Accounts payable automation best practices are usually presented as a list, and the single most important thing about them is the order. Automating in the wrong sequence is the commonest way these projects disappoint: teams start with approval routing because it is the visible pain, and end up routing invoices whose data was entered by hand and whose exceptions were never reduced. The sequence that works is document the route, capture the data, automate matching, then automate routing, and each step makes the next one cheaper. This page is why that order, and what goes wrong when it is reversed.
First document, because automation encodes what exists
A route that lives in one person's head becomes, when automated, that person's habits executed faster and less visibly. Writing it down first is unglamorous and it is the step that makes everything after it correct rather than merely fast.
Then capture, then matching
Capture feeds matching; matching without captured data is a person comparing three documents. Doing capture first means matching automation has something to work with, and doing it in reverse means building matching twice.
Routing last, because it depends on everything before it
Routing is only useful once the invoice arriving at an approver is already coded and matched. Route first and you have automated the delivery of unfinished work. On the worked example on this site, 400 invoices at three touches of six minutes with a 12% exception rate is 134.4 hours a month: $4,300.80 at a $32 loaded rate, $10.75 an invoice and $51,609.60 a year.
Questions people ask about accounts payable automation best practices
Can we do it all at once?
You can and it is harder to diagnose when something is wrong. Sequencing lets you attribute each improvement, which also makes the next stage easier to justify.
What if the vendor wants to configure everything up front?
That is their normal implementation and it is worth pushing back on. Going live with capture and matching, then adding routing, is usually a calmer project.
Should exceptions be automated?
The routing of them, yes. The resolution, no: an exception is a judgement and a rule making it silently is the failure mode to avoid.