As a business leader, you understand the importance of implementing approval controls in your Accounts Payable process. It’s essential for preventing fraud and increasing accuracy. But how can you involve your team in this process? In this blog post, we’ll discuss the best strategies for getting your team involved with approval controls in Accounts Payable.
Understanding approval controls as a team
In all businesses, small and mid-size alike, there are often multiple operators working towards the single mission of a successful business. Both on the front and behind the scenes, there are folks working together invoicing, making payments, cutting checks, managing supplies, purchasing from vendors, managing day-to-day operations, and more. Many of these operations must be done alongside one another to ensure that the team is not only working efficiently but is also aware of any and all updates and changes as needed. Approval controls are more important than ever in these moments, especially when the business owner scales to multiple locations as management increases in difficulty.
Docyt facilitates this process through its approval controls. Docyt allows approvers to be added in each business, as well as product approvers can be added for different vendors and for different amount-based thresholds. It allows you to control which approvers and how many have access to specific controls and organize which approvals are needed to move an item or task along to the Payer. Keep reading to understand more about the Payer’s responsibilities below.
Many people do not understand the importance of approval controls, so they may not be motivated to participate in the process. It is important to ensure your team is educated on why approval controls are necessary, and how they will benefit the organization as a whole.
When everyone has competing priorities, it can be challenging to prioritize the implementation of approval controls. Make sure that everyone on the team understands that approval controls need to take priority over other tasks and projects. It’s crucial to assign roles and responsibilities and to walk through any training that your team might need. The below guidelines are what we at Docyt recommend you consider when communicating with your team.
- Train your employees about what approval controls are and why they are necessary
- Ensure that all members of the account payable process understand what is expected of them
- Create an internal manual with procedures and instructions on how to execute proper approvals within the company’s budgeting cycle, accounting system, etc., Include in it templates for paperwork such as requisitions, purchase orders, invoices/accounts receivable records/payments requests, credit memos or chargebacks
- Identify which parties should have access (and who should review) to which types of documentation
- Give different departments clear deadlines when certain approvals are due
- Implement periodic reviews at least quarterly to keep up with changes within each department (e.g., accounting software upgrades).
Docyt can streamline this process
Docyt’s Accounts payable feature can absorb all vendor invoices for a business, including those on autopay and those that still need to be paid. Since Docyt connects to your bank account, money is not withdrawn from the account until the vendor deposits the check, or until the ACH transfer takes place. As a result, cash flow is managed more accurately and you keep the float until the payment is cashed.
With Docyt, you can determine your company’s approval chain based on 3 main roles (Verifier, Approver, and Payer). The Verifier is the person that verifies all the automation done by Docyt’s Artificial intelligence in data extraction and categorization on the vendor invoice. This gives human validation to the accounting data as well as reduces the heavy lift of data entry and categorization since it has already been done by AI. While setting up your business, you can enable an Authorized Signatory who approves payments. This authorized signatory can also delegate this permission to others they trust. Docyt gives you the power to determine which employees will be scanning/forwarding invoices to your Docyt, and give them Uploader access. This person would be called the Approver, otherwise known as the employee that can verify supplies ordered from vendors or the services rendered by vendors have been delivered before approving the invoice.
After the approver has approved the bill, the Payer is then responsible for ensuring that the bank has the correct balance before releasing the payment. This can be complex and hard to manage with multi-business owners, Docyt removes this complexity by providing the solution all in one area. Docyt allows for an authorized signatory on the bank account to release payments from the bank account. The authorized signatory has the ability in the software to label an approver to pay the bill, they can delegate this or other tasks to another user if needed. Docyt verifies this process by requiring the authorized signatory approval stamp to process the payment, creating a net of security and audit protection. Docyt allows for fast, next-day, and standard ACH options, providing business owners with options if in a time crunch.
Many companies have found success by outsourcing their approval control systems to Docyt, which can handle tedious administrative work and provide support for daily functions like invoice scanning or balancing transactions between bank accounts.
If you’d like to learn more about Docyt’s comprehensive Accounts Payable with all the Approval Control Services Program, visit the Docyt website to schedule a free consultation today!
