Just about everything we do has a slump. As a writer, I have experienced a slump, and as one of my readers you probably know that (sorry about that). Professional baseball players because of their long season are probably best known for their slumps and AP Automation has slumps too.

In The Beginning

I love when a new company initially goes live with their brand new AP Automation process, and there is a lot of celebration around the fact the paper is gone. Everyone seem to work together (if you do the transition right) and everyone is pulling in the right direction. About 90 days into the process there is normally a turn.

Turn?

At a certain point there is a natural realization that Accounts Payable Automation is going to take work. I usually experience this around using new time. If you are a frequent reader to my articles, you know that I define AP Automation as only as good as the time that is being freed up. I also explain that the return on the investment to automation is based on how well your company will use that new time. The dynamic is your company and project leaders are faced with taking people that are used to doing one task, or a set of tasks and now have to change that task or set to something else.

Getting Out

The best way that I have helped people get out of this slump is to never get into to it in the first place. For those of you that are in the middle of this, I have just given you something you can’t use (sorry about that), but the best advice I can give you is to put the slump into your project.

Meaning and Example

Make sure you are prepared for the change. AP Automation will eliminate the data entry into your accounting anywhere from 85% to 95%. That means the person or people doing data entry will need to work on other things. If they are not proactively trained on those other things then you will strikeout and slump in a very bad way. However, if they are prepared then you will hit a homerun.

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