Optimize accounting: lay the foundation in 3 steps

Optimizing your bookkeeping isn’t always easy. As an employee in financial administration, you are often busy handling small tasks. When added together, however, these take up a considerable amount of time. Because the work is often repetitive and monotonous, you also lack the necessary challenge. That’s a shame, because it prevents you from getting everything out of yourself. The way to do this is to optimize your bookkeeping. But how exactly do you begin? Start with 3 fundamental steps!

1. Map your process

Where and how does an invoice arrive? What happens to it next? Do you make a copy or do you stamp it? To optimize your bookkeeping, you must first map out your current process. Record every action involved in processing purchase invoices. Then determine how logical the route of invoices is within your company. Is your process currently ideal? If not, what does the perfect process look like? Don’t answer that question alone. Have your colleagues all write down an answer so you can review together what actions are really necessary (see step 2). A guideline for outlining your ideal process: continually keep in mind what information you actually need as finance to book a purchase invoice. What attachments are required to properly process a purchase invoice? Do you need your colleagues to provide the correct breakdown code? Thinking about this now will make step 2 easier.

2. Research what actions you really need to perform

Now that you’ve mapped out your current and ideal processing process, it’s time to zoom in on the steps you’ve written down. If you want to optimize your accounting, it’s crucial that you scrutinize every action. In doing so, be critical. Is it imperative that management see all purchase invoices before approving them? Should the approval process for one-time and recurring invoices be exactly the same? Should there really be no missing attachments before you approve an invoice? Chances are you can simplify the process quite a bit. If not, investigate whether you can take the necessary steps in a simpler way. For example, ask your supplier to always include attachments neatly. If you think carefully about the actions in your process, a lot is possible in terms of optimization!

3. Ask your ERP vendor for advice

Once you’ve thought about the changes you want to make to your process, it’s time to bring in your current ERP vendor. Ask if they would like to be part of the process. Does your supplier know how you can realize your ambitions? With the advice you get, you may well make a lot of progress. Many financial accounting systems, for example, offer the option of automatically reading incoming invoices and linking the invoice copy to an entry. A workflow option often exists as well, so you can easily forward invoices to approvers within the organization. Some systems can automatically provide incoming invoices with a payment block, preventing them from being paid before they are approved. Many an ERP vendor has also teamed up with an external party to provide a link specifically for the purchase invoice processing process. These can bring you many more benefits. If you want to optimize your bookkeeping in order to work as efficiently as possible, it is therefore wise to discuss the possibilities carefully.

Optimize your accounting to get more out of yourself?

Count how many repetitive tasks you do on a daily or weekly basis. What would it mean to you if you could automate these? The greater the impact, the easier and more efficient you can do your job. And the more you will get out of yourself. Whitevision is happy to help you with that. Our solutions result in time and cost savings and a considerable efficiency boost. This allows you to optimize your accounting and gives you more time for challenging tasks that really add value to the organization. Curious? Feel free to contact us.

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