As organisations embrace the race to the cloud, the speed of change is ever-increasing, and the diversity of innovation is evolving rapidly.
In this digital age, it seems organisations would be quick to embrace a technology that not only increases productivity but also enhances the visibility of cash obligations and positions, reducing fraud and improving accountability, compliance and reporting. However, as digital transformation advances, organisations which previously considered themselves mature now realise they are not where they need to be.
Many organisations rightly focus on getting the core cloud digital transformation aspects of the business process right. Healthcare, insurance and financial services are leading segments in digital transformation – due in part to the complex regulatory spaces in which they operate.
When it comes to technology, though, the landscape is much more complicated than it used to be, and many people are struggling to digest the options available. Vendors are wrestling for bandwidth and a key issue is lack of leadership in a cross-functional environment. Without this, companies are failing to generate traction as fast as they need.
Documents of monetary value are the lifeblood of any business. Yet organisations tend to overlook the fundamental importance of transactional documents and the interconnected relationships that underpin the commercial input and output of their operations.
Legacy, disconnect, gaps and a lack of integration, control and visibility between systems and practices for payables and receivables has a negative effect on not only the ability to make better and smarter decisions but also successful customer outcomes.
Cash is king, and every payment has an associated document. There are two key points here:
• the first rule of getting paid is to get your invoices right
• smarter cash decisions begin with an approved invoice.
Cloud collaboration, recipient-based, personalised, dynamic presentation and distribution of transactional documents, combined with a touchless invoice management capability, is a powerful fusion of functionality to give businesses a competitive digital edge – what we call 360° financial document automation.
Bottomline’s intelligent 360° financial document automation solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365 can bring full-spectrum benefits across the organisations’ documents of value. That includes strengthening relationships with customers and suppliers, gaining an understanding of cash position, improving cash management and lowering the cost of doing business by securely and efficiently powering mission-critical business transactional documents. Put simply, we help businesses pay and get paid.
Finance departments are often viewed as a cost centre, and every year they are pressured to do more with less, to reduce costs and drive profitability. A recent study from the Institute of Finance and Management found that Accounts Payable departments saw on average a 28% year-on-year growth in invoices processed, as well as a 12% drop in headcount.
On top of that, finance departments remain challenged by a blizzard of financial documents. And they’re managing those documents with manual processes that introduce risk and limit the speed, accuracy and controls that are critical to the department’s success.
Most organisations, and certainly those in the Microsoft community working with Dynamics, are transforming the way they manage their businesses; taking advantage of the step change in technology capabilities we have seen in recent years.
Documents are no different in this respect. However, the challenge is to change the way you think about your business transactional documents. Digital documents don’t have the same constraints as paper and are a fundamental element of digital transformation.
Digital leadership helps transform finance departments and empower 360° financial document automation. It drives efficiency and profitability by increasing speed and reducing errors and risk, eliminating the need to handle every transactional document, and shortening business process cycles.
Mediocrity isn’t an option. With the right solutions, businesses can further extend their capability and drive more value from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) investment. Bottomline’s financial document automation solutions are delivered within Microsoft Dynamics 365 to extend the capabilities of a company’s ERP significantly. Best of all, users continue to work within their familiar Dynamics 365 workspace.
Bottomline is the only Microsoft independent software vendor to provide full 360° cloud financial document automation. These solutions are available on AppSource, meaning we have exceeded all the requirements set by Microsoft.
For many years our customers have trusted Bottomline to provide innovative and powerful transactional documents solutions for invoice automation, collaborative document processing and archive, form creation, delivery and output management – for mission-critical documents of value. They also rely on us for innovation in the form of new and complementary sources of value for their business. We enable organisations to have 360° visibility and control over their business documents, integrated payables and working capital.
Payments and documents are at the heart of every business, but the landscape is changing rapidly. Open Banking, the New Payments Platform, regularity compliance and directives all make it challenging for businesses to get it right. At Bottomline, we insulate our clients, remove the complexity and future-proof them against the inevitable changes ahead.
John Rodgers is regional director, Australia and New Zealand at Bottomline Technologies Asia Pacific
This article was originally published in the Winter 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issues delivered directly to your inbox.