Even as economic realities dictate that companies tighten financial controls and automate business processes, Accounts Payable still remains a largely manual and disconnected business process. Today companies with ERP investments like SAP solutions still receive paper invoices, sort and distribute the documents, key them into the system, and eventually file away the paper in cabinets or perhaps send them to off-site warehouses in boxes.

These manual processes are costly, time consuming, repetitive and error prone. Most critically, the people responsible for the process have no visibility into it and cannot be assured of getting timely, accurate information on demand. Lack of quality information from inflexible, paper-based processes in today's recessionary environment is like swimming in choppy waters with an anchor tied to your leg. There is a better way.

This whitepaper discusses best practices options and a solid approach to implementing solutions for automating and optimizing Accounts Payable in the SAP environment.