accounts payable
How Automation Is Changing the Workplace
Gone are the days when we had to rely on manual work for every task. Owing to automation in the workplace, we can now get the job done more...
Is Your AP Workflow Working for You?
A Practical Checklist for Mid-Market Finance Teams
ProSpend
Jul 15, 2025
As your business scales, it's easy for inefficient approval workflows to hide in plain sight. Use this checklist to assess whether your current process is setting your finance team up for success or quietly creating hidden risks, delays, and cost blowouts.
Symptoms of a Failing Workflow |
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1 |
You’re still relying on emails, spreadsheets, or paper-based approvals. No single source of truth, no visibility, and plenty of things slipping through the cracks. |
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2 |
You spend more than 30 minutes a week chasing approvers. Approvals stall because people forget, are too busy, or didn’t know it was their responsibility. |
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3 |
You’ve heard “this wasn’t mine to approve” more than once this month. Unclear roles are creating unnecessary back-and-forth and bottlenecks. |
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4 |
How many of your payments are delayed by more than a week? If approvals stop when someone’s on leave, your process lacks resilience. |
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5 |
Different departments are following their own rules. Lack of standardisation means finance ends up firefighting instead of overseeing. |
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6 |
Budget holders are approving without context. They can’t see how the invoice impacts their budget or forecast—approvals are done in the dark. |
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7 |
You’ve missed early payment discounts more than once this quarter. Delays in approvals are costing you real dollars. |
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8 |
Your finance team spends hours compiling audit trails. With data spread across emails and shared folders, audit readiness is always a scramble. |
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9 |
You’ve found at least one duplicate or incorrect payment in the past 6 months. When oversight fails, errors get expensive. |
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10 |
Your last audit raised questions about your approval process. Gaps in documentation or unclear workflows make audit season more stressful than it needs to be. |
What Do Your Results Say About Your AP Workflow?
Ticked 1–2 boxes?
You’re on solid ground but don’t get complacent. A few small cracks now could become larger issues later, especially as your business scales or teams change. Now’s a great time to optimise while things are still under control.
Ticked 3–5 boxes?
You’re in the warning zone. These issues may already be costing you time and money and leaving your finance team vulnerable to errors or compliance risks. You need to prioritise automation, standardisation, and visibility before small inefficiencies turn into major setbacks.
Ticked 6+ boxes?
Your current AP workflow is actively holding your team back. Bottlenecks, manual checks, and a lack of visibility are likely slowing down payments, increasing fraud exposure, and making audits painful. It’s time to act, your finance team needs scalable, automated tools to regain control and protect the business.
Why it matters
The stakes are higher than many realise:
- Manual invoice processing can cost up to $30 per invoice, compared to $3 or less when automated.
- Late payments can cost Australian businesses thousands in missed early payment discounts annually.
- 1 in 4 mid-sized businesses report increased fraud exposure due to lack of separation in approval duties.
Why Mid-Sized Businesses Can’t Wait
For CFOs and finance leaders, mid-market is the turning point between surviving and scaling. But unlike enterprises, you often have to do more with less, less headcount, less IT support, and fewer resources.
That makes your AP workflow one of the easiest and highest-impact areas to transform. With automated approval workflows and built-in controls, you can:
- Free up finance resources for strategic work
- Prevent fraud and enforce company policy
- Gain real-time visibility into spending
- Ensure audit readiness, every time
What’s Next?
Streamlining approvals isn’t just about speed. It’s about building a scalable, secure, and strategic financial backbone for your business. Explore how ProSpend can help you take the next step