With the latest news that Microsoft Dynamics GP is going to be supported by Microsoft for at least the next 7 years, now is the time to start thinking about how to optimize your GP software. Invoice management automation is a simple way to increase your GP accounting performance.
Related Reading: Microsoft Dynamics GP is Here to Stay
GP comes with some standard accounts payable management tools, but businesses using GP often find they need more functionality and power to eliminate stress around their invoice management process.
With features like auto populating recurring or predefined invoice values, Dynamics GP can reduce some manual entry for invoice management. It also lets users create purchase orders and is capable of some tracking and reporting for accounts payable. But invoice management is a painstaking process, and as your vendor list grows, it only gets more tedious. Here are five ways to streamline your invoice management process in GP.
Automated data entry is preferable whenever possible because entering data by hand is a slow and error prone activity. While the auto-populate features that come with GP out of the box help, improving your invoice management process requires optical character recognition (OCR) software with support to ensure accuracy. It’s also best if your vendors are able send some form of digital invoice so you aren’t spending time scanning documents. Removing this step wherever possible is an important time saver and requires less data entry.
Learn More: Get the Most of Your OCR for Invoices
It’s a great idea to work with all of your vendors to receive electronic invoices and coordinate with them so you can start paying electronically. This will reduce your manual paperwork and reduce the number of paper checks you have to print. Going paperless with your invoice management saves money, reduces waste and accelerates your process as wet ink signatures and envelope stuffing are so time consuming. How To Convince Vendors to Accept Electronic Payments.
Of course Dynamics GP allows users to build custom workflows, but this can be its own challenge as your business grows in complexity. In many cases it might require a full-time GP developer on your IT team to facilitate and maintain workflows. A purpose-built automation solution will simplify complex workflows in a cost-effective way and reduce strain on your IT team. Plus, with easy to set up alerts and reminders, approvals stay on track and improve your efficiency of your entire invoice management process.
As a business adds locations and grows its list of vendors it can become an extremely cumbersome process to manage invoices without support for multiple locations and multiple entities. Simplifying this process by enabling your team to process invoices across locations all form one system is key. With Binary Stream’s Multi-Entity accounting solution for Dynamics GP, it’s easy to manage multiple entities. The right AP software will work with Binary Stream to make invoice management easier inside GP.
If your AP process is too complex for the out-of-the-box functionality of Microsoft Dynamics GP, it doesn’t mean it’s time to switch to a new ERP system--it might mean it’s time to implement a 3rd party invoice management automation solution. If you are looking for an Accounts Payable solution for GP, be sure it has direct integration so it works from inside GP windows. With seamless integration your AP solution will help you save money, support paperless, speed approvals and improve access to data insights.