If you're like most people, you rely on GPS to get you where you're going quickly and safely. Whether on your phone or built into your car, GPS works in the background — adjusting your route for traffic, road changes, and unexpected detours — giving you turn-by-turn guidance to keep you on course.
But GPS doesn’t work without you behind the wheel. You have to set your destination and stay in control of the journey.
The same goes for accounts payable compliance. When there’s strong internal controls in place, automation can be used to make compliance easier and more reliable.
The winding road to compliance
The road to accounts payable compliance is full of twists and turns. There are always new regulations, tax laws, and industry rules to follow. It only gets more complicated when your business crosses borders. Plus, the global push to digitize payment processes has introduced more fraud and the need for stricter security standards.
Here are some requirements to watch in AP compliance:
- General Accounting Principles (GAAP)
- Tax laws, regulations, and reporting
- Financial standards including Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
- General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)
- Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws
- Industry-specific standards, such as HIPPA
Internal controls put you in the driver’s seat
Internal controls are the policies and procedures that drive your AP process. Think of them as lines in the road that help you steer your processes in the right direction. Having strong controls in place reduces risk, lightens the load for AP teams, and makes audits a whole lot easier.
By focusing on three key areas — obligation to pay, invoice capture, and payment — internal controls bring accuracy and transparency to every step of the payment process.
Focus on these internal controls to strengthen compliance:
Segregation of duties: Think of this as setting user permissions in your GPS! It ensures no single person controls the entire AP process. One employee enters invoices, another approves them, and a third handles payments. With multiple stakeholders involved, there’s lower risk of fraud and errors.
Oversight and audits: Regularly monitor compliance activity to catch discrepancies early and ensure your compliance stays aligned with ever-changing regulations.
Training: Keep your team on the right path with regular training. Understanding why internal controls matter makes it easier for employees to follow them and helps spot any gaps along the way.
Adapting and improving: Continuously evaluate and adjust your internal controls to keep up with your business growth and regulatory changes.
AP automation shifts your compliance up a gear
Once you have strong internal controls set up, automation steps in to guide you toward compliance. Like a reliable GPS for your AP operations, helping you navigate changing regulations and steer away from risk.
Automation builds on your internal controls, knocking down tasks with speed, accuracy, and transparency. It replaces manual compliance tasks with intelligent workflows and checkpoints like built-in approvals, automated compliance checks, and detailed audit trails for transactions. Every payment follows compliance protocols and meets regulatory standards.
Here’s how AP automation keeps your compliance journey on track:
Regulatory compliance: Automated systems enforce approval workflows, maintain complete audit trails, and run compliance checks to ensure every transaction aligns with industry regulations.
Audit readiness: No scrambling before an audit. Automation generates detailed transaction histories, making it easy to demonstrate compliance and respond quickly to auditor requests.
Tax compliance: Accuracy in invoicing and payments simplify tax reporting, reduce errors and ensure proper recordkeeping for regulatory submissions.
Fraud prevention: Automation acts as a vigilant co-pilot, flagging duplicate invoices, unusual payment activity, or suspicious transactions. With real-time alerts, companies can mitigate financial risks before they escalate.
AP automation helps you navigate the compliance landscape, knowing your processes are efficient, accurate, and audit-ready.
Like GPS, AP automation is all about the technology
When you choose your GPS, you look for the latest in technology. The same should go for your technology. Advancements in AP automation have made compliance easier and more reliable than ever. Here are a just a few:
AI, of course!
AI-powered automation enables up to 99% touchless invoice processing–without errors and according to compliance standards. By capturing and processing invoice data like header info and line items, AI helps ensure every transaction meets regional formatting and regulatory standards.
e-Invoicing is more than a requirement.
Governments worldwide are mandating digital invoices to protect consumers and reduce fraud. When invoice creation, delivery, and management is automated and centralized on one platform, it’s easy to monitor and manage global e-invoicing requirements to meet compliance standards.
Cloud-based archives and documentation.
Compliance means acting fast on regulatory audits, which requires access to documents and transactional information on demand. By storing your AP documents in the cloud and automating archival, they’re secure and easy to find.
Real-time reporting and analytics.
AP automation delivers instant access to invoice, payment, and expense information. You can generate custom reports—compliance concerns and just about anything else—to identify potential fraud, support internal audit efforts, and maintain full visibility into your AP operations and status.
ERP integration to bring it all together.
Just like your GPS gives you the whole picture, integration with your ERP system centralizes all of your data and reporting to keep you on course for compliance across jurisdictions. Information flows smoothly between systems to give you better financial oversight and accurate reports that align with regional regulations.
AP automation helps businesses stay on the compliance course with confidence, reducing risk, improving efficiency, and ensuring financial accuracy every step of the way.
See ahead on the road to compliance
Don’t just react to compliance requirements. Navigate them proactively. Internal controls put you in the driver’s seat, while automation gives you the guidance you need to stay ahead of challenges, avoid mistakes, and have a smooth ride.
Book a Quadient AP demo today.
Jill brings over 15 years of industry experience in financial services marketing. She is a passionate and motivated digital marketing professional with extensive experience in multi-channel marketing with a proven record of driving results for growing and established financial services brands like American Express, Billtrust, Heartland Payments Systems, and CAN Capital. Jill is experienced in planning and executing integrated marketing campaigns across channels: web, content, paid media, email, influencer marketing, social, SEO, and events.