CPO Rising has been actively publishing thought leadership, technology analysis, and supply management best practices for many years and the result has been a steady stream of valuable content that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. To help our readers keep better track of our ideas on certain topics, we’ve developed a new series in which we will feature a sampling of impactful insights and recent articles on the topics that matter most to CPOs and other procurement executives (Note that readers can also search different categories by clicking on “Articles” found in the blue menu bar directly under the CPO Rising logo or by searching “Tags” under the sponsor logos on the right hand navigation bar). We’ve started with Strategic Sourcing topics, but are now moving onto downstream topics, such as eProcurement and AP Automation. Enjoy!
5 ePayables Articles You Should Read
1. AP Predictions for 2015: ePayments Will Become the Default
From our article entitled AP Predictions for 2015: ePayments Will Become the Default: Business-to-business (B2B) commerce has changed drastically in the past 15 years, particularly on the payments side of the equation. From a time when most every supplier payment was made via paper check, with all the associated costs and inefficiencies, to a time when the industry has moved to making a majority of supplier payments via electronic methods. In fact, recent Ardent Partners research indicated that 55% of all payments are made electronically—including wire transfer, commercial card, business networks, and ACH. Because of this change, as well as other factors explained below, the Ardent Partners team predicts that ePayments will soon become the default payment method, thus completely supplanting archaic, paper-based methods. Read more about this article by clicking here.
2. AP’s Top Trends in 2015: The Increasing Automation of Accounts Payable
From our article entitled AP’s Top Trends in 2015: The Increasing Automation of Accounts Payable: Despite the increasing levels of automation that have occurred in many other enterprise departments (such as procurement, HR, etc.), the accounts payable (AP) function remains a stubbornly-manual process in many organizations. However, as enterprises have begun to think more holistically about the entirety of the procure-to-pay (P2P) workflow, technology will become more and more of a critical differentiator. In fact, 83% of respondents from Ardent’s 2014 ePayables research survey expect that the AP process will be largely automated within the next two years. Read more about this article by clicking here.
3. ePayables 2014: What’s Next for AP Teams in 2014?
From our article entitled ePayables 2014: What’s Next for AP Teams in 2014?: Accounts payable has gone through significant changes in the past 14 years. At the beginning of the last decade, all invoices were paper or PDF over email, digital business networks were nary a glimmer in their creators’ eyes, and inefficiency reigned supreme. Today the AP automation ecosystem has changed significantly: straight-through processing is possible, top companies pay a mere $2.42 to process an invoice (enough for your morning Starbucks), and it is now possible for a single AP staffer to process nearly 5,000 invoices by themselves. Read more about this article by clicking here.
4. ePayables 2014: Top 3 Roadblocks to Cost-Savings in Accounts Payable
From our article entitled ePayables 2014: Top 3 Roadblocks to Cost-Savings in Accounts Payable: As with any business function, accounts payable has specific challenges facing it over the long term. It should come as no surprise that these specific challenges relate to manual- or paper-based invoice processes which can, in many cases, be alleviated through ePayables technology such as eInvoicing. In the case of accounts payable, there are three roadblocks that beat out the rest of the issues facing financial teams by a significant margin. These are missing or delayed information, overly long invoice/payment approvals, and high exception percentage. Read more about this article by clicking here.
5. ePayables 2014: The Quest – Top Priorities
From our article entitled ePayables 2014: The Quest – Top Priorities: Accounts payables professionals at organizations large and small are routinely forced to do more with less. The advent of ePayables makes this feasible; outdated manual processes can be replaced with fully or mostly automated techniques such as straight-through processing and dynamic discounting, which leaves the harried AP pro to take care of exceptions instead of entering data and manually processing invoices. Automation is all well and good – and a laudable goal – but before you consider moving toward that pathway, it’s worth considering where your priorities lie. For the majority of AP departments, our recent ePayables research uncovers that the top priority, by significant margin, is the reduction of processing costs. Read more about this article by clicking here.
