Business has forever been about getting ahead or getting left behind, and the rapid advancement and adoption of technology have made that as true as ever. Case in point? The takeover of accounts payable (AP) automation is in full swing, especially with more recent AI-powered solutions driving new levels of capabilities.
But in order to really get ahead of the curve, you need to not only adopt AP automation but stay up to date with the latest best practices. Doing so will allow you to streamline workflows, reduce errors, boost efficiency, and avoid being left behind. Let’s explore the eight best practices that can help your business thrive in 2025.
Why AI-Powered AP Automation Is So Important
Before we jump into the top AP automation best practices, we need to ensure we have a clear understanding of why AI-powered automation is so critical when it comes to invoice processing.
If you’ve ever had to deal with manual AP processing – or half-baked automation, for that matter, you know that it comes with several inherent challenges. Common issues AP teams inevitably face when using manual processes are high error rates, slow processing times, increased costs, and just an overall lack of transparency and efficiency as it pertains to the entire AP process.
You can probably guess that AI-powered AP automation solves all those challenges, and while you’d certainly be right, it’s important to understand the specific benefits it offers:
- Cost savings: When looking at making changes within your business, one of the first areas to consider is the business case. How much money will it cost? How much will you save?
- Research shows that organizations spend an estimated $510 billion every year on costs associated with manual AP systems. Automation technology, especially when powered by AI, reduces processing expenses in several ways. The most obvious is by decreasing labor costs by minimizing manual, repetitive tasks like data entry. By automating such tasks, you eliminate the need to hire more staff as volume increases.
- Beyond the saved labor costs, leveraging AI and automation tools also opens the door for optimized workflows that expedite processes and, in turn, make achieving early payment discounts possible.
- Reduced error rates: People make mistakes — that’s not earth-shattering news, especially when talking about the manual process of data entry. AP automation, however, provides an alternative with much better results — 99.95% accuracy to be exact.
- Not only that, but AI-driven solutions also do a better job of catching errors within invoices that are often missed by human review.
- Faster processing times: We’ve established automation can be more accurate than a human, but it is also much faster.
- A recent survey found that 98% of firms believe accounts payable automation could accelerate payments. Rather than taking weeks or more to process an invoice, businesses can do so in a matter of hours, ensuring timely payment.
- Enhanced compliance: Compliance and audit readiness are priorities for any finance team, and AI makes achieving them much easier.
- By automating the verification of invoice data, AI ensures that all required information is accurate and complete. The technology verifies the presence of essential data, the correctness of calculations, and the enrichment of invoice data with relevant details from other systems and documents. These automated checks help maintain data integrity, which is crucial for meeting compliance standards.
- Additionally, by facilitating automatic matching and verifying supplier calculations, AI ensures that financial records are precise and reliable. This increased accuracy and consistency in data processing streamlines workflows and bolsters overall compliance and audit readiness.
- Fraud protection: The Association for Financial Professionals conducted a 2023 study that found that 80% of businesses were either targeted by or fell victim to payment fraud attempts. AI-powered systems provide a strong solution for mitigating the risk of payment fraud.
- This is achieved primarily through the use of AI and its subsets, such as machine learning. These technologies allow systems to automatically (and effectively) inspect for fake invoices, duplicate invoices, unusual vendor behavior, and any other anomalies.
8 AP Automation Best Practices for Businesses
Now that we’re clear on the benefits let’s dive into how to maximize the value of an automated AP system. Here are eight AP automation best practices to ensure proper implementation and upkeep:
#1 Assess Your Current Process
You’ll want to start out by making sure you have a full understanding of your current workflows. This means mapping out your existing process to identify any pain points and bottlenecks. Key considerations when looking at your existing process include:
- Current processing steps and times
- Process visibility
- Exception types and volumes
- Invoice types and volumes
- Error rates
- Labor and operating costs
Talking with the stakeholders who are directly involved in the AP process will help you get a clear picture of day-to-day activities. They will provide insights into common struggles, bottlenecks, and areas for possible improvements.
#2 Set Clear Goals & KPIs
In order to set up the appropriate AP automation solution, you must first determine what a successful AP process looks like for your business. To do so, set clear goals and establish measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress. For an accounts payable department, common KPIs include:
- Manual vs. electronic invoices
- Processing time by step
- Cost per invoice
- Exception rates
- Matching rates
- Number of payment errors
- Number of late payments
The KPIs you choose to track can vary, but comparing the actual output to your business goals is an excellent way to determine what changes, if any, need to be made.
#3 Choose the Right Technology
Not all automation solutions are made equal. To get the most out of transitioning to an automated system, you’ll need the right technology. Older automation systems are often over-reliant on optical character recognition (OCR) technology and rigid, rules-driven workflows, whereas the newer systems deploy a mix of technologies, including AI, to create a properly functioning end-to-end automated AP process.
The top systems include features like:
- Invoice processing: Invoices are captured, validated, and processed from various channels (email, electronic exchange, paper scanning, etc.) with any duplicates or anomalies automatically flagged.
- Real-time bottleneck identification: Real-time visibility into invoice statuses enables quick bottleneck identification and easy exception monitoring.
- Search functionality: With robust search functionality, users can find invoices online in several ways, including by invoice number, supplier name, and date. You can also create saved search filters for easy access to common searches.
- Role-based access and workflow management: Role-based access allows users to perform tasks relevant to their roles and ensures invoices can be rerouted automatically when team members are out of the office. Approval processes can also be set up to enable parallel or serial approval requirements, helping ensure that processing time KPIs are hit.
- Master data validations: Supplier, purchase order, general ledger (GL), and other master data are interfaced with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, ensuring any updates are reflected in real time.
- Non-PO invoice automation: AI can assist with performing the first pass of GL coding and distribution based on historical data, helping automate the time-consuming process for the invoice reviewers and approvers.
- Validation and error handling: Issues are automatically detected, and error messages guide users to corrections one at a time before allowing the user to move on.
- Invoice history and audit trail: Gain an enhanced view of the approval process with detailed information on invoice status, such as who has approved it, any comments, and visibility into the entire process.
Keep these features in mind when researching AP automation solutions for your team.
Want to learn more about choosing the right invoice processing solution for your organization? Check out our blog post on the three levels of AP automation.
#4 Involve Key Stakeholders
Successfully integrating AP automation begins with getting the right people on board. That means involving key stakeholders, developing a strategy to address processing requirements, and gaining buy-in from leadership. Some strategies for gaining support could include:
- Create a list of key stakeholders: You’ll want to know the prominent members in the decision-making process. This often includes the CFO, sourcing, procurement, management, and IT decision-makers.
- Understand motivators: Operations and growth-focused leaders may be most interested in AP automation’s ability to scale as the company grows. As transaction volumes increase, automation can handle the workload without a corresponding headcount or time investment increase, supporting organizational growth and expansion without adding complexity.
- Be ready for the hard questions: Integrating a new system can sound intimidating, and stakeholders will likely have legitimate questions or concerns about the potential challenges. By knowing exactly how these modern systems will benefit your businesses, meet stakeholders’ requirements, and have a game plan for implementation, you can address any concerns head-on.
- Emphasize cross-departmental collaboration: While AP automation is likely to sound intriguing to the AP department, its benefits are really for the entire business. Emphasize the advantages of a transparent and easy-to-follow process that can help individuals or teams across different departments work seamlessly together.
#5 Get Employee Buy-In
Change can be scary, and that’s especially true these days when AI is proposed as part of said change. And the fear associated with it often leads to disengagement, resistance, and, eventually, poor system adoption.
The key to ensuring your AP automation system implementation goes smoothly is emphasizing how the solution will improve your employees’ current processes. AP professionals spend 84% of their time on payment processing alone. With AI-driven automation, employees will finally be free of the tediously repetitive tasks that eat up their days. So much so, nearly 90% of surveyed employees reported higher levels of job satisfaction since implementing automation software and tools.
#6 Find a Reliable Partner
When partnering up in business, finding both capability and reliability in a partner is top of mind. This is just as true when finding an AP solution partner. Finding one that can leverage all of the modern tools and understand your specific business and industry best practices is the recipe for successful AP automation integration.
An expert provider should offer a full suite of AP automation capabilities, including AI-driven data capture, real-time analytics, and seamless integrations with your existing ERP or accounting software. Keep these criteria in mind when interviewing potential partners. Finding the right one is key to achieving a true end-to-end AP automation solution.
#7 Develop a Comprehensive Training Program
Integrating an AP automation software should be seamless with the right partner, but it will inevitably result in a learning curve for employees. That means you’ll need to work with your partner to train employees on new systems and processes as well as provide ongoing education and support to ensure a continuously successful AP process.
#8 Monitor & Optimize
The beauty of a fully automated system is that, for the most part, the need for constant human input is eliminated. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can simply set it and forget it.
Maintaining an optimized system includes reviewing the key performance metrics you set early in the implementation process. You’ll want to adjust strategies based on data and feedback and make improvements to adapt to changing needs. Fortunately, these are all things you had to do on top of all the manual work, but now they’re the only aspect you truly need to focus on.
Embracing AI-Powered AP Automation for a Successful 2025
When it comes to successfully implementing new technology, following these AP best practices will have your business on its way to becoming a better and smoother operation. Assess your current processes, set clear goals, and most importantly, ensure you are adopting the right technology with the right AP solutions partner.
MetaSource is that right partner with the right solution. With a complete end-to-end approach to automation and continuous integration of the latest technologies, MetaSource is the most reliable source for automating your AP process.
5 Key Qualities to Look for in an AP Automation Partner
Learn how to select the right invoice processing automation partner for your organization.
