When your team is paying dozens of vendors and collecting payment information in different ways, it can be hard to accurately understand your finances and manage your cash flow. And that’s without considering the errors that can creep in when your team is overstretched.
By automating the process, you can reduce risk and save time while streamlining the entire payment process. But how do you get started?
In this guide, we cover how to automate accounts payable, looking at key steps and considering tasks to automate. We also explore a solution that can help you manage the entire process.
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Manually managing accounts payable can lead to fragmented cash flow management across your different cost centres. It can also cause data entry errors, lost invoices and long-winded approval cycles.
You can solve these challenges by automating manual processes. Automating routine steps such as receiving and matching invoices, coding them into ledgers, and routing for approval frees up time to focus on the bigger picture. You also get centralised visibility into outstanding payments across the whole business.
Meanwhile, payment processes can also be made more straightforward. With automatic settlement and scheduled payments, teams can reconcile accounts rapidly, while making month ends easier with automatic reporting.
By automatically gathering all key data, you get a centralised source of visibility into outstanding payments across your whole business. Platforms with accounts payable solutions like Juni also integrate with your existing financial systems and provide advanced data analytics. This empowers your teams to manage cash flow and identify opportunities for cost savings.
Let’s break down the specific ways in which automating routine workflows can transform your accounts payable function.
Managing paper receipts and manually matching and coding them is both time-consuming and error-prone. Automating everyday AP processes like these eliminates inefficiencies and takes human error out of the equation. This means your team is freed up to focus on big-picture tasks, like increasing working capital and identifying cost savings.
Admin costs and late payment fees can eat into the bottom line and leave AP teams struggling to manage cash flow effectively. Eliminating paper-based processes and manual intervention removes these costs and ensures payments are made on time, every time.
Similarly, manual tasks such as data entry, storage and postage can also strain cash flow and lead to inflated headcounts within the finance team. Accounting automation allows for a clear view of how resources should be allocated.
Removing unnecessary manual work from people day-to-day makes them more fulfilled and productive. Meanwhile, with real-time sharing of financial data, procurement and finance become more closely aligned.
Automation ensures data is consistently captured in a unified way and processed accurately every time. This cuts out the inevitable errors that come with manual data entry, and costly mistakes such as duplicate payments and missed invoices become a thing of the past.
AP dashboards with real-time tracking and reporting give you greater visibility into the status of all invoices and payments across the business. This allows for more proactive financial planning and better decision-making.
Custom workflows can be set up to automatically route invoices to the right approvers. This significantly reduces the time needed for invoices to be approved and paid. These faster cycle times help you maintain strong relationships with vendors.
Automation maintains clear audit trails and comes with advanced security measures built in. Automated AP systems can flag non-compliant invoices and ensure all transactions adhere to the relevant regulatory standards.
Automated accounting software also makes it easy for you to access data down the line as storage of all invoices and payment records is completely digital and standardised. This eliminates the cost and complexity associated with manual record-keeping.
Automation can identify any duplicate or suspicious invoices, significantly reducing your risk of fraud. AP automation software can leverage advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect unusual patterns and automatically flag any potentially fraudulent activities. You’ll then be notified to investigate further.
Custom controls can also be set up to add an extra layer of oversight, helping you eliminate false billing.
Automation can leverage advanced analytics and data management to provide unparalleled visibility into cash flow. Having all AP activities within one unified platform means that cash flow management across every cost centre can be understood easily. It also means you can optimise cash reserves and readily identify early payment discounts.
Before working with Juni and implementing automation, Digital Agency Savvy Moves was struggling with fragmented cash flow management, long-winded processes, and difficulty managing spend. Here’s what Rémon de Muijnck (Co-Founder) had to say:
"Implementing automated rules has simplified and reduced errors in the receipt matching process. Before getting Juni, we invested considerable time in this task. Now, our accounts are accurately reconciled and closed each month with remarkable efficiency."
Here we look at the main tasks in the accounts payable process and how automation can help:
Data entry. Automating data entry massively reduces the manual effort of coding and recording invoices. You can extract key invoice data automatically with Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
Invoice matching. Automated two and three-way matching improves accuracy and speed while helping you identify discrepancies early to avoid payment delays.
Coding invoices. Automated tools can accurately code invoices to their corresponding accounts. This reduces the risk of misclassification and ensures all expenses are accurately recorded.
Approval routing. You can set up custom automated workflows to route invoices to the right invoices based on your own predefined rules.
Payment scheduling and execution. Setting up scheduled payments also means you can take advantage of early payment discounts while avoiding late payment penalties.
Vendor management. Automation helps you maintain accurate vendor records and timely communication around invoice status and payments.
Expense reporting and reimbursement. Automated systems streamline the process of submitting, approving, and reimbursing employee expenses. They can also automatically pull data and generate reports such as month ends.
Reconciliation. Accounts payable software automatically validates and pays invoices based on purchase orders and invoices.
Analytics and reporting. Automated tools can generate detailed reports on spending patterns, approval times, and vendor performance.
Ready to automate your AP function? Read on for a step-by-step guide.
Start by auditing all current processes and systems. Identify pain points, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks in workflows. Pay close attention to areas with recurring data errors.
Then, thoroughly evaluate the volume of invoices and payments processed each month. This is also a good time to review the duties of each role involved in the process and find out where time is being lost.
Look out for an automated solution that’s suited to your business size. The software you choose should be scalable as the business grows and also offer excellent customer support during and after implementation. It should incorporate strong automations and offer enhanced insights into cash flow.
It’s also crucial to look into software with customisable workflows. This means you can tailor the solution around existing processes and the unique needs of your business.
Once you have the right software solution, use it to create automated approval workflows. Start by defining the hierarchy of approval for each cost centre in the business. Then, set up automated workflows to make sure all invoices are routed to the right approvers. You can set your own parameters based on factors like who sent the invoice.
With manual interventions eliminated, you can set up custom notifications and reminders to ensure the approval process stays on track and approvers are always aware of their responsibilities.
The software you choose should offer smooth integrations with your existing ERP or bookkeeping software. This will let you automatically sync data between systems to ensure accuracy.
Once all integrations are set up you should have a unified platform that streamlines AP processes and frees up the accounts payable team for more strategic tasks.
Offer comprehensive training to your team on how the new software works, making sure every user understands their responsibilities and how to use the system.
Training should cover all aspects of the software, including how to monitor automatic invoice scanning, set up approval workflows, and manage integrations.
Work closely with the solutions provider to help address any queries or challenges that come up.
Regularly monitor the performance of your AP automation solution, gathering feedback from staff to identify areas for improvement. Use the functionality within the software to monitor KPIs such as processing times, approval cycle length and error rates.
Juni makes it easy for you to automate accounts payable. Here’s how:
By automating accounts payable, you can reduce the time it takes to process invoices and make payments. You’ll also gain more control over your finances with real-time insights into your spend.
Automated accounts payable systems use software to capture invoices, match transaction details, and schedule payments. This reduces manual work, minimises errors, and boosts vendor relationships.
To automate accounts payable, you need the right solution. Juni integrates with your existing financial systems to ensure seamless operations and improved efficiency.
When choosing an accounts payable solution, you should look out for invoice scanning functionality, automated approval workflows, integration capabilities, real-time tracking, and reporting and analytics.
Yes, accounts payable automation facilitates compliance by maintaining audit trails, flagging problematic invoices, and ensuring transactions adhere to regulatory standards.
You can improve vendor relationships by automating accounts payable and ensuring that every payment is made on time.
Juni is not a bank – yet. We’re a financial technology company providing e-money services and as such are not part of a deposit guarantee scheme. Learn more about our license and how we keep your business and money safe.
Juni Technology AB (company number 559248-0908) is licensed and registered as an electronic money institution with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Sw. Finansinspektionen) (license no: 64025). Payment Card Solutions (UK) Limited (company number 05941947) and UAB B4B Payments Europe (company number 305539054) are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (ref: 930619) and the Bank of Lithuania (licence no: 76), respectively. The Juni Mastercard Corporate Card is issued by Payment Card Solutions (UK) Limited and UAB B4B Payments Europe pursuant to a license by Mastercard International Incorporated. Mastercard and the circles design are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated. Juni Technology AB. Masthamnsgatan 21, 413 28 Göteborg, Sweden. © 2025 Juni. All Rights Reserved.
