Top Tips to Improve Accounts Payable Process Today

If your team is buried under a mountain of invoices, chasing approvals, and constantly putting out late-payment fires, you're not just losing time—you're leaking money. The only way to fix this is to stop being reactive. It's time to shift from manual, tedious work to a smart, automated workflow. This isn't just an upgrade; it’s about turning your AP department from a cost center into a real strategic asset.

Why Your AP Process Is Costing You More Than You Think

Let's be honest, month-end close can feel like a battleground. For so many finance teams, the accounts payable process is the primary source of that pain, clogged with mind-numbing manual tasks and endless paper trails. This inefficiency isn't just an annoyance; it has a direct, measurable impact on your company's financial health.

Picture this all-too-common scenario: a critical supplier invoice lands in an inbox as a PDF. An AP clerk has to print it out, manually key every line item into a spreadsheet, and then physically walk it over to a department head for a signature. But that manager is swamped with meetings, so the invoice just sits on their desk. This one simple delay sets off a chain reaction of problems, from missed early payment discounts to strained supplier relationships and frustrating late fees.

The Hidden Costs of Manual Work

The direct expenses of doing things by hand are bad enough. But it's the indirect, hidden costs that often do the most damage to your business. These are the resource drains that quietly chip away at your bottom line:

• •Lost Productivity: Your skilled finance pros are stuck doing low-value data entry instead of high-value strategic analysis.
• •Costly Human Error: Manually typing in data is a recipe for mistakes. These errors lead to payment mix-ups that can take hours of painful detective work to fix.
• •Zero Visibility: Without a central system, you have no real-time view of your cash flow or liabilities. Accurate forecasting becomes a guessing game.
• •Damaged Vendor Relationships: Paying your suppliers late or incorrectly erodes trust. This can easily lead to less favorable terms or even losing a great partner.

It's shocking how common this is. In 2025, an estimated 68% of invoice data is still entered by hand, and each one of those invoices costs an average of $15 to process. When you consider that 37% of businesses still receive paper invoices, you can see how the administrative burden just keeps piling up. The good news? The tide is turning. A significant 41% of AP teams are planning to automate in the next year because they see the huge potential for savings. You can dig into the latest accounts payable statistics to see just how quickly the landscape is changing.

The real cost of an outdated AP process isn't just the price per invoice. It's the missed opportunities—the early payment discount you didn't capture, the strategic insight you couldn't find, and the supplier relationship you failed to strengthen.

To really see how much these manual processes are holding you back, exploring the 8 key invoice automation benefits provides a clear picture of the tangible upsides. Moving to an automated workflow isn't just about becoming more efficient; it's about reclaiming valuable resources and giving your business a serious competitive edge.

To put it all in perspective, here's a quick look at how the two approaches stack up.

Manual vs. Automated AP: A Quick Comparison

Looking at it side-by-side makes the choice pretty clear. One path is filled with friction and hidden costs, while the other paves the way for a smarter, more strategic finance function.

Uncover the Hidden Bottlenecks in Your AP Workflow

You can't fix a problem you don't truly understand. Before you can make any meaningful improvements to your accounts payable process, you need a painfully honest look at how it works right now—the good, the bad, and the ugly. This means getting past office assumptions and folklore to map out the real journey of an invoice, from the moment it arrives until it’s paid.

Think of yourself as a detective. Your job is to follow the evidence, find the clues, and pinpoint exactly where things get stuck. Where do invoices sit gathering dust? How many different people have to handle a single document? Which manual tasks are eating up the most valuable hours?

This exercise, sometimes called workflow mapping or a process audit, isn’t just some theoretical homework. It’s a hands-on investigation that exposes the hidden friction slowing your team down. Only by seeing these weak spots can you start applying smart solutions that actually make a difference.

Trace the Invoice’s Journey

To get started, grab a few recent invoices. Make sure to pick a representative sample from different suppliers—and don't just choose the easy ones. Throw in a couple that you know were a headache. Then, sit down with your AP team and walk through every single step that invoice took, either physically or on screen.

At each stage, ask some tough questions:

• •Arrival: How did this invoice even get to us? Was it an email attachment, a piece of paper in the mail, or a download from a vendor portal?
• •Data Entry: Who typed the details into our system? Was the information keyed in once, or did it have to be entered into multiple spreadsheets or programs?
• •Coding & Validation: Who was responsible for assigning the GL code? Did it have a purchase order to match against? If something didn't line up, what happened next?
• •Approval: Who needed to sign off on this? How did they approve it—an email reply, a physical signature, or a platform notification? And critically, how long did that take?
• •Payment: Once approved, who scheduled the payment? How was it sent, and how did we let the vendor know it was on its way?

Tracing the process this way will almost immediately highlight your biggest time sinks and unnecessary steps. I bet you’ll be surprised by the number of manual touchpoints and frustrating waiting periods you uncover.

This is exactly why modern teams use tools to get a clear, visual handle on their workflow, turning a messy paper trail into an easy-to-read dashboard.

The real takeaway here is the move from a chaotic, murky process to a central hub where you can see the status of every single invoice at a glance.

Spotting Common Bottleneck Patterns

As you map everything out, you'll start to see the same problems pop up again and again. These are the culprits you need to target for the biggest wins, and they are almost always areas where automation can help. Keep an eye out for these classic issues:

1. •

   Approval Delays: This is the big one. Invoices get stuck in limbo, waiting for a department head who's traveling or stuck in meetings all day. Having your AP team waste time chasing approvals with emails and phone calls is a massive drain on morale and productivity.

2. •

   Manual Data Entry: Every time someone has to type information from a PDF or paper invoice into your accounting software, it's a drain on time and an invitation for errors. The cost of finding and fixing a single typo can be surprisingly high, not to mention the frustration it causes. This is a perfect candidate for automation.

3. •

   Exception Handling Chaos: What’s the plan when an invoice shows up without a PO number or with a price that doesn't match? If you don’t have a standard process, these exceptions can turn into a frantic fire drill, pulling in people from multiple departments to solve the mystery.

A quick tip: When you do this mapping exercise, make sure you involve the team that lives this process every day. They know where the real friction is. Getting their input not only gives you a more accurate map but also helps get them on board with the changes to come.

Once you’ve got your problem areas identified, you can start looking for real solutions. Digging into different business process improvement methods can give you a solid framework for how to tackle them.

Your goal should be a simple visual map—even a flowchart on a whiteboard works—that clearly marks every touchpoint, delay, and manual step. This becomes your roadmap. It shows you exactly where an automated tool can step in and free up your team for more important, strategic work. If you want to see what this looks like in the real world, it’s worth exploring some established accounts payable automation best practices. This map is your first step toward building a faster, more accurate, and far less stressful AP workflow.

How To Implement AP Automation Without The Headaches

Switching to an automated accounts payable system can sound like a huge, intimidating project. I've been there. But trust me, it doesn't have to be a nightmare. With the right game plan and a focus on what actually matters, you can successfully improve your accounts payable process without the usual implementation headaches. This isn't about flipping a switch and crossing your fingers; it's a careful rollout that sets your team up for success.

A good first step is knowing what you're looking for in a tool. When you start exploring top invoice automation software solutions, you'll see that modern platforms are much more than just document scanners. They're designed to be the command center for your entire payables operation.

Must-Have Features in an AP Automation Tool

Let's be honest, not all AP tools are built the same. If you want to see a real impact, you need to zero in on a few core, non-negotiable features. These are the things that genuinely cut down on manual work and give you back strategic control.

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  Intelligent Data Capture: Look for tech that uses AI-powered Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to do more than just read. It needs to intelligently pull key fields like invoice numbers, due dates, line items, and vendor details, even if the invoice format is messy or inconsistent.

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  AI-Powered General Ledger (GL) Coding: A truly smart system learns as you go. It should see how you’ve coded invoices from a specific vendor in the past and suggest the right GL codes for new ones. This turns a painfully tedious task into a quick, one-click confirmation.

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  Seamless ERP and Accounting Integration: This one is critical. Your AP tool absolutely must connect directly with your existing financial software, whether it’s QuickBooks, Xero, or a larger ERP like Business Central. A direct link means no more manual data entry and ensures your books are always accurate.

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  Flexible Approval Workflows: Every business has its own chain of command. Your software should let you easily build custom, multi-step approval routes based on invoice amount, department, or vendor. Plus, approvals should be doable from anywhere—especially a mobile phone—to keep the process moving.

These features are what separate a basic scanner from a genuine automation platform that can fundamentally change how your team works.

A Real-World Implementation Walkthrough

Okay, let's get practical. Imagine you're setting up a platform like GetInvoice. The goal is to get from theory to a working system as smoothly as possible.

Your first move is connecting it to your primary accounting software. A good system makes this incredibly simple—usually just a matter of logging in and authorizing the connection. This one action syncs your chart of accounts, vendor lists, and payment info, creating a single source of truth right from the start.

Next, you start building out your approval workflows. For example, you might set a rule that all marketing invoices under $1,000 go straight to the marketing manager, but anything over $5,000 needs a second sign-off from the CFO. You build this logic right into the system, and from then on, every invoice is routed to the right person automatically.

Here’s what a modern, clean interface for managing this all looks like.

The real win here is the clarity. Instead of chasing down emails to find out where an invoice is, you have a dashboard showing its exact status, who it’s waiting on, and when it’s due. No more guesswork.

Finally, you can start bringing your vendors on board. Often, this is as simple as having them send invoices to a dedicated email address. The AI takes over from there, pulling the data and teeing it up for your review. For a deeper look at making your entire AP function more effective, you might find our guide to https://tailride.so/blog/improve-accounts-payable-efficiency really helpful.

A successful implementation is all about quick wins. My advice? Start by automating the invoices from your top five highest-volume vendors. This builds immediate momentum and shows the value of the new system to your team, making wider adoption so much easier.

AI’s Role Beyond Simple Data Entry

Today's AI does so much more than just speed up invoice processing. It adds a layer of intelligence that was pretty much impossible to achieve manually. For instance, advanced systems can spot potential fraud by flagging duplicate invoice numbers, unusual payment amounts, or sudden changes to vendor bank details.

This shift toward intelligent automation isn't a niche trend; it's happening everywhere. The AP automation market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.8% through 2030. It's predicted that by 2026, a staggering 80% of companies will be using AI to sharpen the financial decision-making in their AP processes. And this isn't just for massive corporations—61% of small businesses are already using AI for tasks like invoicing, proving just how accessible it has become.

At the end of the day, a smooth implementation comes down to choosing a tool that fits where you are now but is powerful enough to grow with you. By focusing on these essential features and following a clear plan, you can make this tech adoption feel genuinely achievable and empower your team with a better way of working.

Mastering Exceptions And Supplier Relationships

Let's be realistic: even the most dialed-in accounts payable process will hit a few bumps. Invoices show up with wrong numbers, POs go missing, and every now and then, a supplier dispute is unavoidable.

These exceptions aren't a sign that your system is broken; they're just part of the everyday reality of business. The trick isn't to hope they never happen, but to build a smart, proactive way to handle them that doesn't derail your entire day.

How you manage these moments is a big deal. A well-handled exception stops a small hiccup from spiraling into a major payment delay and a strained relationship. In fact, this is where you can truly improve your accounts payable process, turning potential headaches into a chance to show your suppliers you're a reliable partner.

Creating a Standardized Exception Workflow

When an invoice with a mismatched PO lands on your desk, what happens next? If the answer is, "Well, it depends on who's in the office," you've got a problem brewing. The best AP teams I've worked with have one thing in common: a clear, standardized game plan for every kind of exception.

This doesn't need to be some thousand-page manual. It's about setting up simple, logic-based rules right inside your AP automation platform to route these problem invoices.

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  PO Mismatches: The system should automatically flag the invoice and fire off a notification to the person who created the original PO. They are the only ones who can quickly confirm if the price is right or if an adjustment is needed.

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  Missing Info: If an invoice is missing something critical, like a PO number, the system can send it back to an internal contact or even directly to the vendor with a pre-written, polite request for the missing piece.

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  Vendor Disputes: For disagreements over services or goods, the invoice gets put on hold. It's then routed straight to the manager responsible for that vendor relationship. This keeps the AP team out of operational debates they can't solve.

This approach stops problem invoices from getting lost in endless email chains or gathering dust on someone's desk. It creates a clean, auditable trail and gets every issue to the right person, fast.

Think of your exception workflow as a fire escape plan for your invoices. You hope you never need it, but you have a clear, calm, and practiced procedure for when you do. This prevents panic and ensures everyone knows their role.

Proactive Strategies to Minimize Exceptions

Of course, the best way to handle an exception is to stop it from happening in the first place. This means shifting from a reactive mindset to a proactive one, focusing on clean data and clear communication before an invoice is ever created.

Your first line of defense is a pristine vendor master file. This needs to be your single source of truth, holding all the correct vendor names, payment details, contact info, and tax IDs. Centralizing this data eliminates the all-too-common errors that crop up from using old spreadsheets or siloed information.

Next, you need a non-negotiable purchase order policy. Requiring a PO for all significant purchases is a game-changer. It ensures every incoming invoice has a matching document, dramatically cutting down on those "mystery" invoices that arrive with zero context.

Transforming Supplier Relationships

A highly efficient AP process does more than just save you time and money. It completely changes your relationship with your suppliers for the better. When vendors know they will be paid accurately and on time, every time, they start to see you as a top-tier partner.

One of the best moves you can make is to implement a vendor self-service portal. Many modern AP systems, like GetInvoice, offer this feature. It gives your suppliers a place to log in 24/7 and check the status of their invoices themselves.

This one tool can eliminate countless phone calls and emails asking, "When am I getting paid?" It empowers your vendors and frees up your team's time for more strategic work.

Ultimately, a smooth AP function helps you think bigger. With reliable data and faster processing, you’re in a much better position to capture valuable early payment discounts, negotiate better terms, and build a supply chain founded on trust and mutual respect.

Turning Your AP Team Into A Strategic Data Hub

Something really interesting happens once your accounts payable process starts running smoothly on its own. Your AP team, who used to be drowning in paperwork and manual data entry, suddenly finds themselves sitting on a goldmine of financial intelligence. This is the turning point where your AP department stops being a cost center and becomes a strategic hub for the entire business.

With every single invoice captured, coded, and tracked automatically, you get a clear, real-time window into company spending. The focus shifts from just paying bills to truly understanding what those bills are telling you. It's all about using that fresh, organized data to offer insights that help leadership make smarter decisions, faster.

From Transaction Processors To Financial Analysts

Let's be honest, the daily grind of manual AP keeps your team looking backward—chasing down approvals for invoices that are already weeks old. Automation completely flips that script. It frees up their time and mental energy to focus on what’s ahead.

Suddenly, the questions change. Instead of, "Is this invoice approved yet?" they can ask, "Why did our spending with this supplier jump 20% last quarter?" That simple shift is the key to improving your AP process beyond just speed. Your team members evolve into financial analysts, spotting trends and flagging opportunities that were completely invisible before.

The KPIs and Dashboards That Actually Matter

To turn all that raw data into something you can actually use, you have to track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A good AP automation platform comes with dashboards that make this easy, giving you a constant pulse on the company's financial health.

Here are the core metrics your leadership team will be asking for:

• •Days Payable Outstanding (DPO): This is the average time it takes you to pay your suppliers. A higher DPO can be great for cash flow, but you have to balance it carefully to keep your vendors happy.
• •Invoice Processing Cost: With automation, you should see this number drop like a rock. Tracking it is the best way to prove the ROI of your new system and spot any lingering bottlenecks.
• •Early Payment Discount Capture Rate: Are you cashing in on the "free money" suppliers offer for paying early? This metric shows you exactly how much you're saving—or leaving on the table.
• •Invoices Processed Per AP Employee: A straightforward productivity metric. As you automate more, this number should climb, proving your team is handling a bigger workload with less manual effort.

Your AP data is no longer just a record of what you've spent. It's a predictive tool that can sharpen cash flow forecasting, give you leverage in vendor negotiations, and expose spending patterns across the entire organization.

The adoption of AI in this space is moving incredibly fast, but there's a huge divide. As of 2025, a shocking 66% of AP teams are still keying in invoice data by hand. Over 63% spend more than 10 hours a week just on processing. Yet, AI use in AP has quadrupled in the last year alone. While only about 9% of departments were fully automated in early 2025, a full two-thirds of finance pros expect to be there by the end of the year. This shows how quickly leaders are jumping on board.

Putting Your Data To Work

Monitoring KPIs is a great start, but the real magic happens when you use that data to drive strategy. When your AP function is a well-oiled machine, it provides the fuel for better business-wide decisions.

For example, you'll have a much stronger negotiating position with vendors. Imagine walking into a meeting and being able to show a supplier your exact total spend with them over the last 12 months. That gives you powerful leverage to ask for better pricing or more favorable payment terms.

This data also makes it incredibly easy to spot compliance issues or maverick spending. If a department is constantly sidestepping the PO process or using unapproved vendors, it will stick out like a sore thumb on your dashboard. This visibility helps you enforce company policy and get costs under control before they spiral. By transforming your AP team into an analytical powerhouse, you can fully realize the benefits of accounts payable automation across the entire organization.

Got Questions About Improving AP? We’ve Got Answers.

Even with a perfect plan in hand, you’re bound to have questions when you start overhauling your accounts payable. It’s totally normal. Let’s walk through some of the real-world, practical questions we hear all the time from business owners and finance teams making the move to a smarter AP workflow.

So, How Long Does This Actually Take to Set Up?

This is usually the first thing everyone wants to know, and the answer is probably better than you’re expecting. While it can vary, most small and medium-sized businesses can get a modern, cloud-based AP system up and running in a few weeks—not months. It’s mostly about connecting it to your accounting software, setting up your approval rules, and uploading your list of vendors.

Now, if you’re a massive enterprise with a super-customized ERP, your timeline might stretch a bit. But the single best thing you can do to speed things up? Map out your current workflow before you start, just like we talked about earlier. When you already know where your holdups are, configuration becomes incredibly straightforward.

Is This Going to Make My AP Team Redundant?

This is a big one, and it’s a fair concern. But the truth is, automation doesn’t replace people; it unleashes their potential. The goal is to get rid of the soul-crushing, repetitive work—the manual keying, the endless chasing of approvals—that nobody enjoys anyway. It frees up your skilled team to focus on work that actually moves the needle.

Automation turns your team from data entry specialists into strategic financial partners. They can finally focus on managing important vendor relationships, digging into spending data to find savings, or proactively spotting potential fraud. They become a much bigger asset to the business.

How Do I Get Everyone Else on Board With This?

Getting buy-in from other departments is a must. The trick is to frame the benefits in a way that resonates with each person's priorities. A one-size-fits-all pitch rarely works.

• •For your CFO: It's all about the numbers. Show them the direct ROI—lower invoice processing costs, more early payment discounts captured, and tighter control over cash flow.
• •For your IT team: Talk about security and simplicity. Point out the encrypted data and secure, pre-built integrations. They’ll be relieved to hear that modern tools are designed to play nice with your existing tech stack, not create more work for them.
• •For other department heads: Sell the convenience. Being able to approve an invoice with one tap on their phone is a game-changer for busy managers who are always on the go.

The most convincing argument is a clear, data-backed analysis comparing your current costs to the projected savings and efficiencies. It’s hard to argue with cold, hard facts.

What Do We Do About Vendors Who Still Mail Paper Invoices?

Ah, the old paper invoice. It’s a reality we all deal with. A great AP automation platform has to be able to handle every invoice you receive, regardless of the format. You shouldn’t have to force a few old-school suppliers to change just to fit your system.

Many top solutions offer a "scan-and-capture" service. You can have paper invoices sent to a dedicated address where they are scanned, and the data is pulled out using advanced OCR. That digital data then lands in the same workflow as all your emailed invoices, bringing 100% of your invoices into a single, unified system.

Once they're in the system, you can start a friendly campaign to encourage those suppliers to switch to email or a vendor portal. By showing them how much faster they’ll get paid and how they can track their invoice status 24/7, most are more than happy to make the jump.

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Ready to stop chasing invoices and start gaining real financial insight? With Tailride, you can automate your entire accounts payable process in minutes, not months. Connect your email, set your rules, and let our AI handle the rest. See how much time you can save by visiting Tailride today.