Don’t you wish your AP workflow was as smooth and trouble-free as it sounds?
Keeping invoice capture, approvals, and payments on track can be notoriously challenging. The flow is often interrupted by missed approvals or incorrect documentation. Ideally, your technology should keep all the steps - and every workflow participant - on the same page in the most efficient and secure way.
Efficient workflow results in your vendors getting paid accurately, on time, and in the appropriate payment method – with the least effort from AP staff and approvers. Whether your company handles approval workflows by paper processing or digitally, efficient workflows are critical to the success of your AP department.
Creating an AP workflow in Dynamics GP
How you structure your AP workflow depends on your industry, company size, technology, and team. There are three possibilities:
Manual workflow
Your AP team enters invoice data manually. They deal with printed documents, and approvers must be onsite for authorization. There is little or no automation involved. This method may work best for small companies with few vendor transactions.
Semi-automated workflow
Your software or third-party providers do some invoice processing and payment generation. It may still require some paper and manual processes.
Fully-automated workflow
Technology automates all AP tasks, from receiving invoices to sending payments. This may happen in a platform outside your ERP solution, or you may have an AP platform that is partially or fully integrated with your ERP.
AP Workflow steps in Dynamics GP
A workflow is a sequence of tasks following a logical order and dependent on each other. Here’s the general accounts payable workflow: Invoice capture - Invoice approval – payment preparation – payment approval – payment generation.
Invoice Capture
If you still receive paper invoices in the mail, they must be scanned or entered manually. If you have automated, you can receive digitized documents via email or a vendor portal, which will go right into your ERP.
Invoice Approval
You’ll need the right people or systems to approve invoices. Ensure the invoice content matches the corresponding Purchase Orders (PO) or Receiving documents. A purchasing manager or department head will typically review and approve manually or digitally.
Payment Preparation
Once invoices are approved, your AP team can batches or organize the proper payment timing based on due dates, early pay discounts, and payment type.
Payment Approval
Some companies require a for invoice acceptance and payment release. This can protect against fraud and cash flow errors.
Payment Generation
The AP team sends payments to vendors via check, credit card, wire, EFT/ACH, etc. Multiple payment methods make this time-consuming and may require much manual effort. So, some businesses choose to save time and effort.
Vendor Onboarding & Management:
New vendors must be entered into your ERP system, along with details of their contact and banking data. An approval process is necessary to prevent non-existent vendors or fake accounts.
Remote AP Workflow Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics GP
Microsoft Dynamics GP offers several built-in workflows facilitating sales, procurement, and accounting. Specific workflows are designed to streamline the AP processes of vendor approvals, payables transaction approvals, and payables management batch approvals.
Mekorma can tailor your AP workflow to suit your needs
Mobility is now more critical than ever. More employees are working remotely, and more companies are national and international. Waiting for an authorizer to come to the office and log into your ERP can delay the entire AP workflow. It makes sense to configure remote approvals and payments.
Mekorma is releasing an app called Mobile Workflows (April 2023), built exclusively for Dynamics GP users. Like Mekorma’s s app for payment approvals, Mobile Workflows will support Vendor Approval and Payables Transaction Workflows. Authorizers can quickly approve multiple transactions on their mobile devices. The approval data will go directly to Dynamics GP.
Microsoft Dynamics GP provides many other workflows that streamline a wide range of business processes. Mobile Workflows can potentially be customized to support many more Dynamics GP functions remotely.
Check out , our end-to-end solution for Dynamics GP users.
From AI-powered invoice capture and entry to optimized/outsourced payments, Mekorma can help you streamline your entire AP workflow.
To learn more about Mekorma’s AP Automation Suite for Dynamics GP, our experts at Mekorma.
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