4 Common AP Headaches (And How to Fix Them)
The advantages of selecting the right technology have never been more apparent. As a result, high-performing management companies and HOAs are analyzing their operations and looking for weak links – areas ripe for automation.
Year after year, demand for HOA accounting solutions like FRONTSTEPS Accounting (aka Caliber) grows as management companies invest in software to streamline daily tasks so they can focus on serving their communities.
Yet, many community associations still wrestle with HOA vendor payments. The extra hours required by manual accounts payable processes quickly add up and heighten the risk of burnout for community managers – already pulled in many directions. Is accounts payable a weak link in your HOA accounting process?
Here are four signs your organization is ready for a smarter approach to AP, courtesy of our partners at AvidXchange:
- You’re still processing paper invoices – perhaps the single greatest time savings comes from moving invoices online. Clients report a 10x time savings in the invoice-to-pay process by moving the full process to the cloud.
- Approvals are a long and windy road – do invoices quickly get to the right approvers, every time? If invoices are getting circulated around the business, you are creating work for multiple people that could be solved through automation with a solution like AvidStrongroom.
- Your audit trails are incomplete – do you have a complete record of payments to each vendor at your fingertips? Are period over period comparisons a snap? How about finding the history for a disputed payment? If any of your details get lost to history, and you can’t follow the money, your accounts payable process needs an upgrade.
- Your vendor payments processes aren’t remote-friendly – it has become difficult to call ‘work from home’ a trend. It appears to be a reality. Yet many organizations are not equipped yet to empower their staff to work from anywhere. If processes such as accounts payable can only be completed at the office, that is both inefficient and a drawback for talented staff who value the flexibility of remote work.
Housing growth is roaring back after a downturn, with new starts up roughly 17% year over year in the latest Census data. With demand for services projected to rise and staffing shortages still rampant, this is a crucial time to identify weak links and invest in the tools needed for growth.
FRONTSTEPS and AvidXchange provide a complete solution for HOA accounting, accounts receivable, and accounts payable that meet these growth opportunities head on.
