Keeping tabs on all the invoices and purchase orders accumulating at a single car dealership can be challenging, but now imagine what an automated accounts payable workflow looks like for dealerships that represents multiple brands, maintains showrooms and repair shops in multiple locations, sometimes spread across a larger region or an entire state, and where several departments interact with the accounts payable team.
Luckily, there’s a solution that can really help get the accounting engine of a dealership roaring, no matter its size or how spread out its operations are. It’s called paperless Accounts Payable automation software.
Most automotive dealerships looking into automating their AP processes describe a long list of pain points. Fist, they deal with too many paper copies, which forces them to spend time and money on shipping documents around. Second, they then need to find a solution for storing and properly shredding the sensitive information. Third, they talk about the difficulty finding documents during audits, and finally they lament a lack of accountability from management. The issues go on and on. In a nutshell, there is a situation of too much paper and too little time.
Not having the information you need to approve and pay invoices leads to several unnecessary problems in daily accounting operations. The AP team - and by extension the entire business - suffers from a lack of visibility. As the old saying goes, you can only manage what you measure, so having to shuffle paper invoices triggers several unpleasant consequences. Coding errors occur when humans manually key in amounts whether for invoice processing or accounts payable reports. Paper invoices go missing, especially with multiple storage locations, and will inevitably lead to missed payments and all the complications that come with them (think late fees and squandered opportunities to reap early-pay discounts offered by certain vendors). Also, staff spend extra time handling emails from vendors who want to know when they’ll get paid.
Leveraging paperless accounts payable software saves time and money
A premium AP Automation platform can take care of all these problems in your manual process with one swoop. It’s the best solution to collect and ingest paper invoices and documents from all the various dealership locations in a timely and most efficient manner while simultaneously storing them in the cloud for effortless approvals, searches and even audits.
Cloud-based Yooz, for example, saves its automotive customers on average 80 percent of their processing costs and cuts down cycle time from weeks to days from developing a unique paperless AP workflow to suit their individual needs through every step. It creates a whole new level of transparency and visibility that profoundly changes the way a dealership does business from procurement-to-payment without forcing its team to climb up a steep learning curve from receiving all the new information or being stumped by the advanced technology.
Getting started takes little time. In fact, AP pros will usually be off to the races in about an hour and able to use their favorite browser or even mobile device. Even dealerships with a large geographical footprint have been able to accomplish the transition to a paperless world in a matter of months, simply by integrating Yooz into their existing Dealership Management System (DMS).
Don’t take our word for it. Several large dealerships are driving their bottom line with Yooz’s smart, powerful AP Automation solution and they all report outstanding results when it comes to efficiency, cost savings, ease of use, and overall team satisfaction with our paperless AP automation software.
Going paperless snuffed out a wildfire accounting process at Go Auto
Equally enthusiastic about moving to a paperless, cloud-based AP automation solution powered by Yooz is Shelley Duggins, AP manager for Canada-based Go Auto. It has the largest automotive inventory in Canada (12,000+ vehicles listed) and is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. Go Auto represents 21 auto brands at more than 40 dealerships, multiple repair, and service centers, as well as several reconditioning facilities, in-house finance and insurance departments.
“The sheer volume of inventory and all of the parts and services that go along with it resulted in a payables process that was daunting and simply unmanageable” according to Duggins whose AP group of 12 processes more than 17,000 documents a month. “We had a wildfire accounting process. Most of our work came from Parts and Service, and we had no efficient way of providing managers with reports that made sense, were current, or even accurate”.
When the company decided to automate its AP workflow with the goal of “getting a divorce from paper,” it selected Yooz because it was the only cloud-based AP automation solution that offered clear advantages for their business to transition to a digital system:
- Seamless integration with its DMS by CDK Global meant no hiccups in their workflow.
- Complete and transparent visibility into the invoice approval process.
- Ability to customize and scale as their business keeps growing.
- Easy to learn and use, no matter if the AP staff member is new or experienced.
Closing the month used to take five days at Go Auto, but now that time has been reduced to hours. “We’re meeting our targets, the information is correct, and we can move right into the accruals stage”, says Duggins about the smooth transition to Yooz’s paperless AP automation software. The implementation of a paperless invoice approval system has significantly streamlined our processes and improved efficiency.
No longer chasing managers for invoice approvals at Peterson Auto Group
Finally, there’s Peterson Auto Group’s experience in Boise, Idaho, United States. With its multiple dealerships, the AP team had to manually process invoices and cut around 2,500 checks a month, but only after the General Managers and Department Managers had approved every expense. Before Yooz, their previous workflow for invoice processing was neither simple nor streamlined.
“We’d have to physically take the invoices from store to store or email them and hope that they didn’t get overlooked”, explains Patsy Price, Director of Operations at Peterson. “Once a week, we’d do a ‘round robin’ to get the General Managers’ signatures on checks. One day, the stack would go to one manager, the next day to another. Our process felt a lot like herding cats”.
Price can point to a slew of efficiency gains and cost savings that happened once Yooz was implemented and how it empowered Peterson Auto Group to shift all its dealerships to a paperless AP process:
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Entering an invoice used to take about five minutes, with automation it takes 15 seconds or less.
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Invoice approval dropped from an average of 45 minutes per invoice to just 5 minutes since invoices are now sent out for electronic signature before funds are electronically transferred.
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Paying bills now takes only about 15 minutes per day.
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The cost associated with cutting checks also dropped from about £4 per check to just £1, a savings of nearly £3,600 a year.
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Inquiries from vendors about invoice status can be answered instantly with a simple search in the browser, instead of consuming an hour’s worth of time hunting for paper copies.
With so much power under the hood, it’s no wonder that more and more auto dealerships are choosing Yooz. When it comes to paperless AP automation software, it’s simply the best way to do more with less.
Streamline Your Operations with Yooz: The Leading Choice for Accounts Payable Paperless Software
Yooz offers unmatched efficiency in revolutionizing Accounts Payable Process Automation, making it the top pick for P2P transformations. Utilizing AI, Deep Learning, and RPA, Yooz achieves an impressive 80% automation rate for invoices without any prior configuration. Its real-time AI capabilities, combined with simplicity and extensive business functionalities, set it apart from competitors. With rapid implementation requiring just one hour and an intuitive interface, Yooz ensures seamless adoption without extensive training. Catering to every aspect of the P2P process within a unified platform, Yooz boasts a vast clientele base and extensive document processing experience. Its adaptability is evident through seamless integration with over 250 native connectors across 44 countries, facilitated by a team of over 150 experts. Yooz's commitment to innovation, backed by significant R&D investment and numerous scientific publications, ensures it remains at the forefront of automatic document processing. Trusted by top accounting firms globally and recognized with prestigious awards, Yooz solidifies its position as the premier choice for P2P automation. With seamless integration with ERP systems, Yooz emerges as the epitome of efficiency in Accounts Payable Paperless Software.
