Optimizing the P2P process: the impact of AP Automation beyond Accounts Payable

Automating invoice processing brings multiple benefits, including enhanced productivity, improved local and global compliance, and cost and time savings. While the advantages for the Accounts Payable (AP) department are well recognized, it is crucial to understand how AP automation significantly improves the P2P process, benefiting procurement, supply chain, and other business functions, including approvers who play a key role in ensuring efficient invoice validation and approval cycles.

Understanding the difference between AP and P2P processes

The terms AP process and P2P process are often used interchangeably, but they refer to distinct functions within finance operations:

• Accounts Payable (AP) process: Focuses on processing invoices and payments for goods and services received. Key traditional activities, such as invoice matching, validation, and approval workflows, are now shifting with AI and automation technologies, leading to greater efficiency and reduced manual intervention
• Procure-to-Pay (P2P) process: Encompasses the entire lifecycle of procurement and payment, from identifying a need, creating purchase requisitions, issuing purchase orders, receiving goods, invoice processing, and final settlement.

With this distinction in mind, let’s explore how AP automation strengthens the P2P process, optimizing workflows across multiple departments.

How AP Automation Optimizes the P2P Process

Modern AP Invoice Automation solutions have a profound impact on the P2P process, improving operational efficiency, strengthening compliance, and significantly reducing manual tasks. Extending beyond traditional Accounts Payable functions, these solutions leverage AI-driven automation to optimize workflows, ensure seamless financial operations, and enhance transparency and control.

Below are key areas where automation delivers transformative results:

1. Streamlining requisition and Purchase Order (PO) processing

In certain instances, companies may require flexibility in placing orders, bypassing the standard requisition process. In cases where the invoice precedes the creation of a purchase order (PO), the AP team may spend extra time investigating. AP Automation tools such as Cevinio’s offer a solution by enabling a specific workflow that efficiently routes invoices to the appropriate team for PO creation. This not only saves valuable time but also enhances financial oversight.

Takeaway, what this means for you and your team:

• Routing invoices to the appropriate team for immediate PO creation.
• Reducing time spent on manual invoice tracking and approvals.
• Enhancing visibility and control over financial commitments within the P2P process.

2. Automating Receipt Processing

Ever received an invoice before the goods? Often, suppliers send invoices while goods are still in transit. Without AP automation, the team must manually check goods receipt notes (GRNs) and contact logistics. Automation changes this—P2P teams can relax as a workflow monitors GRN status daily until it is in the ERP system. If the expiry date nears, your AP automation tool triggers an escalation, preventing late payments and supply chain disruptions.

Takeaway, what this means for you and your team:

• Workflows track goods receipt status in real-time within ERP systems.
• Automated notifications escalate pending receipts, ensuring timely processing.
• The risk of late payments and supply chain disruptions is significantly reduced.

3. Enhancing supplier master data management

Ensuring accurate supplier information is crucial in the P2P process for smooth invoice processing, timely payments, and positive supplier relationships. However, mismatches or missing data can lead to lengthy interactions between the AP team and other responsible department(s). Cevinio addresses this by notifying the teams when the details are not right, improving the efficiency and accuracy of the process.

Takeaway, what this means for you and your team:

• Alerting procurement teams to missing or incorrect details.

• Facilitating seamless updates to vendor records in the ERP system.

• Reducing manual interactions between AP, procurement, and other involved teams.

4. Resolving invoice discrepancies efficiently

Price and quantity discrepancies between invoices and POs often lead to time-consuming back-and-forth communication, causing invoice processing delays and late payment fees. Cevinio resolves this with workflows that support delegations and escalations, preventing additional expenses for the company.

Takeaway, what this means for you and your team:

• Intelligent workflows that identify and escalate mismatches automatically.

• Supporting collaboration between procurement, supply chain, and other teams.

• Preventing late payments and other additional costs through proactive issue resolution.

5. Enabling smarter P2P decision-making with analytics

AP Invoice Automation solutions provide AP teams with strategic data to support continuous process improvements, enhanced vendor management, and data-driven decision making, all contributing to an optimal P2P process. The Cevinio Analytics Suite offers in-depth visibility into invoice processing, helping teams track key performance indicators, detect bottlenecks, and gain actionable insights to enhance efficiency. 

Takeaway, what this means for you and your team:

• Identify cost-saving opportunities.

• Strengthen supplier relationships through better payment predictability.

• Enhance cash flow management through improved forecasting.

AP Invoice Automation is more than just an efficiency tool for invoice processing—it’s a strategic enabler that enhances compliance, streamlines workflows, and provides greater financial control across the entire P2P process. By minimizing manual tasks, improving data accuracy, and leveraging analytics, AP teams can make more informed decisions while ensuring timely payments and optimizing cash flow.

Beyond Accounts Payable, automation has a far-reaching impact across procurement, finance, and supply chain teams. Let’s zoom in and explore how automation is transforming these functions, creating a more connected and efficient financial ecosystem.

The role of AP Automation in procurement efficiency

AP Automation not only streamlines different AP processes but also has a positive ripple effect across the organization, particularly in the procurement department. By improving efficiency, accuracy, and data visibility, AP Automation empowers procurement to make better decisions, strengthen vendor relationships, and optimize the overall procure-to-pay process as we just saw. Key areas where AP Automation enhances procurement processes.

1. Strengthening vendor relationships and negotiation: Reach better payments terms and conditions as AP Automation streamlines the invoice process, eliminates manual errors, reduces the time it takes to process invoices, and helps avoid time-consuming communications and lack of visibility. This leads to improved accuracy, timeliness in vendor payments, and higher transparency. Prompt payments and efficient communications channels strengthen relationships with vendors, enhance your reputation, and may encourage suppliers to provide better service and pricing.
   
   Takeaway: with smarter, faster and error-free invoice processing, businesses can:

   • Secure better payment terms and pricing from suppliers.

   • Improve relationships through timely payments and transparent communication.

   • Reduce supplier queries with real-time invoice tracking portals.

2. Data-driven insights for strategic sourcing: AP automation generates dashboards with valuable data on vendor performance or invoice accuracy, to name but a few advantages. This data can be leveraged by procurement teams to identify areas for cost savings, negotiate better deals, maintain good relationships with suppliers, and make strategic procurement decisions.
   
   Takeaway: Procurement teams can leverage AP automation-generated reports and dashboards to:
   

   • Monitor supplier performance and invoice accuracy.

   • Identify cost optimization opportunities.

   • Make informed procurement decisions based on real-time financial data.

3. Enhanced collaboration between AP and Procurement: AP automation can integrate with other enterprise systems, such as ERP and procurement platforms, enabling seamless data exchange and collaboration between departments. This integration streamlines the overall P2P process and improves efficiency.

Furthermore, when AP and procurement work together closely, they can ensure that invoice processing improves over time, for example by defining internal policies that enhance compliance. By minimizing exceptions in this way, you reduce costs, and improve cashflow leading to a virtuous cycle of faster and more efficient AP invoice processing. This may then help you initiate discussions with suppliers for better prices and/or terms. 

Enhancing supply chain optimization through AP Automation

P2P processes have an important role to play in the supply chain, ensuring a smooth and efficient flow of materials and services from suppliers to your production or distribution processes. In order to promote a healthy ongoing collaboration between AP and your supply chain, there are some best practices: 

1. Improving supplier communication and transparency: Advanced AP automation tools provide additional functionalities to contribute to enhanced relationships with your vendors. For example, Cevinio provides a supplier portal where suppliers can log in to check the status of their invoices. This has many benefits. It saves time on the supplier side as well as for your AP team; it improves productivity; it enhances process transparency; and it deepens mutual collaboration. Such a scenario is a win-win for all parties as your AP team sees a sharp fall in the number of supplier queries, and your suppliers are more confident about the invoice handling process. Your supply chain will benefit from solid provisioning.
   
   Takeaway: benefits of supplier portals:

   • Increased supplier confidence in payment processes.

   • Reduced administrative workload for AP teams.

   • Stronger collaboration between suppliers and internal teams.

2. Automating new supplier onboarding: new supplier, no problem. Do you recognize this? An invoice is received before the vendor is created in the ERP system. What’s next? In fast-moving global supply chain teams, it is not unusual to start receiving invoices from new vendors before the vendor record is created in the ERP system. This causes invoices to be blocked in the process for further processing. To prevent this from happening, the Cevinio AP Automation system provides you with a workflow to route these invoices to the person or team responsible for creating vendors in the ERP system. The task will automatically be directed to the right person to action, saving manual handling and chasing on the AP side.
   
   Takeaway: AP automation resolves this by:

   • Routing invoices to the appropriate department for vendor creation.

   • Automating approvals and minimizing manual processing time.

   • Ensuring seamless financial operations within the supply chain.

This level of automation is particularly critical in industries such as manufacturing and construction, where supply chain efficiency directly impacts production timelines, costs, and overall operational success. In these sectors, delays in invoice processing or supplier onboarding can lead to material shortages, project slowdowns, or increased costs.

Conclusion: The Future of the P2P Process with AP Automation

Incorporating AP invoice automation technology requires a holistic consideration of benefits for the entire company and functions beyond AP.

Ready to optimize your P2P process with intelligent AP automation? Contact our sales team today to learn how Cevinio can support your finance transformation journey.