As a business owner, you have many tasks to juggle. A lot of your time is spent with the day-to-day operations of running your hotel, but there are still ways to automate parts of what you do so that you can focus on the more important tasks. Accounts Payable is one area where you can save both time and money by automating processes that may be taking up valuable hours on your weekly schedule.
Simply put, Accounts Payable, or AP, is what you owe to your suppliers. This can be from a variety of different places including your utility companies (i.e., energy used at hotels), your food and beverage providers or other vendors for products that you have purchased for the operations of your business.
It is important as a business owner that you keep track of what you owe these vendors so that this amount can be paid off over time (on time). The more you pay in due at the end of each year, the less you will owe the next year.
This is important to the bottom line of your business because it plays a role in how much money will be net in your business after all expenses are taken out. This number is typically included in financial statements sent to investors or lenders and makes up a significant portion of what they base financial decisions on.
Automating this process allows for you to take time away from other tasks and focus on what is most important: debt repayment. You do not have to spend time tracking down information about customers (i.e., phone numbers) or dealing with customer service issues that arise from miscommunication with vendors (i.e. late invoices). Instead, you can go to the phone or computer and quickly type in your invoice number and pay it out right away.
As a hotel owner, you probably have other management tasks to take care of. These can include marketing, hiring and the countless number of tasks that must be done during the day and night. As a business, you may not have an accounting department to oversee these transactions and manage the accounts payable process.
Accounts Payable are usually handled by one or two people in hotel businesses because there are so many transactions that need to be accounted for. There is no one keeping specific tabs on what is outstanding in terms of AP balances.
The first benefit of automating accounts payable is that it saves time for bookkeepers and accounting teams to deal with AP postings each month or week. As a hotel business owner, it may be more efficient to have a bookkeeper who can keep track of what needs to be paid and what is left over each month and then send out the various invoices.
Once the money from these invoices has been collected, it can be automatically paid out to vendors using hotel accounting software. You do not have to worry about how much money you are owed until the end of each period (e.g., month-end or year-end). This also gives you an opportunity to review your company’s finances in each period and make sure they are accurate.
If you do not use accounting software to automate accounts payable, there is more of a chance that you will have late payments or missed payments because there isn’t always someone whose sole job is to deal with this aspect of hotel finances.
When it comes to managing accounts payable, having a system in place that works for you and your business can be the difference between paying bills on time and dealing with late fees. These fees can also work against your hotel’s reputation as an ethical business. It is important to keep vendor relationships positive so that they will continue to work with your organization.
There are many ways in which we can use automation to streamline tasks and improve efficiency for ourselves. In the accounts payable process, automation can help you save time as well as money which will in turn free up your schedule to focus on other priorities.
Saves Time- You no longer need to spend your time combing through invoices, trying to find out what you owe to who, and then dealing with customer service issues related to these late invoices. Instead, you can use an accounting software system such as Nimble that is designed specifically for this purpose. When you use automation, you can spend more time working with your team to improve the bottom line of your business.
Saves Money- Automation is also helpful because it will save money as well. What costs money, aside from the invoices themselves, are the extra steps human beings have to take when AP payments are due. This includes phone calls, time spent on customer service, and the possibility of late fees. If you use Hospitality accounting software such as Nimble, there is less room for these types of mistakes because everything is done through a computer or mobile device.
Increased Security- When you use a computer or mobile device to manually enter invoices and send payments, you can rest assured that no one will see them. You do not have to worry about using a list of customer information for the invoices to be paid out. Instead, you can simply type in the invoice number and it will interact with the vendor’s payment system directly. This means that you have full control over who sees your invoice numbers as well as whose name appears on the invoice itself (i.e., name is not printed).
In hotel business operations, accounts payable can be very confusing and difficult to track. To make matters worse, it is typically handled by one or two people in the company who are working on other tasks throughout the day and night. If this is the case, you may not want to use automation because there is no reason to use accounting software if it can’t be used to manage your AP transactions.
There are many benefits that come with using an accounting software system such as Nimble where you can automate your accounts payable. If you are not using accounting software to automate accounts payable, you run the risk that your invoices may not be paid on time. If an invoice isn’t paid on time, there is a chance that your client will have a bad experience or just not want to work with you again.
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