When it comes to keeping on top of vendors, many businesses can struggle to manage multiple different areas of international supply chains. For most industries, good vendor management is built on accounts payable (AP) efficiency and a seamless overview of suppliers. Automation technology is helping to bring unprecedented efficiency to age-old supply chain silos that hamper many vendor relationships.
Managing multiple vendors can be a significant challenge for businesses with international supply chains, but emerging technology is helping to build bridges beyond age-old barriers to drive more comprehensive management solutions.
The forecasted growth of the AP automation market illustrates the rapid pace in which the wider supply chain management industry is growing. With the global accounts payable automation market value reaching $3.85 billion in 2023, the sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.2% between 2024 and 2031 to a value of $7.8 billion.
But how will automation technology help to improve supply chain and vendor management on a comprehensive level? Let’s take a deeper look at how the technology is helping to provide more control for enterprises throughout the supply chain:
Next-Generation Vendor Management
Traditional vendor management processes have been hampered by silos that impact supply chain efficiency, transparency, and compliance throughout chains.
This has led to a brand new emphasis on utilizing technology that can help offer a more holistic overview of vendors and facilitate better management and timely payouts.
While international supply chains can make the structure and maintenance of vendor relationships more challenging, payout automation technology is helping enterprises align their financial systems to automatically generate and manage invoices and provide real-time financial reporting to aid decision-making throughout the supply chain.
Automation as a Time-Saving Tool
The beauty of automation is that it’s a leading time-saving tool for staff, capable of undertaking repetitive tasks, handling risk-management processes, and flagging issues that need immediate human attention.
With the development of supply chain visibility tools, enterprises can access real-time insights into partnerships with third and fourth-party vendors.
These tools can actively manage vendors and offer bespoke reporting capabilities for in-depth insights. Crucially, real-time vendor payouts can be actioned based on autonomous invoicing to help strengthen vendor relationships and manage compliance on an ongoing basis with a level of detail that human staff would be unable to keep up with.
Invoice Generation
As we’ve already touched on, one of the biggest advantages of automation technology in vendor management stems from the ability to eliminate human error in the invoicing process.
AP automation offers many benefits for enterprises, and financial departments can begin processing invoices in a matter of minutes with greater accuracy and little risk of data oversights that could result in inaccuracies throughout the process.
Using AI to identify the metadata to match invoices to purchase orders and receipts, automatic invoicing can help maintain a level of trust and transparency between enterprises and vendors throughout the supply chain. As a result, all parties can enjoy better time efficiency and more accuracy when it comes to payouts.
Borderless Expenses
This technology can also help to manage spending when working alongside international vendors. For enterprises with remote employees collaborating with vendors beyond borders, the same tools can be used to issue virtual cards to more accurately manage expenses overseas.
With cards capable of being tied to multiple currencies, employees can visit vendors or build in-person connections with every area of the supply chain while managing their spending through specialist cards tied to the company’s account balances.
As a result, enterprises can undertake unprecedented spending oversight and control, helping to fully manage the more opaque areas of supply chain management and maintaining vendor relationships.
AI for Relationship Management
The artificial intelligence boom will take AP automation and vendor management to new frontiers in a way that can help maintain positive relationships throughout the supply chain.
Utilizing facets of AI like data analytics and natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence solutions can streamline vendor management processes while helping to bring more accuracy to the procurement and maintenance of relationships.
The emergence of natural language processing, in particular, will become a strong asset in communicating effectively in every area of the supply chain in a fast, accurate, and reliable manner. The technology will be capable of adapting to cultural and regional language variations overseas to communicate with suppliers on a more personable level throughout the chain.
Supercharging Supply Chains
Automation is helping to take vendor payouts and supply chain management to new frontiers. With the ability to accurately generate invoices, provide rich overviews of all chain components, and maintain natural relationships with vendors, the potential for automation is limitless in terms of industry voracity.
By embracing automation, enterprises can access the full potential of their vendor relationships and nurture them regardless of the complexity of their supply chains overseas.
