A newly-reissued guide from Levvel Research arrives in time for finance teams and accounts payable managers to put together their proposals to automate, innovate and elevate the roles of their teams to align with their company’s strategic goals.
Sponsored by Artsy Technologies Levvel’s “Pitching ROI for Accounts Payable,” shares the perspectives, experiences and lessons learned from companies that made the case for change and demonstrated compelling results.
One of those companies, Canadian hardware retailer Canac, Inc., discusses how they achieved a return on investment in less than twelve months, reducing invoice cycles times from two weeks to just two days. By automating the processing of over 120,000 vendor invoices annually, they achieved better scalability and control over their processes, so they could reduce costs and focus more time on budgeting, planning and analysis.
Those efforts not only made the case for AP automation, but for ongoing process improvement within finance and throughout the organization.
While results like those experienced by Canac are well-established and commonplace for companies that choose the right solution and partner for their AP automation initiatives, AP teams have not always been able to make a winning case for investing in innovation and automation.
That’s why the Levvel report focuses on tips for making the pitch for an investment in automation to decision makers and executives.
According to Levvel Research, the objections that AP teams need to overcome include:
These three barriers can be easily overcome with the right preparation and presentation, so long as there is an interest in cutting costs, improving efficiency and improving operations.
To overcome internal resistance, Levvel recommends that accounts payable/finance managers define and communicate the true cost of manual accounts payable processes, not only in terms of cycle times and department-level KPIs, but in terms of the strategic impact to the organization.
When making the case for process improvement through automation, it’s critical that process owners have a firm grasp of existing KPIs and metric-driven arguments that present a timeline for a return on the company’s investment of time and effort. Often, according to the report, the issue isn’t necessarily whether or not AP processes are candidates for improvement, but there the initiatives stands relative to other, competing priorities.
For many organizations, once AP automation becomes a priority, results can be achieved quickly based upon process efficiency and cost savings—then the true, ongoing benefits from faster access to data and better process visibility emerge.
Often, these successes translates to interest and enthusiasm from other departments and other to transform their data- and document-burdened processes.
To download a copy of the Levvel Reseaerch “Pitching ROI” report, click here.