Improving visibility across the procure-to-pay cycle is a top priority for senior finance executives.An eye-popping 78 percent of CFOs surveyed by Aberdeen Group identify improving visibility into cash flow and cash management as their top job priority. Improved visibility also tops the list of priorities for controllers surveyed by the Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM). In fact, 45.4 percent of controllers say a lack of visibility into invoices and payables information is the biggest challenge in their accounts payable department. Forty-two percent of controllers say the handling, management and retrieval of invoices and payables data is their top challenge with accounts payable.It is no surprise that senior finance executives are focused on improving financial visibility.Nearly 40 percent of senior finance executives say cash management is the most important metric to their job, IOFM reports. Seventy-five percent of CFOs spend more time on liquidity management than any other functional requirements, according to a recent study by Aberdeen Group. Similarly, controllers surveyed by IOFM identified liquidity management as a top job priority. Twenty-two percent of finance executives track and/or regularly report on early-payment discounts captured.
Electronic invoicing solutions such as NexusPayables provide accounts payable – and the senior finance managers that the department reports to – with the real-time financial visibility they need.Dashboards provide instant visibility into the status of
purchase orders and
invoices, as well as actionable financial information such as accruals, spend against budget, category and supplier spend, available early-payment discounts, the percentage of early-payment discounts captured, and more.Armed with these real-time insights, accounts payable departments can better manage their invoices and payables information, while senior finance managers can optimize cash flow and make more informed strategic decisions such as when to make an acquisition or major capital investment.
