The AP Journey…Part 4

🔎 In today’s accounting world, finding, and retaining top talent is more crucial than ever. And accountants are more likely to stick around when they have access to the right tools! 🛠️

💡 Scroll below as we discuss the significance of a modern tech stack and how automation can be your secret weapon for attracting and retaining top talent.

Taking a deeper look into improving the workload for the AP (accounts payable) team. There are a lot of pieces to the AP puzzle, many documents that must match up for the right suppliers to be paid at the right time. These documents can be housed electronically (DASH DDX™ Document Automation) or in file cabinets. Here at DASH, the tools we’ve created are intended to speed up the rate at which you can search, find, and disseminate information.

In Parts 1 & 2 & 3, we investigated how automation will increase the accuracy of the data, how improved efficiency of the workforce can lead to very positive results, and how automation leads to increased early payment discounts. Lots of key advantages to automation. Starting with small steps, to full automation in the future. We want to encourage businesses big and small to start today and automate. Begin with 5% of your invoices, then the next month goes to 10%, etc. You can build to a high level over time. Just start.

This article focuses on how AP automation can positively impact the retention of excellent employees as well as the recruitment of new high-caliber talent.

2 questions to ask yourself related to your finance team currently:

1. How appealing is my business to potential employees?
2. Do I have the tools to attract and/or retain high-caliber talent?

This article is very clear on how these two factors relate in a business setting today.

As industry needs continue to evolve, maintaining and onboarding high-quality candidates continue to change. CFOs and finance teams are being asked to do more and add value while simultaneously facing the business challenges of hiring talent and improving retention. To help you “future-proof” your finance functions in today’s gloomy economy, we’ve introduced an AP Robot™ to provide the finance team with a new tool. This tool provides your team with increased efficiency with data entry and increases the scope of work that AP teams typically address. Instead of simply data entry and document filing, AP teams can focus on bigger-picture projects and work that will drive the company’s bottom line.

Reduce Turnover Fatigue

If your team experiences high turnover, this tool will retain the information that is typically lost in the turnover process. You don’t have to keep starting over with each new employee, it retains the information within the business. Information extracted using artificial intelligence such as supplier invoice nuances, where specific information is on the invoice, etc. and the robot keeps learning more every day! BONUS: Your team can inject extra tips for it to pick up and extract information even faster and more accurately (winning!). So over time, your business can continue to move forward at a faster pace because the tool continues to run no matter who puts the invoices into the “watch folder” to be reviewed electronically.

Another key benefit of using an AP Robot is the improvement in manual back-office processes. It used to take 10+ minutes to enter an invoice, match up the corresponding documents, double-check the supplier information and receipts were correct, and then post the information to the ERP. This can now take under 1 minute per invoice! YES! The AP Robot™ can read, extract, populate, match, and file documents electronically. A paperless approach to a safer more secure finance team with fewer manual processes, and more automation.

And an extra bonus is the tool is easy to learn and can be used very quickly!

Confidently Hire

If you were looking to hire a new AP Specialist and had an AP tool to offer them in the job description, this might help your chances of recruiting them over other companies. Increasing your tech-savviness could attract high-caliber talent who is ready to take the company to the next level with new efficiencies. No longer will AP teams need to do data entry all day long, the AP Robot™ will read and extract data to enter your system for you. They can now concentrate on special circumstances with suppliers and strategic initiatives for the team. Time management is well spent with a tool that takes the ” not-so-fun stuff” off their plate. We still need the AP individuals, they are a key part of the finance team. This AP Robot™ will revolutionize the work for the AP team and take their role to the next level.

Retaining great employees is a real talent. Keeping them engaged, tasked, and occupied in tasks that they enjoy. When individuals know they are contributing to the team, they are more apt to stick around. If they could contribute more to the organization then they might be more apt to stay with that company longer. If we provided a tool to increase their job efficiencies and accuracies (the most important parts of their job are all the details!) imagine the increase in employee satisfaction and your ability to retain your top finance talent. Everyone wins.

Employee Satisfaction

Since automation takes care of the repetitive tasks within AP which have no added value, this leaves behind only more interesting tasks that put the employee’s skills to good use. If employees have fewer repetitive workdays, it could reduce the risk of burnout. If their work could become more interesting, and the tools increase their work goals, happy employee typically doesn’t look for new work elsewhere. Thus, retaining talented employees who would have otherwise not been allowed to grow to their full potential puts you ahead of the game.

Leveraging the automation that is available is key. Our Dash AP Robot™ is created for small to medium-sized businesses and integrates into many ERP systems. The technology is there and ready for your team. As a stakeholder, your drive to automate could keep your business afloat (best case, rising above the competition) during uncertain times. With plans to grow your business this year, our tool will help your business scale to handle the growth. You won’t have to add extra to your headcount to keep up with the growing business in AP, your AP Robot™ can handle the increase in invoices, an unlimited number each day, there’s no maximum!

Finance leaders are looking to drive efficiency across their organizations. A focus for CFOs is investing in the right automation initiatives to also help attract and retain the best talent for their organizations. Despite the many misconceptions around automation, such as job losses and the mass replacement of humans by machines, it can now be used to offset the labor shortage. The key benefit we are addressing with the AP Robot™ is the retention of excellent employees as well as the recruitment of new high-caliber talent. That’s super important at any time, anywhere. Those employees are the scarcest commodity. This isn’t just the 4^th episode in the series. It might be the most important because the human is the most important thing in the entire equation (and in creation).

Small and medium-sized businesses can benefit from the DASH AP Robot™. We’ve built this tool specifically for SYSPRO users, so it’s directly integrated into your system and takes advantage of real-time data. We’d welcome the opportunity to learn more about your workflows in AP and see if we might be a good match for your team in today’s world and working together to build stronger businesses tomorrow. We’ve been here for 20+ years, we’re here for the long term.

To know how we can help your company grow its productivity and efficiency by simplifying and automating your business processes, you can schedule a time with one of our automation experts today. Click here. We’d be happy to share more information with you.

About the Author:

Stephanie is the marketing guru at DASH. For over 20 years, DASH has been authoring, delivering, and supporting DASH DDX™ and DASH AP Robot™, its ERP-integrated software to small and mid-sized manufacturing and distribution companies throughout the USA and beyond.

Let’s chat!