and the utilization of data will help AP get to that next level of performance. Will there be obstacles and challenges along the way? Definitely. Will you have to alter your course as you go? Most likely. Should these be deterrents to getting started? No! The most important part of making AP more successful and making a difference is getting started.

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