Welcome to “Do IT Right,” a 9-part series on how to succeed in the most important areas of IT management. In this series we introduce you to Simmons & Hawking, a fictional law firm that is scaling up its outdated IT infrastructure, and the relatable challenges faced by their IT stakeholders. In part 6, we saw Natalie, an IT Support Engineer at Simmons & Hawking, round out the IT workflow by implementing an amazing service and support system. Now the IT journey continues with James, a member of the finance team, quickly discovering how the 1’s and 0’s of data can generate dollars and cents for the business.
Now that the IT infrastructure is supported by a strong and efficient service and support system, James, the Accounts Payable Manager of the finance team, must make sure things are running smoothly with Simmons & Hawking’s IT finances. A job that is much easier said than done.
With so much information, paperwork, communications, bills, and invoices flooding in on a daily basis, things can be hard to track. In a flurry of physical papers, emails, and messages, invoices and important payments, information can easily be missed or put aside by mistake. Some things may even get lost forever.
IT invoices in particular tend to build up fast and they never stop. James is feeling the pressure to keep up, but what makes it harder is having to deal with multiple online portals to access invoice information and figure out which products and services he’s paying for since providers use different product names for the same services. And since not every item listed on an invoice is charged to the same department, James and his team need to understand what they’re being billed for so it can be properly routed for approval. It’s not unusual for invoices to be misrouted or lost; in fact, many become untrackable. The lack of organization and inefficiency is actually costing the company money. Late payment fees are adding up and no one has the time to audit the invoices to make sure that the services they’re paying for are actually being delivered.
No wonder James’ team is feeling frustrated. This can all lead to a much slower reaction time to overspending and under-spending within certain areas of the business.
But messy and disorganized IT invoices and finances do not have to be your truth or how things function within your company!
Instead, you can choose to integrate key areas of your accounting practices into the larger lifecycle of your IT infrastructure. Putting best practices in place would help invoice management across the board run smoothly and better drive business. If you focus on…
- Saving time through consolidating invoices
- Normalizing invoices so they all say the same thing
- Creating a customizable invoice workflow to expedite approvals and ensure spends are visible to stakeholders
- Consider letting a third party provider pay the bills for you
…then you will be setting yourself, your employees, and your company as a whole up for financial success. Proper financial management of your IT assets is one of the most important aspects of any business, therefore, as the AP manager, you must ensure everything is on track and organized.
Luckily, when you have a platform and designated team to help you keep track of your IT finances, you will always streamline your processes and keep spending in check!
