Revolutionizing AP: How to Fully Automate Your Accounts Payable in 2025
MHC Team 
June 27th, 2025
Accounts payable (AP) is at the core of your organization’s functionality. Your AP team touches your business operations in areas from cash flow management to fraud prevention to vendor relations. That’s a role too important to be handled with outdated, manual processes, especially with all of the accounts payable automation tools available in 2025.
In this post we’ll take a closer look at the many functions your AP team is responsible for, and how to select accounts payable automation solutions that boost their efficiency. With input from the MHC team and AP automation expert Mark Brousseau’s new “AP Strategies for Thriving in Uncertain Times” webinar, we’ll guide you to the AP automation software solution that fits your business best.
Table of Contents
- What Are the Biggest Current Challenges in Accounts Payable?
- How Full Automation Helps Your AP Team Solve Key Challenges
- What Are the Strategic Benefits of AP Automation?
- What to Look for in an AP Automation Solution: A Functionality Checklist
- AP Automation in Action: A Real-World Customer Story
- How to Choose an AP Automation Solution
- Learn More about Automating Accounts Payable from MHC
- More Resources for Choosing the Best AP Automation Solution
What Are the Biggest Current Challenges in Accounts Payable?
No matter your industry, all accounts payable teams face many of the same challenges. Fortunately, most of those common challenges can be solved or simplified with automation. Read on and learn how to automate accounts payable functions and get ahead of challenges including:
❌ Manual workflows
AP workflows that rely on manual processes for data entry, routing for approvals, and other day-to-day tasks are far more time consuming and far less cost effective than automating.
❌ Cost-cutting
An uncertain economy is pushing AP departments to do more with less. Manual processing often costs $12 or more per each invoice, while accounts payable automation software can cut that to $2.
❌ Regulatory compliance
AP operations are highly regulated, with potential fines and sanctions for noncompliant businesses. Relying on manual data entry and other outdated processes greatly increase the risk of human error and compliance violations.
❌ Limited visibility
Being able to track cash flow and spending at a glance is crucial to AP operations. Manual workflows make that data harder to find and follow, and also make it harder for your team to identify errors and inefficiencies in your process.
“Today, the typical AP department manager spends more time on transaction processing each day, then on managerial tasks like staff development. 84% of the typical accounts payable practitioner’s day is wasted on manual, repetitive tasks. What’s the result? It’s missed opportunities. It’s a high risk of compliance issues and payment fraud. And it’s also the risk of burning our staffs out.” ~ Mark Brousseau, Brousseau & Associates
“Once customers make the decision to upgrade to an accounts payable automation solution, they tell us how amazed they are to look back at how much more work their old systems were by comparison.” ~Gina Armada, former CEO of MHC
How Full Automation Helps Your AP Team Solve Key Challenges
Automated systems are already the norm in most industries. More than 75% of organizations have adopted partial automation, but less than 10% have made the move to a full AP automation solution. That means that 90% of businesses are choosing to operate less efficiently and cost-effectively than they could.
While partial automation is better than none at all, in 2025 it isn’t enough. New technologies and economic shifts have made accounts payable processes more complex than ever before, especially for businesses with high volumes of transactions. Manual processes and outdated software systems simply can’t keep up with that pace.
A lack of visibility into real-time data is another key deficiency of partial automation. Accurate, up-to-date accounts payable data is essential for CFOs and finance leaders to develop strategies and make future plans. AP automation software provides at-a-glance data and deep insights into every step in your process. That’s a deep well of information that creates a more efficient and much faster AP system.
“Only 9% of all AP departments today are fully automated, where invoices flow into the organization, are processed touch-free, and posted directly to an ERP. On the other end, about 5% of organizations are completely manual and paper-based. That means most of us are somewhere in between.” ~ Mark Brousseau, Brousseau & Associates
What Are the Strategic Benefits of AP Automation?
As mentioned above, accounts payable data plays a key role in developing your organization’s financial strategy. By automating AP processes, you can supercharge data analytics while also streamlining workflows for employees and vendors. To find the most effective accounts payable automation system for your business, be sure to take these factors into account:
✅ Reduced Costs
Automated invoice processing lowers costs by improving speed and efficiency across all workflows. That saves money and makes it easier to capture early payment discounts from your vendors.
✅ Improved Cash Flow
An automated accounts payable system with a centralized dashboard allows your team to easily optimize terms of payment and generate more accurate forecasts for cash flow.
✅ Strengthened Supplier Relationships
The improved accuracy and speed of an automated AP system eliminates most of the errors and slowdowns that lead to vendor disputes. Automated tools enable smooth collaboration that builds trust with valued suppliers.
✅ Faster Approvals
Manually routing approvals and tracking down physical signatures eats up time and leaves a lot of room for error. Automated routing cuts down processing time and offers real-time visibility that simplifies financial decisions.
✅ Data-Driven Insights
The real-time data generated by automated AP software serves as an all-purpose information hub. That simplifies strategic planning for CFOs and other financial decision-makers.
✅ Automate Manual Data Entry
AP automation with optical character recognition (OCR) makes it easy to extract line-item data, invoice headers, and other key data from any format. That accommodates all of your vendors, no matter their preferred invoice format.
✅ Fewer Exceptions
Setting configurable business rules for automatic invoice routing eliminates human errors that lead to invoice exceptions. When exceptions do occur, deeper visibility makes it easier to identify and correct the issues that cause them.
✅ Lower Volume of Invoices
End-to-end accounts payable automation with built-in checkpoints throughout increases efficiency and reduces the overall volume of invoices moving through your system.
“Many businesses don’t realize just how inefficient their AP systems really are. It takes so much longer to do just about everything when you’re chasing down signatures and hunting through file folders.” ~ Gina Armada, former CEO of MHC
What to Look for in an AP Automation Solution: A Functionality Checklist
While every AP team has its own individual needs, this checklist covers the basics of how to automate an accounts payable system to reach your business’s specific goals.
✔️ Intelligent Invoice Capture: Extract quality invoice data from any source or platform using OCR and machine learning
✔️ Intelligent AP Workflows: Configurable, pre-built workflows make implementation and maintenance smooth and error-free
✔️ Business-User Configurable Routing: Touchless, straight-through processing allows even non-tech-savvy users to configure workflows to your business rules
✔️ Dynamic Image Retrieval: Automatically retrieve supporting documentation for invoices and payments directly from forms in yourERP system
✔️ Easy-Access Approval Processing: Instantly approve invoices from any device, platform, or workspace, from anywhere in the world
✔️ Interactive Forms: Improve engagement and accuracy with easy-to-use forms for employee reimbursements, payment requests, and other key documents
✔️ Role-Based Dashboards and Reports: Keep a close eye on key areas of AP with user-friendly dashboards and high quality reports with charts and graphs
✔️ Flexible Payment Processing: set approval rules for ACH payments, electronic remittances, positive pay files, and more, all tailored to each vendor’s needs
✔️ Touchless General Ledger Coding: GL-code invoices automatically pulling from past patterns while enforcing ERP-validated GL coding
AP Automation in Action: A Real-World Customer Story
As you’re deciding how to automate accounts payable processes in a way that works best for your businesses, a real-world example may be useful. Let’s look at the case of Missouri-based not-for-profit healthcare organization CoxHealth, which recently automated its accounts payable processes with MHC.
❌ AP Challenges for CoxHealth
- Outdated AP processes offered limited visibility into invoice statuses, slowed down approvals routing, and made processing images difficult and time-consuming
- Check runs were managed by the IT department, limiting the number of runs per month.
- CoxHealth needed a new AP solution that could integrate seamlessly with their existing ERP system.
✅ How AP Automation Solved Those Problems
- AP software from MHC fully automated the invoice approval routing process.
- OCR tools made capturing data and images from any source quick and easy.
- Checks can now be printed on demand.
- Employees have instant access to payroll and tax documents
- Smooth integration with the existing ERP allowed the team to improve processes without a learning curve.
✔️ What Are the Results?
- Average time to process an invoice has dropped by half, freeing up key employees to focus on more productive tasks.
- Invoice volumes increased considerably after new business acquisitions, and the AP team was able to scale processing easily without requiring new hires.
- Self-service options drove a 50% increase in employees accessing W2s and 1095s electronically.
How to Choose an AP Automation Solution
The bottom line is that relying on manual invoice processing and obsolete AP systems leaves your organization at a big disadvantage. Keep these 10 handy steps in mind as your business determines how to select accounts payable automation system that fits your needs.
- Prioritize High-Volume and Rules-Based Tasks
Approximately 80% of AP transactions can be easily automated, but implementing AP automation isn’t an instant process. Start out by focusing on repetitive, high-volume processes that can be easily standardized, such as invoice routing. - Get AP Staff Involved Early
Nobody knows your AP needs better than your AP team. Draw on their knowledge to identify pain points and map workflows. Learn who touches each invoice, at what stage in the process, and for what reason. This makes sure that your solutions reflect your organization’s real-world needs. - Map Out Your Workflows
When you take the time to visualize and draw out every step in your workflow, it becomes much easier to identify problem areas, bottlenecks, redundancies, and other inefficient steps in your AP processes. - Integrate Your Solution with Legacy Systems
Relying on manual transfer of information between teams and systems is a sure path to errors and delays. Be sure that your AP solution integrates smoothly with your existing ERP, accounting systems, and any other finance software you use regularly. - Start Small and Scale Accordingly
When you’re starting out with a new solution, it is always helpful to try it out with a smaller business unit or group of trusted suppliers. That gives your team a chance to make adjustments and address any issues before rolling out your system to all suppliers. - Put Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Use
AI tools are rapidly improving many areas of AP processing, including capturing invoice data, detecting exceptions and anomalies, and routing workflows. Machine learning tools adapt automatically to changes in invoice formats, allowing your process to improve and evolve over time. - Choose a Tech Platform That Works for You
Your AP automation software needs to be the right fit for your business’s specific needs. Select a solution that offers user-friendly and configurable interfaces with flexible workflows. Your solution needs the scalability to grow along with your organization. - Let AP Processes Inform Vendor Choices
Your vendor should offer AP-specific expertise, not a generic, one-size-fits-all approach. Be sure to choose a software supplier with a proven track record in AP automation and an understanding of AP compliance, processes and terminology. - Make Sure AP Aligns with Business Priorities
Your AP solution needs to be in line with overall business goals, including visibility and reporting, risk mitigation, and cost savings. Be sure to build a business case that addresses the interests of your CFO and other finance leaders. - Make Plans for Change Management
Your AP automation solution needs to be usable not just by your existing staff, but also future hires. Offer training for employees of all skill levels that helps your team move from manual data entry to data analysis. Consult with your HR team to develop plans for training and reskilling as needed.
Learn More about Automating Accounts Payable from MHC
For any company doing business in 2025, accounts payable automation is a must. In this article we’ve explored many of the benefits of automating AP processes for your business, your vendors, and your employees. We’ve looked at key areas to consider when choosing the best solution for your organization and how to implement your decision.
If your business is ready to take a closer look at how to automate accounts payable processes, contact MHC today to arrange a free demonstration of our game-changing AP solutions. Our team of in-house accounts payable experts will create a personalized demonstration tailored to the unique needs and goals of your business.
AP AUTOMATION WEBINAR
Do More with Less: AP Strategies for Thriving in Uncertain Times
Wednesday | June 11th, 2025 | 12 PM CST | Zoom
The pressure on accounts payable teams has never been greater. As organizations face continued economic turbulence, finance leaders are under intense scrutiny to cut costs, tighten controls, and do more – with fewer resources. Join AP expert Mark Brousseau in our free webinar as he reveals the key AP strategies for thriving in uncertain times.
AP AUTOMATION SOFTWARE
Discover Our Accounts Payable Automation Solutions
Simplify the processing of invoices and payments while reducing costs, errors, and time-consuming tasks with MHC NorthStar. Explore the features and book a free demo today!
More Resources for Choosing the Best AP Automation Solution
As proven experts in AP automation, MHC offers a wealth of resources for organizations interested in improving accounts payable processes. Check out our selection of AP-focused webinars, customer stories, guides, and blog posts.
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Team MHC
Team MHC consists of a multitude of roles, functions, and expertise within MHC. With extensive combined experience in accounts payable and customer communication management, Team MHC has a unique insight into how to empo wer people using solutions that streamline processes while enhancing customer communication. Working alongside field experts in various industries and company sizes, Team MHC has garnered impressive thought leadership knowledge that we are excited to share with our readers. Including Aragon’s 2022 Women in Tech winner Gina Armada, CTO Dan Ward, VPs of Finance and Customer Service, and other talent that runs the spectrum of technology ability, Team MHC offers a mastery of skills to benefit our customers and prospects alike.
