[Music] hey everyone mark brousseau here the sudden shift to remote working has completely disrupted the way that many accounts payable departments do things these days adapting manual and semi-automated invoice approval processes to a remote working environment well it's downright hard some ap departments have been forced to choose between established checks and balances and simply getting suppliers paid as a workaround many accounts payable departments are now routing invoices for approval via email moving forward the question these ap departments need to ask themselves is whether email routing of invoices is a workaround that's truly working the fact is is that routing invoices for approval via email may introduce more problems than it solves email routing doesn't provide chain of custody assurance it doesn't ensure separation of duties it doesn't provide visibility into the status of invoices it doesn't allow ap managers to know where things stand in the process it doesn't provide audit logging of all the actions taken on an invoice and you can never be sure whether your staff is working at peak efficiency a better option is to automate your invoice processing with a cloud-based solution that allows you to digitally route invoices to approvers whether they're across town or across the globe approvers can take action on an invoice using any device at any time from any location alerts notifications and escalation procedures keep invoice approvals flowing no matter where staff work ap managers can use dashboards to see the status of an invoice at any point in time so they can take proactive action to head off bottlenecks and reporting allows you to ensure that your staff is operating at peak efficiency so don't settle for workarounds that may not be really working if you want to make the best of your work from home environment it's time to automate your invoice processing with a cloud-based solution