Automating all the Way, Keeps Auditors Away

If the thought of auditors knocking on your department’s door makes you cringe, you are not alone. Compliance is also top-of-mind for CFOs. Sixty-two percent of CFOs at best-in-class organizations identify compliance and risk mitigation among their top priorities (The Hackett Group).

The problem is that paper-based accounts payable processes make it difficult, if not impossible, for businesses to ensure regulatory compliance. Paper-based accounts payable processes do not provide:

• Tracking of invoice history and approvals
• Mechanisms for ensuring that staff adhere to approval policies and separation of duties
• Chain of custody assurances
• Readily available audit information
• Controls for Sarbanes-Oxley and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
• Ways to prevent documents from being discarded or destroyed ahead of deadlines

Fully automated accounts payable systems streamline compliance by addressing these issues.

The technology:

• Safeguards sensitive data with configurable roles-based access and interface controls
• Creates complete audit trails of all system activities
• Provides administrators with real-time visibility into user activities
• Allows for the easy adjustment of security controls
• Ensures compliance across contracts, processes, regulations and supplier strategies
• Enables organizations to adhere to legal and internal document retention policies by eliminating the costly risk of deleting or altering an invoice prematurely
• Provides auditors with view-only access to the system to eliminate the need to physically collect and photocopy documents requested by auditors

These capabilities are not available in a manual or semi-automated accounts payables environment.

Does your organization want to make compliance less taxing? Contact us.

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Manual, paper-based invoice processes complicate audit and tax reporting by making it difficult to:

• Track invoice history and approvals
• Readily provide all of the information required for audits
• Prevent documents from being discarded or destroyed prematurely.