How to Increase Job Satisfaction and Reduce Stress for your Accounts Payable Staff
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur
AP Recognition Week is an annual opportunity to show appreciation toward our unsung heroes in the finance department: the accounts payable employees who every day focus on making sure bills get paid promptly and accurately while keeping suppliers happy.
Their work is behind the scenes, but AP is essential to managing vendor relationships and your company’s overall financial success. And sometimes the job is stressful.
So how do you keep your AP staff feeling more satisfied and less stressed?
Let them contribute to higher-impact, strategic projects
Traditionally, accounts payable employees spent much of their day manually recording payment information – and then having to double-check it for errors. But there’s no need for that anymore. For example, payments automation frees up your AP staff’s time, allowing them to focus on more valuable, strategic tasks. Consider an AP employee who is commissioned to create a report based on your company’s spending data and recommend ways to improve the company’s cash flow. Not only is that employee adding value, you’ve helped make their role more interesting and rewarding.
Give them ownership of their work
Along the same vein, AP employees should be encouraged to recommend changes and make decisions – and be accountable for those decisions. Research shows that employees who have autonomy in their work are more productive, satisfied, and innovative. Once again, a cloud-based AP automation tool can provide your business with a treasure trove of data and analytics that provide great visibility into their spending. Your AP staff can use this data to identify efficiencies and savings. Empower them to do that.
Invest in the right technologies
Millennial and Gen Z workers are avid users of technology in their personal lives, and they expect employers to embrace technology as well. When it comes to your AP Processes, consider what technologies can benefit your company overall while making your employees’ jobs easier and more rewarding. From mobile to machine learning, tools are now being incorporated into AP solutions that provide an unprecedented level of convenience and insight. (Download this white paper to find out more about how machine learning and AI are revolutionizing AP.)
Provide the right tools and resources
Information is power. Offer your AP employees access to the latest tools and resources to help them perform their jobs. SAP Concur has created a resource page dedicated to helping AP staff. In celebration of AP Recognition Week, don’t just pop the champagne bottle. Find meaningful ways to show your AP employees they are a valuable part of your team.
Want to learn more about how to strengthen your company’s AP processes? Join our webinar on Wednesday, October 10, at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern. Accounts payable experts Landon Bickel of SAP Concur and Justin Reynolds of American Express will lay out the top five challenges AP professionals face and reveal actionable ways to solve them.