Managing the balance sheet for a hotel, restaurant or other hospitality organization involves a lot of moving parts and accounts payable is one accounting function that can create a lot of inefficiencies. Fortunately the AP process can be improved without much strain. Let's look at a few ways you can improve hospitality accounts payable.
"Manually processed accounts payable is a notorious bottleneck for accounting departments"
If you are manually processing a growing number of vendor invoices or your current accounts payable process is too cumbersome, this can make AP a time-consuming and costly function. In fact, manually processed accounts payable is a notorious bottleneck for accounting departments. Here are a six reasons why manual AP management is a drain on resources.
If you are experiencing any of these, you don't have to. We have six ways you can improve your hospitality accounts payable process.
Automation is the fastest and most affordable way to improve accounts payable, especially when it comes to multi-location or multi-entity hospitality. However, businesses of any size can now get started easily with AP automation software with little to no up-front cost. But automation isn't the only key to streamlining your AP processes. Here are six ways to boost your accounting efficiency, starting with AP.
Like we said, automation is the best way to see quick results. The competitive market is demanding deeper levels of automation. The right AP software is designed for your exact accounting solution, reduces invoice processing times up to 80%, and greatly reduces risks associated with fraud, errors and compliance. Plus, AP automation will help support the entire financial team with timely and accurate data entries.
Related: 5 Ways to Compare AP Automation Software
Automation workflows are proven to accelerate invoice approvals. With the right AP workflows, invoices will route automatically to the right approver so they can sign-off quickly and easily. When your team spends less time chasing down signatures, they have more time to focus on other strategic accounting initiatives.
We have seen a lot of change in the last 18 months, and almost everyone has become aware of AI capabilities in some capacity, and AI works better in the cloud to connect your disparate systems. With some or all of your accounting functions powered in the cloud you can access your systems from anywhere and stay more agile. With predictable payment schedules, cloud software is easy to scale up or down and you never have to lose on licensing costs as you grow or shrink your staff.
It may seem like investing in a new software solution when you are trying to cut costs is just adding more spend, but with cloud-based software there is little, or even no cost to get started. If you can invest in an affordable solution that cuts time-consuming, error-prone and difficult-to-track paper processes, then you will see strong ROI. Paper processing just costs more money and requires more resources to manage. With the right tech, you can start cutting costs right away.
With reliable, accurate data capture you can scan in paper-based vendor invoices and remove a major bottleneck in your accounting processes. When your AP solution integrates with your primary accounting software, the data is entered and checked for you, so matching invoices to purchase orders and financial data happens automatically. Learn more about OCR for AP
There is more to streamlining hospitality AP than getting the right software. Improving your accounting processes is an ongoing effort, not a one-off project. Auditing your processes on a regular basis will help you identify and correct bottlenecks, money pits and risks as they arise.
If you are financial leader for a business and you are trying to adapt to the changing world. Accounts payable automation is a great place to start. You can quickly eliminate the stress of accounts payable. Learn more about this valuable tool in our upcoming webinar.