At IQ BackOffice, we firmly believe that our business is about providing solutions to clients that not only provide the highest levels of quality and customer service at the lowest cost, but most importantly drives efficiencies in their day-to-day activities. This allows our clients to focus on more value-added activities or focusing on their core business.
KEY ISSUES WITH ACCOUNTING TRANSACTION PROCESSING
Accounting transactions have six key issues that prevent them from being managed with proper internal controls and management controls, and processed with high levels of quality at low cost.
These issues are the following:
Here’s a closer look at each issue in the above diagram:
- Accounting has to manage high transaction volumes, but processing these volumes is time-consuming and labor-intensive, which makes it expensive.
- AP is generally much more complicated than generally understood, with processing varying by vendor, type of invoice, payment processor, location and many other factors. IQ’s documentation of business rules generally runs to over 1,000 pages for each client. These processes are also error-prone due to the manual nature of the work and the complexity of the processing required.
- Accounts Payable is entirely dependent on the individuals working in the process, as very little prevents clerical personnel from making errors and little can be done to ensure that all business rules for processing are being followed correctly.
- Accounts Payable is time consuming and a management headache for finance and accounting management due to the significant demands of managing a clerical workforce that is hard to recruit, retain and manage. Even though it is so time consuming, it is a transactional activity that adds no significant value to the organization.
- However, AP departments are often stretched for resources and cannot afford to hire additional AP personnel to try and meet the high quality that AP requires. Every Accounting department wishes they could hire additional personnel to keep up with the work and handle special projects.
- Finally, it is difficult to manage and maintain internal controls and management control across a geographically distributed business with many AP managers and personnel involved.
