8 Best Practices for Creating Touchless AP Processing and Speeding Invoice Approvals
by Hannah Khouri
AI is a hot topic right now, but beyond the hype, it’s providing tangible benefits in the finance space by optimizing accounts payable workflows. We sat down with Jono Bowles, our Director of Industry Solutions, and asked him to share how AP automation software delivers a return on investment, improves approval processes, and more. You’ll get eight takeaways for actions you can take right now to improve approval processes.
Why might a customer need more AP automation than they can get from their ERP application?
When there is AP automation functionality in the ERP system, it’s usually limited, isolated to a specific type of invoice, or input-driven. Perhaps it requires all invoices to be in PDF format, and then you must process them in a particular way. This lacks flexibility and doesn’t offer the kind of intelligent decision-making you get from an AI-based system like Ottimate. If an ERP offers invoice processing, it’s unlikely to provide line-level matching for both PO and non-PO invoices. That’s one of the things that drew me to Ottimate. I believe our non-PO technology is the best in the world. The high success rate and ability to determine a cost center with unstructured data sets it apart.
Some AP automation first-timers have image capture and are asking suppliers to email invoices but aren’t doing any intelligent processing after that. Maybe they have some basic OCR or data extraction features, but that’s it. They come to Ottimate because they’re trying to progress to a truly touchless process.
Takeaway: If your current ERP limits invoice processing to rigid formats and basic data capture, it’s time to explore a more intelligent, AI-powered AP solution like Ottimate to achieve true touchless automation and handle complex invoice types with ease.
How might multiple departments interact with Ottimate?
We focus on roles and processes in finance, as those are the people who use it daily, but Ottimate also gives the heads of other departments greater visibility into their spending and how this relates to their budgets. It makes approvals easier for them. Often in a manual process-driven organization, people go straight to the top with those. With Ottimate’s conditional routing, they can add people to their workflows without creating unnecessary work for the CFO and other leaders. They can get approvals from people who are more hands-on with purchases instead. That makes the process more robust and faster, as it’s automated and more logical.
Occasional users can track the progress of a purchase. For example, if they ordered a new office chair, they can track that. Some of these features are available in ERP systems, but their licensing is often cost-prohibitive. Ottimate’s flexible licensing is more conducive to an organization opening AP automation up to both power users and those who will just need it periodically.
Takeaway: Use Ottimate’s conditional routing and flexible licensing to streamline approvals across departments, reduce CFO bottlenecks, and give all stakeholders—from daily users to occasional requesters—real-time visibility into spending.
How long does it take to start seeing benefits after implementing Ottimate?
One of the things that differentiates Ottimate is how quick and easy the onboarding process is. We have pre-built integrations with many ERP systems, making it more efficient. A customer’s new environment could be up and running the same day. I just sat in on a deployment and was amazed to see how quickly it went, and that the main users were at ease using Ottimate from the start. Once they go live and the ERP connection is set up, they can start processing invoices, and our AI begins learning how they work. That provides value from the very first day onward.
Takeaway: Leverage Ottimate’s fast onboarding and pre-built ERP integrations to start processing invoices and gaining value through AI-powered automation from day one.
What’s your favorite feature in Ottimate?
I’m impressed by our non-PO invoice processing. The account selection feature and matching functionality lead the AP automation industry, and the UI makes it very easy to use compared to other systems. Many of them display too much data on the screen, whereas Ottimate’s interface is very clean and shows only what people need to see. The way that information is visualized makes it easy to find specific details and act on them. There are also dialogue boxes that provide helpful tips. It involves a process that was previously very data-intensive and simplifies it.
Takeaway: Simplify complex, data-heavy processes by using Ottimate’s industry-leading non-PO invoice automation and intuitive, streamlined interface that highlights only what users need to take action quickly and confidently.
How else does data visualization help finance customers?
The level of insight into what used to be manual interventions is really important. Throughout my career, I have seen customers trying to determine which suppliers are problematic and rectify issues with them. That usually requires a considerable amount of time and effort to locate specific invoices and correct them. Ottimate provides a new level of visibility by automatically identifying a supplier, highlighting issues with an invoice through exception handling, and then making those actionable to the user. They’re quickly presented with a data point, can learn about it, and call the vendor to make a change. This can save dozens of hours.
Takeaway: Use Ottimate’s automated exception handling and supplier insights to quickly identify and resolve invoice issues—saving time and improving vendor relationships.
How does Ottimate impact customers’ core measurables?
The reports we offer make it easy to see invoices that are past their due date, which is a typical metric people want to track. Every AP department has some measure of cycle times – how long it takes from invoice ingestion to payment – that is readily visible. Without Ottimate, that’s hard to measure because you may not even know when you got the invoice, let alone when you paid it. Being able to track invoices throughout their lifecycle and see how you’ve reduced processing time is a big win. Customers who take advantage of our payments platform can see and report on that whole process from end to end too.
Takeaway: Gain full visibility into invoice lifecycle metrics—like due dates and cycle times—with Ottimate’s reporting tools, enabling you to track, improve, and report on AP performance from ingestion to payment.
How important is the relationship between the Ottimate team and your customers?
It’s crucial. We maintain a healthy dialogue with our customers, learning about their processes and challenges. My team and I are open to identifying the pain points after the initial deployment and then determining how we can address them. You can never assume that everything is perfect right away, and have to be willing to customize or adjust the solution to meet specific needs.
A large part of the value that Ottimate provides is saving money. Still, we only consider a project successful if the customer is also happy and genuinely enjoys using the product, which isn’t the case for some accounting software. We provide them with the data and process automation they need, along with support personnel who understand what a day in their lives is like.
What tip would you give to a company that’s getting started with Ottimate or planning to do so?
Trust Ottimate to handle all three types of invoices: credits, non-PO, and PO. When they’re getting comfortable with this level of automation, there’s a tendency for customers to ease into it. However, what I would recommend is identifying all the scenarios that cause you trouble. Then start running the invoices, receipts, POs, and other documentation for those through Ottimate.
Also, consider how you will incorporate that into an electronic process and what you will do the same or differently going forward. Moving to AP automation presents an opportunity to leverage the change management process that accompanies it. You can collaborate with suppliers to enhance the quality of the input, refine your processes, and leverage new data insights. To see how Ottimate can automate your invoice and payables processes, book a personalized demo now. And keep your eyes peeled for part three of this series.