You’ve been hearing about how best-in-class accounts payable departments are innovating and digitizing, and you want to get a share of that success. Your goal is to make your AP department the true financial information hub you know it’s meant to be, and you’re ready to lead through innovation. But where do you start? A good place is our recently released guide full of tips from AP pros.
Here are a few of our favorite highlights:
First thing’s first, get your year-end close done
It’s hard to overstate this, but get your year-end close done as soon as possible. If you need some checklists to help you out, we’ve got you covered. Check out our 10 step checklist, and once you’ve got your year-end close out of the way, you can start mapping out 2019.
Plan your AP digitization road map
You need to get serious about what’s going to work for your enterprise’s accounts payable solution. That means analyzing last year’s data and finding a solution that makes sense based on your company’s needs. Then you can plan out how to implement it. There’s a lot of good questions to ask before you decide on an AP solution for your enterprise, make sure you’re asking the right ones. This is a great time for you to advocate for your team to get a digital solution in place to make your work easier.
Collaborate to get your whole enterprise on board
It’s one thing to have a solution that works for your department, but it’s critical to make sure it also works for your whole enterprise. The best AP solution will make not only your job easier, but help you collaborate across the whole financial system. We’ve talked before about how a digital AP department can be a strategic data hub for all of finance, and it’s true. But you’ll have to make a plan to explain that to all the stakeholders in your enterprise. In our e-book, you’ll hear from the pros how to get your company working with you instead of around you. And collaboration is central to the discussion.
Always stay up-to-date
The world of finance is rapidly changing into a digital proactive field that values strategy over tactics. Make sure you’re up to date on the trends and tools of your trade. The great thing about modern solutions is that once you’ve mastered the tools your company uses, you get to continually refine and optimize your process to make your system run even smoother.
Once you’ve automated your main tasks, you can then come back around and automate more of your tasks. It’s often easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there’s no creativity in your role, but really you have the opportunity to think creatively and strategize over how to utilize all the payments data your company has to help your c-suite make cash strategy decisions.
You are in a unique spot in history: you have the chance to be at the forefront of the digital transformation of AP and advocate for a collaborative, central, and strategic information hub for financial decisions.
Ready for a deep dive into future-proofing your career and accounts payable department? Download your e-book game plan for accounts payable success
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