It doesn’t seem like this process should take a great deal of time, but when it is done by hand, using paper and pencil, there is a lot of room for unnecessary delay and confusion.

For most companies, invoices are approved as they come in. At the end of the month, the finance department should inventory all their invoices and process them at the same time, if possible. This is where invoice approval workflow software, such as we offer at Comindware, can really come in handy.

Benefits of Approval Workflow Software

This software provides you a single place where all elements of the approval process are managed. Many of these software suites make it easy to automate the importation of invoices. This saves a ton of time and makes the processing of multiple invoices at the same time far easier.

These systems allow you to create unique processes that fit the needs of your business. Not only does using this type of software save time, but it also creates a more transparent and solid process for approving invoices. The software allows you automatically import a wide range of data, which saves data entry time and reduces the likelihood of human error. This creates a more transparent and efficient means of managing invoices.

This software can also make the process safer and more transparent. These suites of software allow you to create permissions and approval steps that must be completed in order for the invoice to move to the next link in the proverbial chain. This helps to ensure that all invoices are managed quickly and efficiently and that all relevant parties have access to the information they need to approve an invoice and send it on.

This will help to ensure the timely payment of invoices, which will be greatly appreciated by your vendors. It also makes it easier for you to track business expenses and to ensure the efficient use of business funds.

How to Create a Solid Invoice Approval Workflow Process

The first thing you need to do is create a template for your invoices. This is where you will document all information and data about a given vendor. This will require a great deal of data collection, but once a good template is in place, creating a new invoice for approval is incredibly simple.

Not all invoices have the same approval process. Small items like office supplies may have fewer people in the approval chain than those purchases that are more significant. You will want to create a detailed process for the approval of different invoices.

You can create a workflow process that takes the conditions required for approval for a given process into account. It can also provide relevant parties with information as to where the invoice needs to go after they’ve done their part.

Since you can set different conditions and terms, you can ensure a quality chain of approval that is more transparent and efficient than when done manually. For example, some areas of the invoice may be read-only. This means that only a certain party is able to actually change or alter portions of the form.

This reduces problems and provides an additional layer of security to your invoice approval process. Since this is where money is flowing out of a company, we want to ensure that it is as accurate and secure as possible.

In Closing

Electronic invoice approval processes are vital to ensure the timely payment of vendors and the ability to audit and manage the funds that go out of your business. Manual process not only take a lot longer than something electronic and largely automated, but it also leaves a lot of room for human error, which can cost the business. It is time to move away from manual invoice management.

High-quality invoice approval workflow systems make it easy to create a unique process for the completion of the workflow approval process. It gives all relevant parties access to the information they need to approve the process and provides a trail that shows each and every step taken. With automatic notifications and the ability to collect large amounts of relevant data easily, the invoice approval process will become more simple and efficient than ever before.

The post Quick Guide to Electronic Invoice Approval Process appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

Just think about the world around us. We are advertised pretty much everywhere we turn. On our phones, visiting a website, or driving down the highway, we are bombarded with advertisements and other marketing messages.

With this inundation in mind, it is also important to learn how to use your marketing skills to stand apart from the proverbial crowd and build branding equity. You have to make people actually want to see what you are all about via your marketing policy.

The Value of Data

There are so many aspects of our business operations that are tightly managed. We have detailed processes and likely use a wide range of technologies to manage and streamline these aspects of our business. But we often fail to do this with our marketing campaign and this is a mistake.

The data we can glean from metrics of those who visit our website and the demographics of those who have shown interest in our product or service is invaluable to deciding where to put your marketing dollars. Especially if these dollars are limited, you want to make the best use of them.

Using the data, you gather to target your marketing is a key.

The Marketing Workflow

Many of us are familiar with the concept of a workflow. This is a step-by-step breakdown of a given task. However, most of us don’t associate these techniques with marketing and it can be really valuable.

Low-code software like Comindware’s workflow management software makes it easy to create customized workflows to help better manage your marketing campaign. Through this software, you can use the data you gather to make smarter marketing decisions about when, where, and how you reach out to potential customers.v

While some aspects of marketing may require creative pursuits like writing ad copy, much of it can be broken down into steps like a traditional work process. Some of this software will allow you to automate certain parts of your marketing cycle, such as when new content is submitted or uploaded.

Boosting Leads Through Efficiency

The use of workflow software to enhance your marketing campaign and improve your lead generation capabilities can have a dramatic impact on the amount of business you get. Some suites of software have powerful AI tools that can help you generate leads and manage a database of consumer information with ease.

With this software, you can automate many aspects of your social media, posting of articles and other content, and the unveiling of new marketing campaigns. Having this automated will help ensure that you have timely and meaningful engagement with potential customers.

Workflow management software can make it easier for relevant parties to access marketing data and the ability to communicate with other parties, such as content creators and the like.

The ability for all relevant parties to access the data and workflow processes and share content and other relevant information across the marketing team.

These suites of software can be tailored to the exact needs of your company and a given marketing campaign. Making use of these tools in your marketing campaign might not be an obvious thing to do, but it can really streamline your marketing campaign and also help you to get your product or service in front of the people who are most interested in your products or services.

In Closing

Marketing is something that we fail to properly address at our business peril. You can have the most innovative and cutting-edge product or service in the world – far better than any competition – and your business will still fail if nobody knows your name. You have to utilize marketing techniques to get your product or service in front of those who may have an interest in it.

No matter how large or small your business is, you can benefit from a solid marketing camping and benefit even more from utilizing workflow software in the said marketing plan. Low-code workflow management software makes it easy to automate certain elements of your marketing campaign, such as automating social media posting. Workflows help bring all information into a single space that all relevant parties can share information, look at data, and communicate with ease.

The post How to Boost Lead Generation with Workflow Software appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

What’s the solution for reliable travel request management?

The way out of the challenges discussed above is the automation of your travel request approval workflow. In other words, you need a HRM software that could track your employees’ travel requests with ease and a high degree of accuracy. Consider choosing online solutions for automation of a request management process, which ensure better system availability and lower maintenance cost.

From the time a travel request is created, to the time it’s approved, an online travel request system will control the entire process. It will ensure that there is no room for errors and then speed up the process. As a result of using an automated business travel request form, you can expect the following advantages:

• Pre-defined approval patterns and notifications
• Reduce the costs related to late travel request approvals
• Enforce logical travel policies
• Easier tracking of employees’ travel patterns
• Regulate and rectify your travel request approval workflow
• Meet your legal requirements.

It is usually easy to automatically approve your travel request. As long as certain requirements are met, the approval process is easy and quick. First, make sure that the corporate travel management requests for estimated travel expenditure from the employee who wants to travel. Second, ensure that the stated travel expenditure is lower than the maximum allowed cost. Finally, the travel advance requested by the employee should be lower than a pre-set value. If there is a condition that is not satisfactory, your travel request management should receive the travel request.

The travel request process

• The requester submits a travel request.
• The manager in charge reviews and approves the request.
• The request is received by the rules driven management department for further review.
• Final approval is done
• Notifications are sent.

After the corporate travel management approval process pushes through, the team responsible for making travel arrangements will be consulted. Then the finance department will provide the requested travel advance. It is not all travel requests that are approved fast. Those requiring international travel might be vetted twice. Still, there may be employees in your company that doesn’t have to be approved before they travel. For instance, senior management staff could travel without further delay. If there are late travel request submissions, further consulting to know why this happened might be done prior to approval.

Building your travel request approval workflow

1. First, you should make travel request capability accessible to all employees. But if it’s only members of a certain department that travel often, you should assign access to travel request to them only. Just specify the lists of people who can use the travel request feature.



2. Next, ensure that you have well-designed business travel request form for employees. It should have blank spaces where users can add their names, travel details, project details, itinerary, accommodation needs and ticket costs. Users’ travel ID and traveler’s name are automatically updated via software formulas. Itinerary details are so imperative, especially data on departure and return dates, travel allowances, accommodation and so on.

Business travel request form template created with drag and drop simplicity in a workflow software by Comindware.
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3. Third, you should define your travel request workflow. The best workflow should follow the process/steps we enumerated above. The software is already set to carry out all the steps effectively and send notifications at the end. Visibility permissions of the business travel request form should also be configured. By default, the whole form should be seen by all users. But the approvers could view it in a read-only format.

As for the expenses section, access and visibility could be granted only to the travel team, although “book tickets” option should be shown to users. Finally, you should publish the travel request workflow so it can be seen by all the designated people within the company.

Benefits of automated travel request approval workflows

Companies or HR departments which automate approval request processing usually report the following benefits:

• Effective travel requests collection and routing.
• Easy task hand-overs.
• Convenient management of related data and documents.
• Easy approval status tracking for both requestor and workflow stakeholders.
• Ability to evaluate workflows performance and optimize them.

In a nutshell, travel approval request automation significantly increases the accuracy, transparency, and handling speed of your business travel related workflows.

What to do now?

If you are ready to automate your travel request management with Comindware Tracker. This workflow management software makes it easy to create business travel request forms and processes travel requests in an error-free and quick manner, allowing you to save time and money. So, you should request your 30-day trial period from us now.

The post Travel Request Management in Comindware Tracker appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

This is a common area that people fail to give proper emphasis to. Just think about the typical office space. It has tons of computers, computer accessories, printers, copiers, phones, speakers, projection equipment, and so much more. Failure to properly manage all these assets can lead to bottlenecks and lost time.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common problems people have with their IT asset management and how they can be fixed.

Poor Early Planning

Especially when it comes to new and smaller businesses, IT asset management is something that often falls by the wayside. Even if you have just a few employees, this is a mistake. Chances are, you are looking at ways to manage workflows in other areas of your business and IT asset management should be no different.

You have to consider that your company is going to grow and therefore, start your management from the very beginning to ensure you streamline your processes. This will help reduce chances of repeated expenses and other issues that arise when there isn’t a good accounting for all the devices and other technological assets of a company.

Workflow management software, such as the low-code solution offered by Comindware, allow you to easily create solid IT asset workflows that can grow with your business.

Poor Asset Management

It is easy to see how money could be wasted on duplicate technology if you don’t have a good accounting for the devices and technology your business has at its disposal. Poor documentation or failure to properly document assets is just as bad as having no asset management plan at all.

To add to all this chaos, many of our devices come with warranties or may be repaired, rather than replaced. You miss many money-saving opportunities by failing to document the various warranty plans your technology falls under. Documenting what can be repaired as opposed to replaced can also help save you money and ensure proper working technology.

The key to fixing this failure is detailed and solid documentation. And this isn’t a one-time process. Each and every time you add a new technology asset to your business, you will need to document it. You will need to denote whether it is under warranty and if and where replacement parts can be obtained.

No Paper Trail for Audits

Failure to have an IT asset management plan, or having a subpar plan can cause problems in the event you need to audit any area of your business operations. During an audit, expenses and assets may be an important part of the paper trail.

If there is no paper trail, or it is a trail filled with holes, it is difficult to audit a situation to determine what went wrong or how a process may be improved. Auditing can be an important part of business operations and may be required by the state or federal government.

If you find yourself in the middle of an audit without a proper IT asset management plan, you will regret it. Using things like low-code workflow software allows you to create workable solutions. With this software, you can create IT asset management plans that are detailed and regularly updated.

This will ensure that whenever you or someone else needs to perform an audit, the information needed will be current and easily accessible.

In Closing

No matter what business we are in or how small our company is, a solid asset management plan, whether it is for technology or other business resources, helps reduce wastage, redundancy, and makes it easier to perform an audit. It might not seem like we need to track our assets, especially if we are a small company, but this is a huge mistake. No matter the size of the company, a good asset management plan is imperative.

Workflow management software can simplify this process by giving you the tools you need to create a largely automated asset management plan. This can be a detailed plan that is regularly updated. It will include basic information, as well as information about warranties or repair information. This helps you improve efficiency, keep track of assets, and avoid pointless expenditures.

The post Asset Management Workflow Problems and Solutions appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

Common Issues with Contract Approvals

Most often, contract approvals are still done manually. Any process that is done manually will be less efficient than those that can be automated using the software. When you manage your contract approvals manually, other involved parties may not have access to any information about the approval process. What this does is leave important parties out of the loop and unsure of where in the process of approval a given contract is. Some contracts and processes are more important than others. When they are done manually, vital time can be lost.

Another problem with doing this manually is that there is often missing information. When you automate something, you have a solid trail that allows for an audit after the fact. When you do these things manually, this isn’t the case.

Using procurement management and automation solution allows you to streamline and increase the efficiency and transparency of the process. CMW Lab low-code workflow management software makes it easy for to build your own procurement management solution quickly and make sure that every element of your procurement process is managed properly and work flows effectively. Countless companies around the world use this software to streamline and improve the transparency of the procurement process.

Benefits of Automation

The procurement process, or the process whereby materials and resources are gathered, is one of the most important parts of any business. It is what allows you to provide timely and reliable service to your clients or customers. Automated processes make this entire process far more efficient and streamlined. Software that provides a dashboard for all relevant employees allows all parties to see where in the process a contract approval is. They can get vital information about the processes and use this information for future strategic planning and business goals.

Today, transparency is incredibly important in any type of business. You need to have the ability to document the entire process of a contract or procurement. With a dashboard, you can see where in the process the contract is and whose desk it is sitting on. This lets you know who to contact if you need to speed up the process.

Not only does transparency help guide the approval process and make it go more quickly. It also allows for auditing. Most processes have room for improvement and the ability to track a contract from start to approval can give you an idea as to where you can improve efficiency and reliability.

Many suites of software have drag and drop features that make the entire process visual and allows parties to see how the flow of the approval works. A visual representation of the process gives all parties involved the ability to see how every step works. This makes it easier to understand where in the approval process a given contract is. It can also give administrators and other ideas of how to improve efficiency and reduce the time it takes to approve procurement contracts.

Get your procurement contract approval workflow and other processes automated with drag-and-drop simplicity.

In Closing

Some parts of business operations are fundamental to the running of the entire business. The procurement process is just one of these fundamentals. All companies need resources and materials to operate, even if what they provide isn’t a tangible product. This means that there will be contracts with suppliers, utility providers, and the like. This is a process in itself and hiccups in this process can slow down business and reduce the efficiency of the entire operation.

Manually handling procurements or other contracts is an archaic and inefficient way to handle these processes. It isn’t transparent and it can make the process take a lot longer than it needs to be by creating unnecessary bottlenecks. Software suites such as those offered by CMW Lab, allow a business to increase the efficiency and transparency of the procurement process.

With this software, you can completely automate the process. There is a dashboard that all relevant parties can access where they get a visual understanding of the entire process, who is involved, and where in the process each contract is. This can let employees know who to contact to move the process along or to find ways that the entire process can be improved and made more efficient. Having this trail of activity makes it easier to audit and further improve this process.

The post Procurement Contract Approval Process appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

What is Release Management?

Release management is a subfield of process management that is rapidly growing in importance. This is a process by which every aspect of a project is laid out and monitored to help better control the building of a given process throughout all stages of development.

With the growing importance of and reliance on web applications and software suites of varying sorts, we need better ways to manage complex processes that may change as our business becomes larger or more sophisticated.

Basically, with a release management process, you are able to improve the efficiency of a project by prioritizing the most important elements, facilitating the release of information, and managing any resources that are needed, whether a process is in development, testing, or is about to be deployed.

Software suites like Comindware’s Software Development suite allow you to easily update projects that are ever-growing in complexity. It also allows for the inclusion of additional stages in the development process and more easily collaborate with parties across different departments as well. The workflow management software allows you to remain flexible in an ever-changing environment.

Many managers want to know how to implement release management into their workplaces, so we have collected five of the best tips we’ve been able to find.

5 Tips for More Effective Release Management

1. Make Sure You Focus on Infrastructure

Making sure that the infrastructure you plan to use during the release of a new process should be one of the first things you have your team focus on. It helps to know in advance when building a new interface or another process, the elements and structures you want the finished product to have in place and go ahead and work on this.

It can really slow things down if, at the end of the development cycle, you find areas of the infrastructure that you failed to properly consider or plan for.

2. Have A Regular Release Cycle

It is important to have a cycle for releasing a new process or project that is regular and where all the stakeholders understand the process. Having a regular way of managing processes can help simplify the rollout and keep everyone on track.

When you have a regular release cycle, people have plenty of opportunities to discuss, collaborate, and still stay on task for the release of the process. It also creates a timetable and a routine for everyone to follow and gives your customers or clients the peace of mind that you will get the process developed and rolled out in a timely manner.

3. Have Realistic Expectations and Solid Goals

Your team needs to know when a process in development is vital so they understand that they need to put their best effort into it. All members of the team should go into a release management process knowing what is expected of them and when. If the importance of the project is made clear and everyone knows what their role is and the schedule they will need to follow, it is easier for everyone involved to get the process complete, properly, in a timelier fashion.

4. Understand the Importance of People

While software and technology are important, it is vital that you remember just how important the people who use the software are. To get the most out of software or techniques to improve release management processes requires a team of people who understand the goal, can communicate well and can deliver when they need to. No matter how much technology you have and use, this will always be of the utmost importance.

5. Use Automation and Standardization

The more elements of a process you can automate the less you have to rely on your team to perform redundant and time-consuming tasks. Having a standardized process makes it simple for team members to learn the steps in a given process and reduce confusion.

When you can automate, you improve efficiency, reduce the likelihood of error, and free up team members for more important tasks. Creating solid standardization will help ensure that processes remain consistent.

Using best practices and good software when working to improve your release management process will help ensure that new development and roll-out will take less time and run more smoothly.

The post 5 Tips for Effective Release Management Process appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

While it might seem like these protective measures are enough, today’s threats are far more sophisticated and complicated and that means you need a more complete security assessment to ensure that you are as protected from potential threats as possible.

What Isn’t Basic Security Enough?

If all you have in place are basic precautions, your business is still prone to attack. It isn’t enough just to have a basic firewall and require employees to use anti-virus software. You need a solid information security risk assessment process in place to have a flexible plan in place to protect all aspects of your business from threats.

We hear about major data breaches all the time and not only does this reduce customer trust in your ability to protect their information, but it can also leave you at risk for lawsuits and the like. This happens to major businesses that have far more available resources at their disposal to protect themselves against threats, so where does that leave a small- or medium-sized business owner?

Think about it. not only do small businesses have far fewer resources to protect their information and data, but they are also far more vulnerable to lawsuits, as they are less likely to be able to incur the costs and fees. This means the cybersecurity threat assessment process is not only vital to protecting data and networks, it can also keep your business from ending up in court over a data breach.

Not only are small businesses easier targets because they lack resources, but they are also easier targets because they tend to have systems far more vulnerable than those of large corporations.

What is a Security Assessment?

Security assessments refer to regular tests of the preparedness of a company against potential threats. This might mean looking for areas that may have vulnerabilities, as well as coming up with fixes to any potential issues that are discovered.

When you regularly revisit your security protocols and test your systems for weakness, you ensure that your security is kept up to date.v

Some may want to go beyond an in-house assessment, and if you have the money, you can pay a third-party company to test your systems and find any potential weaknesses or problem areas in your security protocols.

Why Businesses of Any Size Need to Consider Security Assessment

The sad fact is that most data breaches and other security issues are a result of human error. Something got overlooked in the development process and a security threat made its way into a live system.

Today, more and more businesses rely on third-party software, such as Comindware Tracker, which can help aid in the process of conducting security assessments. The software can be used to help track, automate, and streamline the security assessment process, ensuring that your information, data, and processes stay protected, and also save time in the process.

In Summary

Compliance requirements are also regularly changing and failure to properly comply can lead to fines and other headaches. By regularly revisiting security assessment protocols, you can ensure that they also stay updated with the latest changes in compliance reporting.

There are also always new and evolving security threats that regularly assessing your security measures can help you stay on top of.

With the use of a security review and security testing, you can help keep your business safe in the face of ever-changing threats to data and network security. Proper security assessment entails regularly reviewing your security protocols and using in-house or third-party testing to find any potential areas of weakness and address them.

The ability to find vulnerabilities before they can be exploited can save a company a lot of time and effort. It can also help keep the company current with the various and rapidly-changing rules of compliance reporting as well.

The post What is Security Assessment Process and How Does It Works appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

In today’s incredibly competitive environment, any sort of “leg up” is vital to success. Highly successful businesses, in any industry, are those that are flexible and adaptable to changes in technology and even the way people interact to perform their daily work. To create the successful work environment of the future, one must take into account these new technologies and determine how they can best be implemented into one’s specific business process flow to provide the best results.

Tomorrow’s workplace

One of the most difficult, but also most important, parts of business planning is determining what one thinks the future of the business will hold. While, of course, many aspects of this cannot be accurately predicted, some trends give us a good clue as to at least some of the changes we can expect.

An area of change that we can pretty accurately assume will be the norm of the future is the digital workplace. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have had to learn how to do their job remotely, from home, and this requires the use of new technologies that can allow for this to happen. Additionally, business process management and workflow automation technologies are sophisticated and powerful tools that can streamline various business processes, utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence, along with the ability to manage basic data entry and other repetitive tasks.

This calls for employees that are flexible and able to learn new skills and technologies as they are introduced into the workplace. A dynamic workforce that can change with the needs of the time is imperative to the successful business of the future.

Design workflow apps and digital workplace with drag and drop simplicity and adjust them with easy when needed.

Decentralized centralization

The name of this section may, at first, seem to make little to no sense, but stick with us for a minute. With an increased reliance on technology and remote working, the future of business will be one the one hand largely centralized. What this means is that there will be a core of the business where all processes are managed and assigned, as well as the main work hub that employees will do their work. The decentralized part refers to the employees.

As the pandemic has shown many of us, the business can often be run remotely and there are many practical advantages to doing so. In the future, many expect more and more job positions to be done remotely, from home, meaning that employees are decentralized in their literal location as they do work, but they are centralized in that they are all working in the same workspace, managed by the same group of people.

While this will present some challenges and, of course, a learning curve, it is the direction more and more businesses are moving towards. The workspace that people can access remotely needs to be comprehensive and adaptable as well. Workflow technologies and other automation tools that can integrate with other software can help reduce the number of different applications that must be run to complete a process, further simplifying things.

We must embrace automation

A lot of businesses have successfully integrated at least some automation software into their business, most often in areas where manual data entry is key. However, as artificial intelligence and machine learning improve, automation software can handle more and more complicated tasks. Machine learning tools, as the name implies, learn over time from performing various business processes, making them more like a fellow employee than simply a piece of technology.

As these tools continue to improve, they can handle more complicated and sophisticated tasks that reduce the need for manual human entry and management and can free up human employees for more creative and innovative pursuits within the company.

In summary

As the way we work continues to evolve, business owners and managers have to find ways to adapt and stay ahead of the proverbial curve. While the future of business cannot be predicted, there are some aspects of it that we can prepare for, such as the increased use and reliance on automation technologies and the digital workplace. These tools will help create a sophisticated and powerful workspace that allows employees to manage their tasks, even if they are working remotely. Workflow management software can help a lot with quick business processes automation and building a foundation of a digital workspace that would boost your employees effectivity, whether working in the office of remotely.

The post Digital Workplace and Advanced Workflow Capabilities appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

• Do you often need to approve a purchase?
• Does it cause delays when someone is on vacation or out of the office?
• Have you tried to use purchase management software and been disappointed?
• Do you still exchange files by email instead of using traceable online items for each purchase?

If you have answered yes at least twice, we have good news for you: you’re about to discover an online solution that can finally streamline your purchase request approval process, get rid of manual errors correction, and make your work transparent and more efficient.

Comindware Tracker finance management solution allows creating web forms for purchase requests with drag-and-drop simplicity and provides a template for the purchase request approval process. The template includes the workflow and the business rules for automated purchase request management. Here is how this workflow template looks like:

“…purchase requests with an amount lower than N go for approval to the purchasing manager, whereas requests with an amount larger than N go to the purchasing director. Or, purchase requests for different types of goods are approved by specific managers…”

You can use this purchase request form template for quick start and adjust it according to your needs.



Role-based access to the workspaces makes it possible to share specific parts of work data with specific employees. The strict rules of the purchase request approval eliminate the possibility of unapproved purchases. The streamlined automated request requisition approval process reduces paperwork and sends notification to relevant team members at the right time.

With online automated purchase request approval workflow you never doubt whom you need to go with your request for approval, you don’t need to ask someone: the request goes to the right person, carried by Comindware Tracker finance management solution. This reduces time to process requests, eliminates mistakes and speeds up your work. Even more, Comindware Tracker is more than just purchase request software and empowers business to start from purchasing department automation and easily scale the first success by automating workflows in other functional areas.

Save time on formalities, clear your agenda for more meaningful activities rather than paperwork.

Comindware Tracker finance management solution comes with a set of templates for different financial activities and you can try all of them for free during 30 days. You are one click away from obtaining your trial keys for the product.

The post Purchasing Department Software appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

While this seems simple on its face, it can get a bit more complicated than that, especially when large or digital payments are involved. Inefficiency is often rampant in accounts receivable departments because so much is done by hand or manually entered and people have to keep track of who knows how many accounts. Managing paper invoices or even trying to manage a digital system manually leaves a lot of room for error and inefficiency. One of the ways that companies are improving this area of business is through the use of accounts receivable business process automation technology.

Ways that automation software can benefit the accounts receivable business process.

Paper invoices are still alarmingly common but that is likely to change in the future. Not only do paper copies require more in the way of physical resources for storage, but they often require people to manage, send, and file them as well. It is easy to see, especially the larger a business is, would leave open the door to error and inefficiency. This is why so many businesses are digitizing as many aspects of their business as possible since it streamlines operations, reduces time spent on manual data entry tasks, and also reduces the likelihood of human error.

There is a huge range of automation software tools that work for any and every aspect of business operations. These are so helpful and effective that many companies find that these technologies pay for themselves in a remarkably short period.

Due to the nature of the department, accounts receivable is one of the most important parts of any business. The faster and more efficiently a business can receive payment for services rendered and resolve the account, the better. This usually involves sending out payment invoices, processing payments, and resolving accounts as they are paid off. For accounts receivable, invoice processing is one of the main and most important tasks, this is how a business gets paid for the products or services they provide their customers.

Tips for improving the efficiency of the accounts receivable process.

• Simple invoicing: one problem that businesses fall prey to is putting too much information on an invoice. Invoices need to be simple and as short as possible so the customer is clear what the payment required is and when it is due. This information needs to be clearly and prominently visible. Confusing invoices can create payment delays and thus make it take longer to resolve an account.
• Accounts receivable invoice processing should have an automated reminder. Many automation software suites give you the option of sending out an email or text-based reminders to customers in advance of when their payments are due. This simple reminder can reduce the number of late payments significantly.

• Incentives to pay early or in full: many companies will provide a financial incentive to customers who resolve their accounts early or in full, rather than making payments over time. This is a great way to encourage customers to completely resolve their accounts in a more timely manner. Determining some sort of discount for early or in full payment is a great way to help resolve accounts faster and more efficiently.
• Don’t let past due accounts fester. The longer it takes to get payment from someone, the more likely it is that they won’t end up paying in full. You don’t want to keep a lot of past-due accounts active if at all possible. This means that you need to stay on top of your accounts receivable business processes to ensure that unpaid accounts aren’t slipping through the proverbial cracks. Contacting past-due customers via phone, mail, or electronic communication can be an effective way to get an overdue account resolved in a more timely fashion.
• ACH and same-day payments can make a difference when it comes to resolving accounts receivable invoice payments. This means that the money comes out of a customer’s account the same day that they pay their balance. ACH payments are payments that are automatically withdrawn from the customer’s bank account on an agreed-upon day of the month, meaning they don’t have to remember to pay their bill since it is done automatically.

In summary

An efficient and well-managed accounts receivable department is part and parcel to a successful business. It is this department that manages payments that come into the business through the sale of products and services. There is a lot of work involved in the accounts receivable process and many can be dramatically improved through the use of a workflow automation software that can send out automatic reminders to customers, clear invoices, and manage automatic payments. This software can help you resolve accounts much more quickly, with less room for error, and can also help you reduce the number of past-due accounts as well.

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