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Automating PO, SO, and AP Processes – In-House or Outsource

23Mar

Automating PO, SO, and AP Processes – In-House or Outsource

Read Time: 4 minutes

Companies invest significant time, energy, and money into their purchase order, sales order, and accounts payable tasks. These are, without a doubt, considered essential, mission-critical accounting tasks, and a single error can be costly. For this reason, many business leaders seek to streamline AP processes, sales orders, and purchase orders with process automation technologies and outsourcing. Automation serves to improve efficiency and speed while also reducing the number of errors.

But how do you determine which option is best for your needs when it comes to keeping a process in-house versus outsourcing? Should you find a trusted and reputable outsourcing partner to handle your PO, SO, and AP processes? Or is it better to call in a Digital Transformation developer to develop a business process automation solution that would allow your company to handle its accounting more effectively needs in-house? Both options have benefits and drawbacks.

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Automating SO, PO, and AP Processes In-House

An increasing number of companies are turning to Digital Transformation developers that can build an automation solution for processing accounts payable, sales orders, and purchase orders. These detailed, mission-critical documents are critical for success, and prompt processing is vital to ensure consistent cash flow. There are many benefits to performing these tasks in-house, including the following.

Maintain Full Control Over the Process – When you handle SO, PO, and AP processes in-house, you maintain complete control over these processes from start to finish. For a company that deals in sensitive data or requires complete control over its accounting tasks, deploying process automation technology in-house can be a great option. Process automation allows you to perform these tasks quickly and accurately while maintaining control.

Leveraging Scalable Automation – Business process automation is highly scalable and ideal for growing startups and companies. Your process automation technology can be adapted to suit increased demand, and the staff who previously handled these tasks will be freed up to focus on other projects. Down-scaling is equally straightforward.

Reduced Incidence of Human Error – When you shift your AP processes, sales orders, and purchase orders from human staff to process automation software, you’ll see a reduced incidence of human error. You’ll also see increased accuracy, and this significantly benefits you since you won’t need to spend time correcting mistakes.

Improved Accuracy and Quality – Process automation allows you to achieve much higher accuracy and overall quality with your accounts payable documents, purchase orders, and sales orders. The same is true if you choose to outsource these tasks, although your level of control tends to be greater when you handle everything in-house.

Outsourcing Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Accounts Payable Tasks

Another option to consider is finding a reputable outsourcing partner to handle your sales orders, purchase orders, and other accounts payable tasks. Here are a few of the numerous benefits of shifting your accounts payable processing to an outsourcing partner that leverages business process automation.

Improved Efficiency From Expertise – An outsourcing partner that specializes in PO, SO, and AP processes brings some major benefits to the table thanks to their expertise. Unlike in-house staff, who are more generalists, these specialists focus on a narrow scope of work. This allows them to become specialists who can perform these processes highly efficiently. And, if a problem arises, they will be well-positioned to take action and resolve the matter promptly.

Taking Advantage of Process Automation Technology – Developing and deploying process automation technology can be costly, and for some businesses, using these technologies in-house just isn’t practical. If process automation is cost prohibitive for a business, it may make sense to outsource the tasks to a company that partners with companies in your industry to perform accounts payable tasks, sales order processing, and purchase order processing. With this strategy, your business can get all the advantages of BPO technology without the financial burden of developing and deploying this technology in-house.

Increased Accuracy and Reduced Incidence of Human Error – You’ll see better accuracy and a reduced incidence of human error when you shift your AP processes, sales orders, and purchase orders from human staff to an outsourcing partner’s process automation software. This translates into more efficient processes and savings since you won’t need to spend time taking corrective action on the heels of a newly-discovered invoicing error.

Scalability, Agility, and Additional Resources – When you work with an outsourcing partner specializing in sales orders, purchase orders, and processing other invoicing and financial documents, you are at an advantage when it comes to agility and rapid scalability. When your business needs to hire additional staff to meet an up-scale in demand, an outsourcing partner can reallocate its resources toward your projects whenever needed. This is great for companies that require rapid scalability and agility for their accounting processes. Some businesses see seasonal fluctuations in demand, making outsourcing an excellent option for these companies.

How Do You Decide to Handle Processes In-House or Outsource

Deciding whether to handle AP, SO, and PO processes in-house is a highly individualized decision that will vary from business to business. It ultimately comes down to the numbers for most companies. Does deploying process automation technology in-house and hiring additional staff makes sense financially?

Or does it make more sense – financially, strategically, and operationally – to outsource to a third-party service provider specializing in processing these critical financial documents? You’ll need to consider the cost of developing and deploying the technology, the cost of training staff, and the expenses associated with hiring additional staff to meet demand as your business grows and evolves.


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