As we discussed last week, AP’s reliance on paper has left many organizations struggling to adapt and overcome to our new reality of having to work from home while we shelter in place. If there is a silver lining for accounts payable, it’s the fact that technology exists to help organizations of all sizes solve their current challenges. Additionally, automating AP will continue to pay dividends long into the future. Now, let’s start taking a look at how to solve AP’s reliance on paper beginning with how invoices are received into an organization.
Over a decade ago, the Ardent Partners’ ePayables Framework™ (see figure below) was developed to aid AP departments of any size improve their processes by segmenting their workflows into three smaller, more manageable pieces: Invoice Receipt, Invoice Processing, and Payments. This segmentation makes it easier for an AP department to establish a clear view into the current state of operations and then improve upon it. The Framework also helps AP teams laboring under manual, paper-based processes, understand how to optimize their automation and transformation initiatives. Since its creation in 2010, Ardent Partners’ ePayables Framework has been used by thousands of AP organizations to streamline and automate processes, create best practices, and improve overall performance.
Ardent Partners’ ePayables Framework™
The three phases of the ePayables Framework are not discrete stages, but rather pieces of one coherent whole. This means that changes in one area will have a direct, and often immediate, impact on the others. The scope of an AP automation initiative should ideally be viewed holistically and include all three phases of the ePayables Framework. In future weeks we will dive into what is covered in each of the phases as well as solution providers who cover each space. Interested parties can also find more information in the Ardent Partners’ ePayables Technology Advisor research report which covers all of these topics along with a sampling of solution providers who cover the space. If you would like a copy sent to you, please email me here.
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