Streamlining Accounts Payable Process

The accounts payable process is crucial to ensuring that vendors and suppliers are paid accurately, promptly, and without any issues. Making the accounts payable process flow as tedious as possible is not a small task, though. Paper invoices, drawn-out approval processes, and manual data entry into the system are the only components of traditional accounts payable. However, the age of digitalization and automation is upon us. This blog examines how the accounts payable process can be made simpler, more error-free, and more efficient by utilizing Power Automate and SharePoint.

What is Accounts Payable Process?

The AP process typically involves several key steps:

Invoice Receipt: In the accounts payable process flow all the bills are received from vendors via mail, email, or fax.
Invoice Verification: Verification process of the received invoices are checked for accuracy, ensuring they match the purchase orders.
Approval Workflow: Verified invoices are routed to the appropriate personnel for approval.
Payment Processing: Approved invoices are processed for payment, and records are updated in the accounting system.
Record Keeping: All invoices and related documents are stored for future reference and auditing purposes.

What are the Challenges of Traditional Account Payable Process?

Traditional AP processes often face several challenges including:

Manual data entry: Takes longer and has a higher chance of errors.
Paper-Based Workflows: Hard to monitor and prone to loss.
Long Approval Times: Missed discounts and late payments can result from protracted approval processes for invoices.
Lack of Visibility: Difficulty in monitoring the payments and invoice status.

How SharePoint and Power Automate Can Help in Accounts Payable Process Automation?

1. Centralized Document Management with SharePoint

SharePoint is a robust platform for document management. Organizations can place all invoices in one central location and easily access and manage it by making the SharePoint document libraries. It consists of:

Version Control: This will ensure that the latest version of a document always appears.
Metadata and Tagging: It helps in categorizing and searching for invoices.
Permissions and Security: Gains access to sensitive financial data.

2. Automated Workflows using Power Automate

Power Automate, earlier known as Microsoft Flow, allows businesses to automate tasks and accounts payable workflow process. It can help support the AP process in this manner:

Automated Invoice Capture - Power Automate may be configured to automatically collect incoming invoices received through email and save them to SharePoint.
Approval Flows: They can configure automated workflows to route invoices to approvers based on predefined rules. The system can send notifications to the approvers and reminders for pending approvals.
Data Extraction and Validation: Utilizing AI Builder in Power Automate with data extraction from Invoices, validation via Purchase orders.
Integration to Use with ERP Systems: Power Automate integrates with several ERP systems. This integration makes the approved invoices directly available in the accounting system.

3. Improved Visibility and Reporting

With SharePoint and Power Automate, organizations can gain better visibility into their AP process. Dashboards and reports may be developed and maintained to track the status of invoices, time for approvals, and the payment schedule for each one. This will allow for the identification of bottlenecks that will help to make the process more efficient.

Conclusion

This automatically improves efficiency, minimizes errors, and maximizes visibility as the accounts payable process is streamlined using SharePoint and Power Automate. Firms could then focus their attention to more strategic activities, such as optimizing vendor relations and better negotiation terms, by removing redundant tasks through automation and a single central place for document management. Unlock the power of automation today and transform your AP process now!

See few examples how SharePoint and Power Automate based process automation works.