Finance leaders are onerous at work automating their workplaces, with accounts payable being named as the highest precedence for such investments.
That is in response to a latest survey from funds firm MineralTree. When requested to fee a listing of varied priorities from 1 to 10, finance leaders listed accounts payable as the best with a median of 8 (in contrast with 7.6 in final 12 months’s survey). Following this was accounts payable (7.2), then expense administration (6.8), shut administration (6.5) and forecasting (6.4).
This tracks with the highest issues of suppliers: 84% of those respondents mentioned their largest precedence is getting paid shortly, versus the following highest choice, getting paid precisely, at 67%. The report famous that 44.1% of respondents total have reported invoice-processing challenges or delays attributable to provide chain disruption; in the meantime, 39.2% mentioned their largest challenges had been delays in getting paid and/or reconciliation points.
“By choosing AP as their prime automation precedence, finance leaders acknowledge the strategic significance of well timed funds to maintain important items and companies flowing. In addition they perceive that paper-based, handbook strategies are not possible in immediately’s complicated and hybrid enterprise surroundings,” mentioned the report.
The previous 12 months has seen these priorities become motion. The report mentioned that in 2021, 67.7% had not automated their AP processes; in 2022 that proportion has shrunk to 48.1%. The report pointed to sure mindset points when it got here to those that haven’t upgraded: When requested in regards to the largest factor in the way in which of them automating their processes, by far the commonest motive cited, at 42.2%, was that their present processes work simply nice. The second largest motive, at 20.2%, was lack of assets.