“We have Xero, why do we need an Accounts Payable solution?”

We hear this all the time, it’s a fair question, and Xero is a great product, in fact we often recommend it.

Yet, Xero is designed to be a finance system used by the finance team, and the truth is, with any accounts payable process, anyone in the business might need to be involved. They may have to approve an invoice, request a purchase, or receipt a delivery, and the last thing we want is the whole company logging into Xero.

What’s more, there are other features available in an AP system that Xero just doesn’t offer, such as OCR for invoice capture, an easy to use approval workflow tool, duplicate detection, I could go on. So the big question, why bother plugging an Accounts Payable solution into Xero?

Speed

This is the big one. An AP system can be set to auto process the invoices for your recurring payments as well as any simple invoices in general, leaving you to focus on the higher value or complex items. Imagine all your simple invoices being captured, OCR scanned and sent for approval automatically. Then once they’re approved, auto-posted into Xero as a bill ready to pay, job done. That’s just the start, even the items you need to scrutinise will have the details parsed by OCR and presented to you for review, so still no manual entry, but the visibility you need to make sure they are correct and coded as required.

Peace of mind

Compliance checks eliminate human error. Auto-detect duplicate invoices, identify fraudulent bank details, highlight discrepancies, auto-escalate approval if a certain value is reached, a good Accounts Payable tool uses the latest technology to boost your compliance.

Reduced Costs

Lower overall spend, and justify spend increases. As a company reaches a certain size, a PO system that is easy to use, brings effective spend control and a built-in audit trail. Tracking spend against budgets can be an absolute game changer.

Find anything easily in seconds

Filter documents by supplier, date, period and a number of other options. You can free-text search for them, view supplier histories, pop info out into an excel report at the click of a button. Once you go paperless, managing PO and Invoice data is as simple as it is quick. Easy enough for anyone in the company to use

AP systems have to be easy to use, they’re designed for anyone to pick up, not just the finance team. Expect them to be intuitive with clear layouts, easy to navigate, and even simple to configure.

Efficiency

Xero has set you up for a big win here. Xero offers great integration options, so you can easily plug an AP solution into Xero in minutes. Accounts Payable solutions, once they’ve automated your PO, Invoice and approval process, can then auto export invoices to Xero as a bill ready to be paid. You can sync business data like nominal and tax codes, so no more keying in data. No file transfers, no nothing, all good to go.

Zahara offers a PO systems, OCR invoice capture, an easy to use Approval workflow tool and even Payments, all in one system, and it plugs straight into Xero. Connecting Xero to Zahara takes minutes.