Transform your bills payment process with Weel

6 ways that automatic bill payments transform your accounts payable process

The average Australian business spends 567 hours annually on general financial admin, including processing supplier invoices, paying supplier bills and chasing up outstanding payments. So, imagine the difference it would make to your efficiency if you could automate your bill payments and let the software do the majority of the heavy lifting.

Automatic bill payments is just one of the time-saving new features of Weel, your one-stop-shop for expense management and online control of your spending.

The challenge of paying your suppliers

Nurturing your business relationships is a key part of running a successful business. If you want to keep your suppliers on side, you’ve got to agree on mutually beneficial payment terms, process their invoices quickly and ensure you pay these bills on time and in full.

But the accounts payable process is a complex one, with multiple points where errors can occur, process roadblocks can happen and outstanding bills can be missed and left unpaid.

For example:

• Payment is an overly complex process – the accounts payable (AP) process is fractured across multiple tools which aren’t properly integrated and don't talk to each other effectively. It currently takes approximately 40+ clicks and 24+ hours to pay a single bill.
• Data entry is time-consuming – your finance team employees spend a significant amount of their admin time manually entering invoice data into the invoicing system. This eats into the day and keeps them away from higher-value tasks.
• Workflows are specific to each business – every company has its own unique AP workflow. The tools offered today force you into using a one-size-fits-all workflow, an approach which require inefficient and error-prone workarounds
• Only the finance team can pay bills – staff members are reliant on the finance team to process their supplier invoices, even when that employee is responsible for the budget and the procurement process – adding an unnecessary step to the payment process.
• AP and card expenses live in different systems – dealing with expenses and payment via different platforms is problematic. Understand how spending is impacting your cashflow, budgets and burn rate is only possible once your end-of-month reconciliation and reporting is done.
• Cashflow management is tricky – optimising your cashflow position is critical for any business to succeed. But today's invoicing tools don't make it easy to understand which suppliers need to be paid, and when, making it hard to achieve optimal cashflow.

How Weel's automatic bill payments save the day

Coping with these everyday accounts payable hurdles isn’t just frustrating – it’s also holding back the underlying efficiency of your finance team and the business as a whole.

But, don’t worry, help is here in the form of Weel. Our all-in-one online expense management solution is the answer to your accounts payable challenges. Not only can you issue virtual credit cards to employees and run your entire expenses process in the cloud, you can also benefit from our new automatic bill payments functionality. 

Key benefits of automatic bill payment include:

1. Automatically create, code, approve and pay bills all from one simple tool - Weel. Say goodbye to ABA files, clunky integrations and emails for good
2. Share an email address with suppliers and watch as Weel automatically extracts the invoice data and pays the bill for you.
3. A workflow builder that automatically routes bills through your unique code, approve and pay system, based on the bill amount, owner and budget. 
4. Enable your staff to process their bills while staying in complete control via budget limits and a real-time tracker. Get notified about anything that needs your attention
5. Bring your bills together with your card transactions and get complete visibility of your budget progress, in real-time.
6. Set a scheduled payment date for a bill and then forget about it. Weel automatically batch-pays bills at the time you’ve specified and handles any overdue bills. These automation benefits optimise your cashflow while keeping suppliers onside.

With automatic bill payments ticking away in the background, Weel becomes like an extra virtual member of your accounts payable team – increasing productivity, reducing errors and giving you the best possible oversight of your budgets, spending and cashflow.

Book a Weel demo and start automating your AP processes