AP professionals need visibility and process control – Hyland study

US-based provider of software solutions to manage content, processes and cases Hyland partnered with Statista to research the current state of accounts payable (AP), focused on providing an inside look at the biggest challenges facing the industry. The research, conducted by Statista, included a survey of 200 AP professionals from across the United States regarding invoice management and processing. The survey found that AP professionals seek greater visibility and control in invoice processing through the use of AP automation technologies.

The 2018 State of Accounts Payable Report showed that while almost two-thirds of the respondents claim to be fully or mostly automated, these organisations still face the issue of low visibility over aggregate information on all invoices in process and their corresponding documents.

In this report, 87% of the respondents stated invoice status and due date were amongst the two most valuable pieces of invoice information. Other key visibility findings include:

• A majority of AP professionals, at 83%, identified workload per AP employee as an important performance metric, which cannot be visible without utilisation of advanced automation technologies.

• The greatest risks of not having an auditable trail of activity were noted as late and duplicate payments.

• In terms of ways to manage participation of non-AP employees, 48% of AP professionals use email, 35 percent use phone and 27% use spreadsheets – all of which prove to be inefficient methods of controlling AP processes.

• Eighty-two percent of survey respondents feel their organisations could handle an increase in invoice volume well or very well. Of those organisations, 95% are fully or mostly automated.

• Paper filing, manual data entry and invoice exceptions were cited as the top accounts payable process challenges.

Hyland AP solutions include OnBase, Brainware Intelligent Capture, and Perceptive portfolio to automate AP processes, including invoice capture, exception handling and invoice approvals.