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What makes an AP department best-in-class? Each year, Ardent Partners puts together their “Metrics that Matter” report on the metrics that organizations use to measure success within accounts payable that make them top-performing AP departments.

During times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s natural to think that digital transformation would be put on the back-burner. Employees are already overwhelmed with major adjustments in both their personal and professional lives – how could they possibly fathom a transition in technology, too?

Whether we’re in the midst of a global pandemic or not, one priority of every company is to cut costs and save money. One area that is often wrought with forgotten costs is accounts payable.

Hey, GP users!

Times are a’changing for many employers as they set their employees up to work from home. While working from home was becoming more and more commonplace even before the novel coronavirus struck, nowadays it is essential.

Times of uncertainty call for reliable technology. You have likely deployed a “work anywhere” workforce and have employees working from their home offices, living rooms, kitchen tables or backyards. During this time we at Metafile, along with many other technology providers, are touting the benefits of cloud technology. And for good reason! For organizations that typically operate within an office environment, cloud technology may not have been a priority. However, times have changed and, whether deploying a remote workforce is a temporary or permanent transition, it’s important to understand the advantages of technology, especially automation technology, hosted in the cloud.

Today’s workforce is becoming a remote one. More and more companies are transitioning their employees to remote workers, allowing them to save money on office space and equipment, as well as expand their hiring to a wider group of prospects.

Is your accounts payable department “next level?” When you consider your AP department, would you call it “innovative,” “agile” or “best-in-class?” Today’s top AP departments are embracing technology, streamlining processes and automating manual tasks. As automation becomes more commonplace, more AP departments are adopting it and reaping the benefits of it.

Technology is getting smarter and smarter, which is making companies more efficient, agile and competitive. We have artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation and more tech-savvy buzzwords that are digitizing workplaces and automating tasks that we never dreamed could be automated. Most automation efforts start with accounts payable, as this department has historically processed the most paper and typically has the most manual procedures.

Sometimes we don’t realize that what we’ve been doing isn’t ideal until we take a good, hard look at it. In this case, we’re talking about information management. Many companies have spent years managing their data in certain ways, even if it’s inefficient and cumbersome. Why? Because it’s comfortable and familiar. However, in this day and age of information technology and innovation, comfortable and familiar doesn’t cut it.