5 ways to improve vendor relationships

Accounting and Finance Teams
are Under Pressure

Access the framework to get leadership buy-in for AP automation:

Explore customer case studies that demonstrate the value gained
Turn AP challenges into opportunities for improvement
Get practical advice on how to build a compelling case for implementation

What Do Vendors Want From AP?

1. Get Paid
On Time

Labor-intensive, error-prone methods slow down operations, often leading to late payments. It’s nearly impossible to consistently provide prompt vendor payments using manual methods, especially in difficult market conditions.

2. Prioritize
Cash Flow

Cash flow is critical to vendors, enabling them to continually produce more goods, as well as to ensure their financial health. Because of this, they are vigilant about payment status and often reach out to AP for updates. Unfortunately, many vendors are disappointed with the response time they receive, and cite inquiries as the biggest pain point in the payment process.

3. Adopt
ePayments

An overwhelming number of vendors want to receive more ePayments. Not only will you gain greater control over your spend, while saving time and money, but your vendors can increase their cash flow through more timely payments, as well as gain process efficiencies. It’s a winning strategy all the way around.

Labor-intensive, error-prone methods slow down operations, often leading to late payments. It’s nearly impossible to consistently provide prompt vendor payments using manual methods, especially in difficult market conditions.

Cash flow is critical to vendors, enabling them to continually produce more goods, as well as to ensure their financial health. Because of this, they are vigilant about payment status and often reach out to AP for updates. Unfortunately, many vendors are disappointed with the response time they receive, and cite inquiries as the biggest pain point in the payment process.

man making payment approval on mobile phone

An overwhelming number of vendors want to receive more ePayments. Not only will you gain greater control over your spend, while saving time and money, but your vendors can increase their cash flow through more timely payments, as well as gain process efficiencies. It’s a winning strategy all the way around.

6 Factors to Gauge your AP Automation Readiness

Organizational Inertia

Businesses spend $510 billion each year on manual AP processes — a significant portion of which is generated by paper checks, which can cost between $5 and $12 to process. Not only does payment automation speed up the process and increase efficiency, but it does so in a more cost-effective manner. In fact, with limited automation (only having 1-2 steps of the AP process automated), the cost per invoice drops down to $2.81 and $1.64, respectively.

Perceived Costs of Current AP vs. Investment in Automation

With payment automation, organizations can determine precisely when and how they pay their vendors to ensure maximum control over outgoing cash flow. This allows you to capitalize on early-pay discounts and virtual card rebates – all while avoiding late fees and duplicate payments.

gears and hand holding phone making digital payment

Integrating with Existing Systems

Payment automation solutions help to support your organization’s business continuity plan by enabling your team to execute their payments process anytime, and anywhere. The ability to facilitate this process remotely has proven to be especially helpful as many organizations are hybrid or completely remote.