Your Essential Guide to AP Automation for Sage Intacct

Every hour matters when it comes to running a finance department. When processes are outdated and inefficient, they leave a trail of bottlenecks, which take time away from high-impact work like audits, forecasts, and budgeting. Many accountants spend as many as 10 hours per week processing invoices and payments because they still use manual tools like paper and spreadsheets – when they don’t have to.

Accounts payable (AP) automation is designed to help finance teams reduce friction in routine tasks like approval follow-ups, data entry errors, payments delays, and more. The cloud-based technology takes the complexity out of workflows while giving complete visibility and control of AP operations.

89% of UK SMBs still process payments using paper-based solutions or PDF statements.

By reducing its reliance on and usage of paper, emails, and disjointed systems, AP teams can run workflows from anywhere and gain real-time updates on approvals, processing times, payments status, and more. For example, invoice approvals are a common challenge within AP. It typically requires multiple layers of approvals, but status updates are often lost in the lengthy cycle. Automation provides real-time updates through a dashboard about pending and submitted approvals, so you don’t have to chase staff – the system will automatically send reminders to them.

AP automation solution, Quadient Accounts Payable by Beanworks, offers seamless integration with Sage Intacct, saving you time on data entry and other repetitive work. It consolidates payables for multiple entities and stores workflow data in the cloud – invoices, purchase orders, payments, and expenses. This means you can access all AP processes through a single platform. 

You can easily navigate different tasks and reports within AP without exiting the Quadient AP platform. Whether finding the PO order for an invoice, changing the payment method for a vendor, or auditing an expense submission – you can sign these off with less effort and fewer clicks.

96% of CFOs say the central purpose of digitising their AP/AR functions is to benefit their vendors and customers.

Benefits of AP automation

The key to smooth AP operations is fast, secure, and transparent automated processes that drive financial growth. When your staff isn’t stuck in the manual loop of updating data, hunting invoices, or preparing checks for mail, it leaves significant time to focus on growth initiatives. The good news is that CFOs across all industries realise the direct benefits of AP automation. 83% of finance leaders accelerated digitisation to improve their balance sheets during the pandemic. And the gains are reflected across all workflows. Here’s an example of improvements in payments automation.

CFOs highlight top benefits of payment automation: 

• 91% Efficiency
• 61% Data security
• 84% Working Capital
• 57% Supplier relationship
• 62% Cost reduction 
• 50% Fraud reduction

Top gains of AP automation:

Time-savings: Companies can eliminate 83% of data entry with Quadient AP’s AI-powered data capture and cut invoice processing costs by 86%. All AP data is stored in the cloud and integrated with Sage Intacct for instant access. It instantly recovers a significant amount of time lost in repetitive work and error-prone manual tasks.

Real-time updates: Users with authorised access can see workflow updates and report on them whenever needed. All information updated automatically as the software processes transactions and other financial data. You can learn about their value; the number of invoices, payments, expenses; pending tasks, and more through the secure platform. This enables you to set KPIs and track AP growth against your business goals.

Cost reduction: One of the top efficiency measures is the cost of running a workflow. According to research, the cost of manually processing an invoice can be as high as £12. With automation, this comes down to £3 or less by removing paper, files, storage, postage, mails, etc., and other miscellaneous costs. It also helps reduce the risk of making duplicate or late payments or inadvertently overpaying invoices. An AP automation system will alert you to duplicates and remind you of pending payments.

Reduced risk of fraud: Automated checks and controls prevent internal and external fraud by flagging duplicate and fraudulent invoices, and using secure paths for vendor payments. Business leaders can run audits whenever they like and investigate digital records to see who approved what and when. If anyone leaves notes questioning or rejecting the document, it will remain recorded in your online archive.

Higher accuracy: AP becomes vulnerable to errors when workflows are detached, for example, using email for invoice approvals, document management for storage, and checks for payments. Teams that embrace automation see an 83% decrease in data entry and a drastic reduction in the scope of blunders. It also improves information integrity by flagging inconsistencies like duplicate invoices, out-of-policy expenses, etc. Quadient AP’s seamless integration with Sage Intacct mitigate the probability of errors, providing a 99% accuracy rate.

ARORA Ends Paper Chase and Email Approvals with AP Automation

Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency (ARORA) is on a mission to restore lives through the recovery of organs and tissues. Projects often require the team to travel at length, creating a mix of on-field and remote-based work. Completing AP-related tasks stemming from these meetings might have been complex, but with automation it was much easier.

“A lot of our managers and directors need to approve invoices for things that have been purchased without being able to see physical paper,” said Tasha Flowers, ARORA’s Director of Finance. “By allowing us to do that quickly and easily, Quadient AP really helps us accomplish our mission.”

Before automation, ARORA was receiving invoices through paper and email. AP staff had to print physical copies of the invoices received through email and store copies of originals. “We would take the invoices, fill the folders, and put them in everybody’s mailbox to review that week. Then you just had to hope that they were in the office at some point that week, not on vacation or out on a case.”

Sourcing approvals from 15 staff members were also chaotic at times. Invoices would get misplaced or lost in the paper chase. “It was all over the place,” Flowers says. 

“She’s able to do everything – from uploading to Quadient AP to routing and putting everything into Intacct and doing all the payments.” – Tasha Flowers, Director of Finance, ARORA

With Quadient AP, ARORA’s AP staff batch scans invoices into Quadient AP, assigns them to approvers, and lets the software do the chasing. Doing so opens up the accounting team’s hours for critical work and leaves more headspace to build their brand’s goals. Flowers describes how her AP personnel manages routine tasks by saying, “She’s able to do everything – from uploading to Quadient AP, to routing and putting everything into Intacct and doing all the payments.”

Homepoint Financial Saves 3-5 Minutes Per Invoice with Automation

Homepoint Financial is a mortgage provider that works with borrowers, mortgage lenders, and correspondent partners. Since launching in 2015, it has grown to become the third-largest wholesale lender and the seventh-largest non-bank lender in the US. As the company scaled operations, it welcomed a whole new set of challenges for the AP team.

“We decided to look into an AP automation solution to standardise processes, add more structure, and be able to track outstanding items and report on them,” says Bill Fischer, Controller at Homepoint.

Constant manual intervention was lagging the whole AP department. A staff member was tasked to monitor Homepoint’s shared AP mailbox and then email invoices to approvers while reminding them about the pending ones. Downloaded approvals were matched to invoices and uploaded again into Sage Intacct, their main financial system. Finally, they would key in data. Securing sign-offs for approximately 1,000 invoices per month became an ordeal.

"The integration with Sage Intacct has been great. Once something is paid out of our system, we can go into Quadient AP, pull that payment and see everything that was paid – just with a click.” – AP employee, Homepoint Financial

One of the reasons Homepoint selected Quadient AP was its ability to automate AP and provide real-time access. “We save between three and five minutes per invoice in processing by removing the administrative work and email routing,” says Sarah Rehbein, AP Manager at Homepoint.

Automation has freed AP staff from manually hunting for approvals through email threads. Rehbein audits the dashboard to see what’s pending or needs attention if a staff member is on vacation, for example. “I no longer wonder what is missing in the email or if something got deleted. I’m able to have confidence in AP statuses,” she says.  

“The integration with Sage Intacct has been great. Once something is paid out of our system, we can go into Quadient AP, pull that payment, and see everything that was paid – just with a click,” notes an AP employee.

With a clear view of AP, Homepoint can confidently gear its AP to align with the company’s broader business goals.

Data-backed Decision-Making for CFOs

In general, the role of the CFO is divided between fiduciary responsibilities and visionary activities to first maintain the current value of a business and then find opportunities to create new value. As traditional business models have been slow to change, the fiduciary role of the CFO has remained the primary driver, but new accounting technology is making it possible for financial executives to harness the power of big data and dive deeper into tasks.

61% of CFOs expect digitisation to improve their AP and accounts receivable (AR) processes’ transparency and support better decision-making for the business. However, many companies still operate through makeshift and disjointed systems, making the data vulnerable to cyberattacks. Business email compromise fraudsters succeeded in attacking 76% of companies in 2020, and AP departments were the target of these attacks 61% of the time.

As an AP automation provider, Quadient AP reduces invoice processing times by fully automating the AP workflow, with data accuracy guaranteed. Quadient AP provides a complete picture of a company’s payables with real-time access to every invoice as it moves through approval workflows to payment. Financial executives and other decision-makers get on-demand reporting with custom filters that make it easy to spot trends and drill down into AP data for analysis.

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