As many businesses faced tough times due to supply chain issues, worker and workplace restrictions, broad-based operational disruptions, and major revenue shortfalls, executives had to contend with health and safety as well as legal considerations. They had to assess and mitigate the ramifications of a potential outbreak among employees that was started in the workplace. Decisions had to be made with imperfect, and often, unclear information.

For a majority of leaders overseeing AP, the pandemic made it patently obvious that manual processes are no longer acceptable and must be stricken from the workplace. Like their co-workers, a vast majority of AP professionals were not raised with a work from anywhere spirit and the ability to easily work while remote. This quickly changed for the AP departments that relied on ePayables systems to drive processing, communication, and collaboration. Others had little-to-no choice but to rely on the traditional in- person office environment to manage their work.

In 2021, the standard challenges for AP remain top-of-mind and clearly highlight the need for end-to-end automation to manage invoice and payment processing. In fact, this year’s top challenges to AP such as lengthy approval times and dreaded invoice exceptions reflect an even greater need for better overall visibility, management, and facilitation of core AP tasks.

While many AP functions were able to adapt to difficult changes and enhance their operations in the face of unprecedented obstacles, sizable hurdles still exist for the typical AP department. AP’s top challenges this year remain largely tactical in scope and are linked directly to everyday activities like pushing for approvals and managing exceptions. This creates organizational discord. But the problems that happen in AP, do not stay in AP – they can and do directly impact other constituencies. That is because, when taken in aggregate, these hurdles have deleterious effects and a potentially strategic impact. For example, invoice and payment approvals have long been an issue in terms of AP’s speed and efficiency, but when coupled with a high percentage of exceptions and an inability to execute B2B payments well, large problems can quickly arise with key suppliers. Treasury, procurement, and internal finance teams find their work more challenging when their goals are not achieved in alliance with AP, but rather in spite of AP. The journey for AP teams and the staffs, therefore, must continue.

Tagged in: AP Automation, Ardent Partners Research, Bob Cohen, ePayables, ePayables 2021, Finance