Automation has always been the ideal way for chief financial officers to install solutions to address the challenges of embracing digital transformation, mitigating payment risks, and offering streamlined solutions for age-old problems.
Angeline Mesny Sanford, senior manager, channel marketing at Bottomline Technologies, says lessons on cost control that is back in fashion, not just in finance but across the business; digital processes and payments that need to be embraced, now more than ever; and transforming the way businesses pay suppliers must be properly looked into.
Reimagined cost control
Sanford says cutting too deeply into your teams and their capabilities can damage your growth opportunities, and creates disgruntlement in remaining staff.
"Keeping costs manageable in an era where inflation is a near-constant threat and outside costs are rising is necessary."
AP (Accounts Payable) automation empowers organisations to regain control over their finances by automating tedious manual tasks that burn through staff time, such as line-item matching for invoices, payment reviews, and approvals, Sanford says.
"By reducing human error and perfecting workflows, businesses can find cost-saving opportunities, negotiate better terms with vendors, and allocate resources more effectively with an eye on growth. This enables staff to work in a more agile fashion that can improve job satisfaction and performance, making scaling the finance team more straightforward."
Embrace digital processes and payments
Protecting your resources and time by ensuring finance leaders choose the right digital solutions for your business needs is critical, including the possibility of embedding functionality in existing systems and processes.
"Going fully digital implies major change, but the status quo is a lot scarier than those changes," Sanford says.
According to her, the reality is that the benefits are more tangible and easier to achieve than ever, with an increased focus from solution providers on intuitive software and user-friendly interfaces, alongside efficiency and revenue boosts.
Transforming payments reduces risk
"The threat of fraud has never been higher, and thus the risk of a major blow to a company’s reputation and significant financial losses has also never been higher."
This in turn makes transformation necessary, but it also suggests that doing so without careful consideration of partner fraud-prevention capabilities and a well-trained team can lead to disaster.
"With the opportunity to embed payments in systems your team already uses, the enhanced transparency, accelerated cash flow, and skyrocketing efficiency that digital transformation enables, the time is right for change."
Sanford notes that protecting payments in a closed network where all parties are fully authenticated, and accounts and banking information are sealed off from outside access ensures that transformation work is on solid ground, enabling significant revenue growth via rebates without the potential losses that fraud can bring.
