Managing your accounts payable in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management provides a robust, centralized, and integrated platform for businesses of varying sizes to modernize their accounts payable operations. Through industry-leading capabilities, intuitive user experience, powerful automation capabilities, strong security measures, and integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, accounts payable in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance provides businesses with the ability to enhance efficiency, transparency, and collaboration to support their evolving needs.
In a series of articles, we will explore the core features, powerful automation capabilities, new and exciting features as part of Dynamics 365 Finance’s continuous updates, and the Invoice Capture solution. In this article, we will detail how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance can help transform your accounts payable function from technology enabled to automated and touchless through electronic invoicing, data capture and extraction, and automated invoice matching, workflows, and vendor payments. Dynamics 365 Finance’s ability to streamline and automate the entire invoice lifecycle is achieved through three key offerings:
- Microsoft Invoice Capture: Invoice Capture is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solution that allows organizations to automate and streamline the data extraction, registration, and coding of the accounts payable process by providing continuous intelligent automation and out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
- Vendor Invoice Process Automation: Dynamics 365 Finance’s robust process automation capabilities enable organizations to automatically apply prepayments to invoices, match product receipts to invoice lines, submit invoices to workflow, and post approved invoices.
- Payment Proposal Invoice Automation: Finally, payment proposals can be scheduled and automated based on defined criteria to increase efficiency of the payment portion of the invoice lifecycle.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Invoice Capture
Invoice Capture is an AI and Microsoft Power Platform-enabled tool designed to provide users with an out-of-the-box solution that leverages Dynamics 365 Finance’s existing touchless accounts payable functionality. It uses continuous intelligent automation to read and recognize vendor invoices. Using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, Invoice Capture can automatically and accurately extract data from invoices. The captured data is then integrated with your Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management system, which helps reduce manual entry and errors.
Key Features
- Integration With Microsoft 365: Invoice Capture easily integrates with existing invoice intake methods by leveraging seamless integrations with Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
- Automated Data Extraction: OCR technology intelligently captures key invoice details such as vendor information, invoice number, due date, line items, and more.
- Document Classification: The system categorizes different types of invoices automatically, making it easier to handle various document formats.
- Invoice Validation: Dynamics 365 Finance Invoice Capture validates extracted data against existing records, which helps reduce discrepancies.
- Exception Handling: The solution identifies and flags invoices that require manual review, which helps improve accuracy and reduce processing time.
- Integration With Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management: Seamlessly integrates with your Dynamics 365 Finance module, utilizing both pending vendor invoices and invoice journals for smooth invoice approval and payment workflows.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Invoice Process Automation
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Invoice Process Automation capabilities exist to support organizations moving from manual accounts payable processes to a touchless, automated solution. The solution helps reduce inefficiencies by automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks by leveraging a flexible framework that allows for rules tailored to your organization’s objectives for each process automation. It also provides detailed analytics and metrics that offer visibility into failed invoices.
Key Features
- Automatically apply prepayments to vendor invoices.
- Automatically submit imported invoices to the workflow system.
- Match product receipts to pending vendor invoice lines.
- Simulate posting before a vendor invoice is posted.
- Automatically post approved invoices.
- Resume automated processing for multiple invoices.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Automated Vendor Payment Proposals
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Automated Vendor Payment Proposals is a feature that streamlines the accounts payable process through the automation of the generation of payment proposals for vendors. It can automate the generation of recurring payment proposals based on schedule and invoice criteria. Once created, the payment proposals are not automatically posted to help ensure that any validation and workflow processes for payment proposal are maintained. This functionality of Dynamics 365 Finance’s accounts payable helps organizations efficiently manage their payment processes, improve accuracy, and support vendor relationships.
Key Features
- Automatically identify and realize early payment discounts.
- Track and manage vendor payment runs through the Vendor Payment Process Automation workspace.
- Process automation provides lean organizations with additional resources through added controls with respect to segregation of duties.
- Create custom payment schedules and prioritize critical payments based on business requirements.
How Forvis Mazars Can Help
As organizations look for ways to automate their accounts payable operations, the functionality and capabilities in Dynamics 365 Finance offer a practical path forward. Through intelligent invoice capture, vendor invoice process automation, and streamlined vendor payment proposals, organizations can unlock more accurate, transparent, and consistent workflows. If your organization is exploring how to begin its accounts payable automation journey, our technology consultants are ready to assist you. Contact us to learn more about where to start and next steps to modernize your accounts payable with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance.