I love the saying that not making a decision is still a decision. The band Rush said, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”. So there is no decision and there are bad decisions and there are also good decisions. The point to this article is to explore the decisions that are stunting your AP Automation growth.

Picture This

The picture that I want to paint is an organization that has made the transition from a paper Accounts Payable process to an automated AP process. You would think the hard work is over and the good living is beginning. That’s true, however, as I have written and warned a lot about, AP Automation is not an event it’s an ongoing process.

Why?

Well the simple answer to why AP Automation is a process is because without being an experienced automator it is difficult to impossible to change your paper process overnight. In my book The 8 Pitfalls, the first chapter I write about after being automated for six to nine (maybe even more) months you will have the data (information) that you need to automate. AP Automation does a great job of providing data to base process change decision on.

Decisions!

As you grow with AP Automation there are a few decision that you can make that will stunt your growth.

1. Don’t be afraid to change. You don’t want to make wholesale changes but as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, your decisions will become less and less but getting to know your process without paper is a different world and change is needed.
2. Sticking with unrealistic goals or out dated goals will stunt your growth. Like the number of workflows you should have. For streamline purposes people try to limit the number of approval processes. It’s not a good goal because the number of approval process you have are directly related to the complexity of your business. Don’t limit that.
3. Leaving some invoices out. I meet a lot of companies that don’t want to automate certain types of invoices, like utility bills or employee expense reports. If you have one set of invoices that are automated and another set that is still paper you now have two processes to manage. AP Automation needs to free up time – not create more need to manage something.

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