Start Managing Multiple Entities in Your Accounts Payable Solution
When does multi-entity accounting become a necessity for an organization? Multi-entity accounting practices predominantly apply to complex businesses that operate as a conglomerate, parent company or holding company with several subsidiaries. But even businesses that operate as a single entity may have regional offices or segmented departments that are treated as separate entities by the accounting department.
A business can also move quickly from a single- to multi-entity enterprise through geographic expansion, acquisitions, or even rapid departmental growth. Businesses operating on high-growth trajectories should already be thinking about the implications of moving to a multi-entity accounting model and how that will affect their accounting technology choices down the line.
Intelligent automation for faster processing
Accounting automation technologies are an essential tool for multi-entity businesses. While accounting has always been a data-driven field, automation has made the collection and processing of that data much more manageable. Not surprisingly, the move away from paper in favour of digital and paperless accounting has been steadily picking up the pace, but certain areas have been slower to adopt automation than others.
Many businesses still rely heavily on manual data entry and manual processing to pay their vendor invoices. Accounts payable automation can effectively eliminate AP data entry while speeding up processing times by streamlining approval and payment workflows. But not all AP automation solutions are created equal. If your organization is already operating as a multi-entity business, your AP automation solution needs to be up to the task.
How multi-entity AP automation works
If you’re in the market for an AP automation software, check to see whether the solutions you’re considering can handle multiple databases. As an accounts payable automation solution, Beanworks is equipped to manage multi-entity database files, even when those entities each use different accounting software. Beanworks is able to accurately export all AP transaction data to all entities, and then consolidate that data into a single view. Our sync tool integrates with popular accounting systems including Sage, QuickBooks, Intacct, Rent Manager, Northstar and more. Check out a full list of our integrations.
Report and search across all your entities
Centralizing your AP data has a twofold effect: greater visibility and fine-tuned control.
With Beanworks, users don’t have to log in and out to access each entity’s AP data, but can monitor and take immediate action on invoices and payments directly from the solution centralized dashboard.
Similarly, multi-entity reporting and searching are built into the experience. Account reconciliation and variance analysis become much simpler tasks when you can rely on the accuracy—and completeness—of your AP data. No matter how complex your business gets, Beanworks reports set you up to get a full picture of your financial health.
Even within a consolidated view, it’s important to maintain divisions between a business’ different entities, so user view control is essential. In Beanworks, users will only ever see transaction data for the company they belong to and nothing else, while higher level administrative or executive users can be given greater access based on their specific needs.
Streamline across teams, departments and companies
Whichever AP automation solution you choose, look to the future scalability of your company and how your accounting processes will change as you expand. Look for flexible solutions that offer robust reporting and user controls which can scale alongside your business.
