Automated payment solutions to optimize transactions

In a world of digitization, many companies still rely on manual tasks and paper checks for their accounts payable (AP) processes. And that could be costing your organization time and resources that would be better spent on other procedures.

Automated payment solutions present the opportunity for you to help transform your organization's accounts payable department with a more efficient and data-driven approach. Your AP processes can be streamlined into a platform that helps do a lot of the work for you.

Learn how automated payment systems, like Capital One's business payment solutions, can revitalize your organization.

Accounts payable automation can save businesses time, money and resources by turning manual accounts payable processes into streamlined, optimized, automatic functions. From data entry to sending invoices and processing payments, an automated payment system allows necessary but time-consuming tasks to be performed with minimal human intervention. While some tasks still need approval, such as invoicing, AP automation allows this to happen from virtually anywhere with just a few clicks. In this way, AP automation solutions can improve the efficiency and accuracy of your organization's payment process, freeing up resources for other priorities.

Beyond automating repetitive accounts payable processes, leading-edge AP automation platforms offer finance teams powerful insights into payment processes and operations through real-time data and analytics dashboards. Your finance leaders will be able to monitor invoice and payment processes, analyze your organization's performance, identify areas that need improvement and search and audit data more easily and quickly. Not only does this help maintain compliance, but implementing new technology may also help power valuable transformations in accounts payable workflows and management processes that improve your organization's overall performance.

AP automation systems integrate necessary accounts payable components into one platform, allowing for streamlined invoice management at every stage, from purchase order matching and invoice approvals to automated digital payments. By automating these processes and maximizing efficiency, your organization can focus on other accounts payable problems and solutions, improve vendor relations, analyze data to inform strategy and more. 

Improving your AP process through an automated payment solution offers numerous benefits, including: 

• Minimized human error: Accurate data matching and automatic integration of digitized information reduce errors associated with data entry and manual AP reconciliation.
• Optimized efficiency: Automated AP solutions dramatically reduce the time and resources spent managing invoices and payments, while access to real-time data analytics and dashboards provides a thorough understanding of AP performance and potential efficiency improvements.
• Improved security and resource allocation: Digital payment solutions may streamline processes and provide more security than some other forms of payment. 
  • For instance, Capital One’s Virtual Card Relay allows you to track vendor payments in real-time, transmit invoice payments to vendors in a day and utilize exact-pay, single-use accounts for added protection against fraud.

The ability to send rapid, automated payments to suppliers may also lead to additional cost-saving opportunities in the form of discounts for early invoice payments or excellent payment history.

Automated payment solutions should offer advanced features, intuitive interface designs and comprehensive integration of AP information and processes for a robust solution. By taking steps to automate your accounts payable, such as by utilizing Capital One's Virtual Card Relay, you may minimize the resources spent on day-to-day tasks, help improve security, optimize operational efficiency and be empowered to focus on more important things, such as supplier engagement.