When I wrote The 8 Pitfalls I realized that 50% of the book was dedicated to helping companies looking inward before looking outward to solution providers for AP Automation.

Traditionally

When an Accounts Payable Automation initiative starts someone will say, “hey, let’s search the internet to see who is out there that does this paperless accounting”. The group will come up with three companies they like, call them, and ask for demos.

Check Yourself…

Getting those demos before you ask some internal questions is where most companies go wrong. The challenge with AP Automation is each service provider will look very similar on the surface.

The Bottom

In order to really evaluate service providers to truly understand competitive differentiators you have to know your company’s goals. Not just your company’s goals, but getting a very good understanding of how you want AP Automation to impact your organization. Impact is something that gets lost when looking at demos, which was the point behind my eBook – 7 ½ Things I Wish I Would Have Known About AP Automation Before I Started (I am very proud of myself for two book plugs in a single post – there is a link at the bottom of the post if you want a copy).

Questions

Before you get solution providers involved, ask yourself these questions:

1. Who is touching each invoice?
2. What do those people do in the process?
3. How much time do they spend on each step of the invoice approval process?

Now What?

Once you have the questions answered during your demos find out which solution provider makes the biggest impact by freeing up the most time on the process to the most critical people and you will start to see the competition divide greatly.

Want to know more? Buy My Books!

To buy the book – The Argument to Automate – How Innovation Can INSPIRE Not Fire – click here to buy

(Also) To get your copy of The 8 Pitfalls of Accounts Payable Automation – click here to buy

How about a children’s book? The Princess and the Paper – click here to buy

7 5_ThingsIWishIWouldHaveKnown 4 2 14 (2) – This one is free!