How to streamline accounts payable with document management: 7 Steps

Manual AP is a constant bottleneck.

Your team is buried under stacks of paperwork, constantly chasing approvals, and manually keying in data, which slows everything down.

I’ve seen this before: late payments strain supplier relationships, and the risk of human error exposes you to compliance headaches.

According to a recent IFOL report, 63% of Accounts Payable teams now spend over 10 hours weekly just processing invoices. These inefficiencies directly impact your bottom line.

But what if you could end these manual workflow frustrations? A smart document management strategy is the key to taking back control.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to streamline accounts payable with document management. We’ll cover seven actionable steps for a smoother process.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to cut processing costs, eliminate frustrating errors, and free up your team for more valuable work.

Let’s get started.

1. Centralize invoice storage to eliminate fragmentation

Tired of hunting for scattered invoices?

When invoices live in emails, shared drives, and paper piles, your team wastes precious time just finding documents.

This fragmentation makes it impossible to get a clear view of liabilities, often leading to costly duplicate payments or missed discounts.

DocuClipper reports that 68% of businesses still manually key in invoices. This process stems from having no single source for payables.

This disjointed approach creates unnecessary financial risk. But there is a much better way to manage your documents.

A central document hub changes everything.

A document management system provides a single, secure digital repository for all your incoming invoices, instantly eliminating fragmentation and creating one source of truth.

This gives your team instant, role-based access to any invoice from anywhere, drastically reducing search time and delays in your accounts payable workflow.

This is a foundational step for streamlining accounts payable with document management. For instance, you can tag every invoice by vendor, date, and PO number, making retrieval happen in just seconds.

Consider it your AP team’s command center.

By centralizing your files first, you build the organized foundation required for true automation and gain complete visibility over the entire payables process.

Ready to build your AP command center and gain complete control over your payables? Start your FileCenter FREE trial today and experience true centralization.

2. Digitize invoice processing for error-free entry

Tired of manual invoice entry errors?

Keying in data by hand is slow and invites mistakes that can easily disrupt your entire accounts payable workflow.

As volumes increase, it becomes harder to maintain accuracy, leading to payment delays, missed discounts, and extra reconciliation work for your AP team.

An IFOL report shows 60% manual invoice entry persists. This bottleneck still causes significant problems for many finance departments.

This reliance on manual work is a major barrier, but there is a clear solution to this challenge.

Digitize your entire invoice processing workflow.

This means replacing manual keying with automated systems that capture invoice data directly, which significantly reduces the chance of human error.

You can use software to automatically scan and populate fields. This simple change eliminates tedious tasks and frees up your team.

For example, you can set up rules to validate data against purchase orders. Streamlining accounts payable with document management this way ensures accuracy before an invoice ever enters your ERP.

This builds a foundation of reliable data.

This ensures your records are consistently accurate, which is key for creating the secure approval workflows and audit-ready records I’ll cover next.

3. Automate data extraction with OCR technology

Is manual data entry a bottleneck?

Keying in invoice details is not just slow; it’s a source of costly errors and strained supplier relationships.

The real issue is that one simple typo can cause a major payment delay. This human error becomes more frequent as invoice volumes grow.

Stripe notes OCR reaches 98–99% page-level accuracy, yet still requires validation. This manual step consumes valuable team hours.

This cycle keeps your team stuck. It’s time to explore a more automated approach.

This is where OCR technology helps.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology automatically scans and extracts key data from your invoices, eliminating the need for manual entry from the start.

It intelligently captures vendor names, invoice numbers, and all line-item details. This automation drastically reduces human error and significantly accelerates your processing times.

This is how you streamline accounts payable with document management. The software reads an invoice, extracts the data, and populates the fields in your system automatically.

Think of the time you will save.

By automating this critical first step, you free your team to focus on strategic validation and approvals, not just tedious data entry.

4. Create secure approval workflows for faster processing

Your approval process feels like a roadblock.

Manual routing and follow-ups cause delays, risking early payment discounts and straining vendor relationships.

When invoices get lost in email chains, payments get held up unnecessarily. This directly impacts your company’s cash flow and creates friction with important suppliers.

IFOL found that 66% of finance professionals project full AP automation by 2025. This shows how vital automated approvals have become for efficiency.

These bottlenecks are a major hurdle, but there’s a more streamlined way to handle invoice approvals.

Automated workflows are the direct solution.

A document management system lets you create custom approval chains that automatically route digitized invoices to the right approver every time.

This ensures invoices never get lost in an inbox and are processed according to your specific financial controls and multi-level approval hierarchies.

You can set rules to automatically escalate invoices over a certain threshold for senior review. Effectively implementing these rules is crucial for streamlining accounts payable with document management.

This removes all the guesswork.

Ultimately, this accelerates your payment cycles and creates a secure, transparent audit trail you can rely on for every single invoice you process.

5. Apply compliance controls for audit-ready records

Audit season should not be a scramble.

Yet disorganized records and manual processes often turn audits into a nightmare, exposing your business to serious compliance risks.

I’ve seen teams waste weeks hunting for invoices, hoping everything is in order and nothing critical is missing from the trail.

IFOL reports that Two-thirds of IFOL respondents want full automation for audit readiness. This clearly shows a shift toward proactive compliance management.

This manual approach creates unnecessary stress. There’s a better way to prepare your records for scrutiny.

Document management systems simplify compliance.

By applying automated controls, you can create a complete, unalterable audit trail for every transaction from its receipt to final payment.

This ensures every action is tracked, time-stamped, and linked to a user, so you always have clear accountability and visibility.

You can set role-based permissions, automated retention policies, and secure workflows, which are essential for streamlining accounts payable with document management and meeting standards like SOX or GDPR.

Your records become audit-proof by design.

This proactive approach transforms audits from a reactive fire drill into a routine, stress-free check on your perfectly organized financial processes and controls.

Ready to transform your audits from a nightmare to a routine check? Start a FileCenter free trial today to create unalterable audit trails and ensure stress-free compliance.

6. Integrate systems for seamless payment tracking

Your systems might be working in silos.

This disconnect makes real-time payment tracking nearly impossible and creates frustrating blind spots for your team.

When data doesn’t sync automatically, your team is stuck with manual reconciliations. This introduces a high risk of payment errors, damaging supplier relationships.

A report from DOKKA found 61% of small businesses now use AI for integrated invoicing. This shows how crucial connected systems are becoming.

Without integration, you’re left guessing statuses. It is time to connect your platforms for true visibility.

Integration is the key to seamless workflows.

By connecting your document management software with your ERP or accounting system, you create a single source of truth for all payment data.

This ensures that once an invoice is approved, the payment data syncs automatically. This eliminates manual entry and reconciliation for good.

For instance, an approved invoice in your DMS can trigger a payment record in your ERP. This is an essential step for streamlining accounts payable with document management.

This creates a truly touchless process.

This approach not only saves your team significant time but also provides real-time visibility into your cash flow and strengthens financial controls.

7. Monitor processes and optimize continuously

Is your AP process set in stone?

If you set up a new system and forget about it, you will miss valuable chances to improve your workflow.

Without regular performance checks, old habits can return. I often find that workflows slowly become inefficient again, erasing the hard-won gains you achieved.

A recent survey found 42% of respondents expect full automation within a few years. This proves ongoing improvement is the new standard.

This continuous effort is critical to avoid stagnation. So, how do you maintain your momentum for lasting success?

Your document management system holds the answer.

Use built-in analytics and reporting tools to track key metrics like invoice processing time, approval cycles, and overall error rates.

You can review these reports quarterly to spot new bottlenecks. This data-driven approach reveals where your team is getting stuck or needs additional support.

For instance, you can set up automated alerts for overdue invoices. This proactive approach is fundamental to successfully streamlining accounts payable with document management.

This turns monitoring into an active strategy.

This continuous feedback loop ensures your AP process not only improves but also adapts perfectly to support your company’s ongoing growth.

Conclusion

Manual AP is holding you back.

When your team is buried in manual tasks, late payments and compliance risks become a constant source of stress for your growing business.

The market’s expected 12.8% CAGR through 2030 proves this trend isn’t slowing. Staying ahead is no longer optional; it is essential for survival and scalability.

These steps are your path forward.

The seven strategies I’ve shared provide a clear roadmap to eliminate frustrating bottlenecks and reclaim control over your payables process.

Learning how to streamline accounts payable with document management is the key. You’ll transform AP from a cost center into a strategic asset for your enterprise.

Pick one step from this guide and apply it this week. See the immediate difference it makes for your team.

You’ll gain efficiency and peace of mind. Ready to gain this efficiency and peace of mind? Start a FREE trial of FileCenter to instantly transform your AP from a cost center into a strategic asset.