It's no secret that Aged Care is limited by time and resources. In a survey conducted, 45% responded that an increased time spent on admin tasks impacts patient care negatively. This highlights how care facility managers and staff are often overwhelmed by paperwork, leaving less time to focus on residents' needs.
As you may know, keeping up with manual invoice approvals and possibly even managing invoice data is a time-consuming and error-prone process. And what if you misplace a paper invoice? It’s so easily done, affecting the finance team and straining supplier relationships when invoice payments are slow.
The need for better patient care is growing and AP admin for Care Managers is an additional task that steals focus. Finding a more efficient way to process invoices is now a top priority, putting accounts payable automation at the forefront of aged care technology.
Here are three ways AP automation reduces the workload for aged care providers and improves resident care.
1. Relief from the pains of manual purchase order and invoice management
Aged Care facilities are synonymous with hundreds of POs and invoices, all requiring meticulous management. Paperwork often piles up on your desk, making it hard for you to stay organised. Going digital lifts this burden.
Implementing an AP automation solution will automate your purchase order procedures with set approval workflows and custom PO-raising parameters. The system automatically notifies the relevant people, tracks PO progress, and ensures that the team stick to set amounts and timelines. Automated processes act as a safety net, so workflows keep moving even when you are focused on urgent on-site matters. As a result, you avoid PO approval delays, and your Care Home gets the stock that it needs to support residents.
The same can be said for Invoice Approval workflows. Simply receive invoices from your suppliers into the system and route them based on custom rules to the correct person. Invoice approval times can be reduced from 10 days to just 3 when automated systems are involved. The results are happier suppliers, less approval chasing and more time to spend on patient care.
No more physical documents cluttering your workspace means you don’t have to deal with the stress of misplaced or lost documents. A streamlined PO and invoice management provides a clear audit trail, making it easier for your finance team to track spending, manage budgets, and prevent discrepancies.
10% of invoices gives you 90% of your problems
“10% of invoices gives you 90% of your problems,” says Shane McGloin from Evergreen Care. Invoice automation helps in standardising supplier invoices by creating a consistent invoice format and minimising errors like missing supplier details or incorrect payment amounts. This uniformity simplifies the verification process and saves time previously wasted shuffling through paper or reconciling varying formats. After all, it’s about crucial time savings for you as a Care Home Manager who wants to spend more time supporting staff and working hands-on with residents, not drowning in mismatched paperwork!
2. Increased visibility & flexibility
Having access to real-time data is vital for aged care homes. AP automation lets you instantly see the status of a purchase order or invoice. This digitisation will help you form better care plans avoid stock shortages, and meet residents' needs without delays.
As a care home manager, when AP data is so accessible, you can have more meaningful and strategic discussions with your finance department. For instance, with better visibility into highly specific purchase data, you can explore ways to optimise spending. More proactive AP management allows finance teams to redirect budgets towards initiatives supported by you, that improve the quality of resident care.
If you think digitisation means being glued to your desk, it's time to bust that myth. AP automation is available through a mobile app, giving you the flexibility to work from anywhere. This means you're not tied to a physical location but can spend more time engaging with your staff and overseeing care. With the mobile app, you can approve or reject POs and invoices on the go. Your finance team can complete monthly reports remotely without being reliant on paperwork being dropped to them.
Digitising the approval process benefits individual managers and the broader management team. If you are on leave or occupied, other managers can step in to approve POs or invoices via proxy approvals. By allowing multiple managers to share the responsibility, the system avoids gaps or delays in the process and keeps things running smoothly. This team-based approach provides better coverage and ensures consistent workflow, regardless of any one manager’s availability.
3. Enhanced Training & Development
Technology doesn’t always have to be complex. Operating AP automation software is extremely easy and requires minimal training for users. This means care home management can adopt the system without worrying about complex changes - it’s as simple as swiping to approve or reject a PO request in the app.
Beyond automating invoice processing, AP automation supports your new team members in coping with stress during periods of growth or staff shortages. This means they will be less concerned with admin and less likely to face invoice irregularities or errors that simply add to an ever-increasing to-do list.
With increasing government pressure to improve patient care, care facilities need to provide more time for residents. Organising additional staff training and automating AP admin tasks are becoming essential for Care Managers.
In conclusion, AP automation offers you a practical solution to reduce administrative tasks and focus more on resident care. By eliminating manual data entry, improving spend visibility, and offering an easy-to-use system, it improves efficiency for Care Home Managers and finance teams alike. Overall, AP automation leads to optimal resource allocation, benefiting residents.
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