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strategizing Accounts Payable Automation

Overnight Success? Let Strategy Guide Your AP Automation Expectations

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Every day, more finance leaders at growing companies buy into the value prop of best-in-class, cloud-based financial management and accounting software. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to put their money where their mouth is—not yet, anyway. What they have is a chicken-and egg situation: They want to “get strategic” and know they need to make the investment to get there, but they’re afraid the implementation of new technology won’t yield game-changing results fast enough.

They’re probably right, especially if they go into the endeavor with such lofty expectations. Overnight ROI isn’t realistic, but the ROI will appear—and, at some point, it will “take off” to the delight of all stakeholders, thanks largely to the strategic insights it affords finance leaders. When introducing game-changing technology that will eventually live up to its name, success is often dependent on a well-considered plan of attack.

It Takes A Strategy to “Get Strategic”

As we’ve discussed, The Biggest Benefit of Accounts Payable Automation is the strategic value it delivers to your finance and accounting organization—and to the business at large. This value is achieved by improving AP processes, reducing manual workloads, attaining operational efficiencies, enhancing data collection and reporting, and more. The quality of work goes up along with the volume of actionable insight. With more to bring to the table, CFOs and their teams are able to contribute to the strategic conversation and impact the company’s growth in new ways.

Strategic prowess is key—it’s where technology is taking finance leaders. But before they can get down to the business of strategizing they need to take care of other business first. It’s business that can be taken care of, however, by implementing the right technology. Yet consider these findings from Grant Thornton’s 2017 CFO Survey:

  • CFOs’ biggest priorities are increasing cash flow (45%), reducing costs (41%), and strategic planning (40%).
  • 46% believe that their IT platforms lack the ability to operate effectively and require future investment.
  • The barriers standing in the way of future technology growth include managing costs (51%), maintenance of legacy systems (41%) and seamless business integration (40%).

If upgrading their IT environments and adopting technologies like cloud computing and advanced analytics is what it takes to increase cash flow, reduce costs, and “get strategic,” then what’s the hold-up? Decision-makers might need some additional guidance on the matter. 

Get Help Pressing “Go” on the Investment

Recognize that increasing cash flow and reducing costs requires a new approach to accounting processes—it requires technology-driven automation. Deloitte’s assertion, presented in their Strategies for Optimizing Your Accounts Payable report, boils down to the fact that optimizing working capital requires accounts payables optimization! It takes management commitment—yes, a strategic commitment and investment in technology—to:

  • Centralize accounts payable processing and reporting
  • Move the organization toward a paperless processing environment
  • Enable more robust governance practices
  • Improve supplier relationships
  • Create management workflows
  • Strengthen purchasing approval processes

As these processes and workflows improve, your finance and accounting teams will gain the time and insights they need to focus on strategic initiatives. But how long will this take? When will these results be seen?

You should partner with a technology vendor who can help you customize your approach—so you can start seeing results.

  • Set up your software to to work with your existing systems and processes
  • Show you how to use the technology and tools in the effectively way
  • Grow with the technology as gain efficiencies, and growth into future.

Get in contact with us to learn more.

Nexonia Travel and Expense Management

Product Spotlight: Nexonia Timesheets, Travel, and Expense

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We know that finding the right product for your growing business can be a challenge. However, if you can plan, ask all the right questions, and identify the right options for your specific needs, you can make sure that the deployment and integration process goes smoothly. This is why, as a trusted financial and cloud technology reseller in Florida and throughout the Southeast, we are happy to discuss some of these options in our monthly product spotlight series.

Following our brief looks at Sage Intacct, Bill.com, ServiceTitan, MineralTree, and Tallie, we would today like to look at a leading vendor of expense management, timesheet software, and more: Nexonia. Over the last year or so, there has been a lot of news from the Canadian company, who in December 2016 merged with Tallie, and in June 2017 joined Certify to form the largest travel and expense management competitor to the industry leader in Concur.

Knowing this, all three companies—Tallie, Certify, ExpenseWatch and Nexonia—intend to keep all of their brands intact, offering business leaders four options for taking control of their expenses, automating their processes, and saving money on operations and back office costs. While we have discussed Tallie in a recent blog, and will look at other vendors in future ones, we would like to turn our attention to Nexonia, a software that integrates with Sage Intacct and eases day to day operations.

Get to Know Nexonia

Nexonia is broken into six different solutions—Expenses, Timesheets, Time Off, Time Allocation, Purchase Orders, and Accounts Payable—which we will briefly discuss below.

Nexonia Expenses

Nexonia is designed to get up and running easily, offer flexible approval workflows, integrate with a multitude of applications, and most importantly, make your day easier.

“Great program – really streamlines the process of creating and submitting expenses. I got paid faster than ever before after the first time using Nexonia!” – Ted R., 360 Incentives

Nexonia prides itself on its expense software, featuring the following:

  • In-Depth Accounting and ERP Integration
  • Credit Card Integration supporting over 30,000 banks worldwide
  • Support for and auto-calculation of over 161 currencies
  • User-friendly mobile apps
  • Friendly, knowledgeable customer support

Learn more about Nexonia Expenses, the benefits for Administrators, Business Owners, and Employees, and more here, and watch the video below to learn how it works.

Nexonia Timesheets

Getting employees to turn in timesheets is often compared to pulling teeth. Conversely, employees have similar comparisons for filling out said timesheets. Knowing how hard it is for both parties, Nexonia designed a timesheet solution with both of these entities in mind. Nexonia Timesheets offers enhanced policy support, seamless integrations, timer support, mobile apps, and the same customer support features that leaders have come to expect from the company. Learn more about the benefits of Nexonia Timesheets here.

Nexonia Time Off

From vacations to personal time to sick days and more, Nexonia Time Off is designed to handle the needs of the modern organization. Nexonia makes it insanely simple to create, submit and approve requests within a matter of minutes. By offering an intuitive web platform to make requesting and approving easy, integrating with leading finance, HR, and payroll management systems, providing total visibility to leaders, and allowing business leaders to customize workflows on their terms, Nexonia makes time off requests easy. Learn more about the Nexonia Time Off Functionality here.

Nexonia Time Allocations

Certain types of professionals don’t need the detailed hourly breakdowns made simple by Nexonia’s Timesheets system. For software engineers and other tech professionals, the Time Allocation application accounts for time spent on specific task categories or projects as a percentage of employees’ total monthly working time. Time Allocations by Nexonia is designed to make the allocation process easy for employees, and the tracking and billing easy for business leaders. With the same unparalleled customer support, you can rest easy knowing that Nexonia has all of your bases covered.

Nexonia Purchase Orders

Want to see exactly what’s been ordered from suppliers, the cost, and where and when it should be delivered with a few clicks of a mouse? Nexonia Purchase Orders can handle this and more. Designed to integrate with leading ERP software, the Purchase Order Functionality fits into your workflows to make everyone’s job easier. Learn the benefits of Purchase Orders by Nexonia here.

Nexonia Accounts Payable

With Nexonia Accounts Payable, even the most complex vendor payment information is organized, synchronized and accessible from anywhere through your online account. Flexibility? Check. Integrations? Of course. A modern vendor portal and automated vendor W-9 Forms? Yes—all this and more with Accounts Payable from Nexonia.

Learn More about Nexonia

Used by hundreds of customers including Marketo, T.G.I. Fridays, SurveyMonkey, FitBit, Shopify, and more, Nexonia is designed to delight customers and support nearly any integration you can throw at it. Best of all, even in the wake of the mergers and acquisitions in the past few years, the company can continue to focus on satisfying its customers and improving its products. We believe this is one of the top Travel, Expense, and Time Tracking software options on the market, and are pleased to recommend this software. If you would like to discuss this and other cloud technology with us, please do not hesitate to contact us today.

Accounts Payable Automation in the Cloud

The Biggest Benefit of Accounts Payable Automation

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There are so many reasons to automate your accounts payable processes. By streamlining and standardizing your AP functions, you’ll quickly experience the benefits that come from a more efficient workflow and enhanced and more accurate data. You’ll save time and money, strengthen your vendor relationships, and increase productivity. But what you really gain—the benefit that’s driving the widespread adoption of cloud-based AP automation technology—is strategic value for your finance and accounting organization.

Accounting’s New Strategic Paradigm

As we recently explored in two blog posts, Meet the Tech Savvy CFO of 2017 and The Rising Value of the Strategic CFO, the role of today’s finance and accounting teams is changing. We can thank technology for simplifying many of their daily numbers-crunching activities—for freeing up their time and energy to focus on activities, like deep-dive data analysis and reporting, that push the business forward, not simply account for inputs and outputs.

With the right AP automation technology in place, finance and accounting departments are more agile and data-driven. They become part of the strategic conversation, the holders of invaluable insights that guide the business’s next steps and shape the future. But what does the “right” AP technology do for a growing company?

Building a Strong AP Foundation

Ardent Partners’ research report, The State of ePayables 2017, says that strategy-minded AP teams will be pursuing technology-enabled transformation in cash management, supplier management, and business intelligence—three key areas linked directly to AP processes. Taking this a step further, consider the core AP capabilities demonstrated by “Best-in-Class” AP teams vs. all others:

  • Standardized AP processes across the enterprise (88% vs. 61%)
  • Two or three-way matching capabilities (84% vs. 61%)
  • Ability to process invoices straight-through (73% vs. 34%)
  • Ability to automatically route invoices for approval (70% vs. 54%)
  • Ability to match invoices to contracts or payment plans (61% vs. 28%)
  • Ability to measure key AP metrics (47% vs. 22%)

Prioritizing these foundational AP capabilities, says Ardent Partners, “enables access to innovation and an ability to make a greater impact.” This is exactly why organizations are replacing their legacy systems and manual processes with more innovative solutions that automate—and add value to—core accounting functions. Traditional spreadsheets and yesterday’s technology are simply holding them back from making progress as a strategic business entity.

The Cloud Accounting Solution: A Strategic Investment

One of the fastest routes for a growing organization to achieve AP automation—and strategic prowess—is through a cloud accounting software solution. By way of automating once-manual processes, companies standardize transactions and workflows, increase accuracy and timeliness of payments, and have the tools to measure and even increase productivity. What’s more, they are also able to strengthen financial controls, increase visibility (even in real-time), and attain compliance and auditability—with access to user-friendly tools and data around-the-clock.

Learn more in How Cloud Accounting Lets Users Take Control of Process.

Sage Intacct offers the industry-leading and AICPA-preferred accounts payable software. Here are some of the AP tasks can you automate with Sage Intacct’s solution:

  • Expense allocations across entities, locations, and departments
  • 1099 coding, multiple entity consolidations, and IRS file generation
  • Payment approvals and payments—via check, cash, funds transfer, or manual
  • Amortization expenses
  • Vendor management workflows
  • Reports on vendors, aging, and payments

And when you integrate the cloud-based solution with your other systems, you can gain even more workflow efficiencies (e.g. less transaction re-keying) and insights over your data. As your capabilities expand by making the most of your technology ecosystem—with AP software at the center—your team will be able to uncover more opportunities and deliver richer, more actionable decision-support to the C-Suite.

So if you’re ready to stop managing payments manually—and you’d appreciate the strategic freedom afforded by a fully automated, digital AP process—contact us to get started.

Find out How Upgrading to the Cloud Lets You Hit the Ground Running.

Explorint the Impact of AP Automation

The Game-Changing Impact of Accounts Payable Automation at Growing Businesses

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Whether an individual or an entire team handles your company’s accounting functions, implementing a cloud-based solution to automate their accounts payable process is the ticket to greater employee productivity, departmental efficiency, and strategic growth. That’s because AP is so fundamental to a company’s cash flow position. It’s central to your organization’s financial health, reputation with vendors and creditors, and, ultimately, your ability to increase market share.

Let’s take a look at the advantages of replacing an outdated, manual AP process with a digital solution—and why it’s critical to your company’s future.

Cloud Accounting Brings AP Automation to SMBs

First, it’s important to understand why now is the time to embrace up-to-date AP technology: it’s finally within reach of small and medium-sized businesses. Not too long ago, only larger firms with the financial and IT resources to build on-premise financial management and accounting systems were able to reap the benefits of an automated AP process.

It’s for this reason that the supply management research and advisory experts from Ardent Partners place “a more automated accounts payable process” as the first among their accounts payables predictions. They credit the rise of cloud-based solutions that make the game-changing technology (finally) accessible to SMBs who need the enhanced functionality to compete and grow.

So what AP tasks can be automated with a cloud accounting solution?

  • Payment approvals
  • Payments—via check, cash, or funds transfer
  • Vendor management workflows
  • Expense allocations across entities, locations, and departments
  • 1099s and other tax files
  • Amortization expenses

For more details, take a few minutes to look at Sage Intacct’s accounts payable software features. The key takeaway is that you can configure your cloud-based accounting solution to work within your company’s existing controls and administrative operations in order to get to the next level—however you define your growth goals. And you can do so affordably. Your new automated AP system will enable your accounting team to: 

Eliminate Process Bottlenecks—And Boost Productivity

The AP process is filled with potential time- and energy-suckers. Waiting on invoice approvals, searching stacks of paperwork for vendor contracts, and even mailing out paper check payments—these are among the many inconveniences of a manual (non-automated) workflow. And consider the limitations of your boxed software and spreadsheet-based system: rekeying transactions, manually pulling data from multiple sources, and stumbling over any number of process workarounds. A cloud-based, automated AP software solution digitizes everything, clearing the pipes to makes every task smoother, easier, and faster.

Love the idea of greater efficiency? Get inspired by reading How Cloud Accounting Delivers the Hidden Value of Wasting Time.

Reduce Organizational Costs—And Take Advantage of Opportunities

Lowering costs and maximizing cash flow are primary concerns for growing companies. Unfortunately, manual processes that depend on entry-level accounting systems result in higher than necessary labor costs, human-error related costs, and per-invoice processing costs. A more streamlined, automated AP process, on the other hand, actually saves time while guaranteeing data accuracy, resulting in your ability to lower departmental costs and maximize your human resources, without adding headcount.

In addition, you’ll be able to pursue financial opportunities you couldn’t before, such as early payment discounts and putting your employees on value-added—not simply administrative—projects that actually drive growth. Explore more insights in How Intacct’s Cloud-Based Financial Software Supports Growing Businesses with Automation.

Focus On Strategic Activities—And Support Business Growth

Automating back-office AP functions bring your accounting team up-front-and center, where they’re needed to support business expansion. “No longer a simple back-office function,” says Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer of Ardent Partners in their 2016-2017 ePayables Tech and Innovation Outlook Report, “AP groups are now well-positioned to become true ‘hubs’ of visibility and intelligence, extending the value created within AP more broadly across both the enterprise and supply chain.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

 

Contact us to learn more about automating your AP process with today’s best-in-class cloud accounting software solutions.

Bill.com AP and AR Solutions

Product Spotlight: Bill.com AP/AR Solutions

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At rinehimerbaker llc, we are focused on helping you run your business do more with its resources, moving faster, making smarter decisions, and focusing on future growth. “Play Harder, We’ll Keep Score” is more than a motto, it is a way of life for us, who want to help you in any way we can.

One such way that we help is through our cloud technology consulting services, in which we help you to find, select, implement, and operate cloud solutions for your business, including Intacct Accounting and ERP Software, Tallie expense software, Bill.com payment solutions, MineralTree, and Gusto HR solutions.

In this, we are working to highlight each of these products over the next few months in our product spotlight series. Following last month’s spotlight of Intacct, we would like to turn your attention from the finance department to the Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable departments, sharing with you the benefits of Bill.com, a cloud solution designed to help you pay and be paid faster.

Bill.com: AP and AR for the Modern Business

While many businesses still rely on paper checks and paper invoices to manage their AP and AR processes, using paper to do so is antiquated, slow, laborious, and worst of all, risky.

On both the payables and receivables side, paper is costing time and money. Whether that’s through direct costs like paper or postage, labor costs to manage the process or address errors, or opportunity costs that come as a result of all of the manual paper processing going on, the continued use of paper is holding businesses back.

Additionally, on the payables side, organizations see many risks from duplicate payments to phony invoices to check fraud, all of which could harm your business.

Bill.com was designed to address these challenges, providing secure, paperless payments at costs lower than the traditional invoice and paper check method. The software integrates with a multitude of accounting software options including Intacct, NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Xero to accelerate the process and add the security and fraud protection that your company needs.

Bill.com Accounts Receivable

Bill.com Accounts Receivable helps you invoice and get paid faster.

  • Accept Electronic Payments by ACH or Credit Card
  • Automatically send reminders when payments are due or overdue
  • Automatically send recurring invoices
  • Allow customers to set up recurring payments
  • All of this, integrated with your accounting system.

Offering low ACH costs, the lowest merchant rates for credit card processing, and the ability to accept many other forms of payment, Bill.com makes the AR process easier for you and the payment process easier for your customers—thanks to the Bill.com payment gateway. Learn more about the security, mobility, ease of use and cost savings offered by Bill.com here.

Bill.com Accounts Payable

Accounts payable is a complex process, but Bill.com makes it easier. Simply scan, fax, or email your bills to Bill.com and their automated system takes care of the rest. Thanks to its user-friendly point, click, and pay functionality, you get to pay your suppliers on your terms, without the risks, costs, and time-consuming processes that come from traditional check-based bill payment.

With Bill.com, it’s as easy as “log in, view bills, and make payments.” Add new vendors, and when it comes time to make a payment, search by vendor and Bill.com will fill some fields automatically, shaving minutes off of each payment. You can do this from their website or mobile app, and Bill.com will either print and mail the check for you or allow you to pay a vendor electronically. Learn more about how easy it is to pay suppliers with Bill.com here.

Ready to Learn More?

As a leader in cloud consulting and services for growing businesses in the Palm Beach Area and beyond, rinehimerbaker can help you to select, implement, and operate the best software for your business. Bill.com is just one of the vendors we work with. Learn more about our services, and get in contact with us for more details.