Chaos Charisma

Recently, I have been watching Ramayana and Mahabharata and felt that those times were better. There are certain reasons but the crucial one I felt is, they had proper nurturing while growing up. Morals and Knowledge were fed in properly, in balance along with the discipline. Teachers had far better relations with their students. They were available 24*7, to help.

If we compare today's education system with the Gurukul, it's nowhere. The way children are growing up, more than half, are hit by the depression, anxiety and other psychological problems. They don't know how to fight with it. There's immense competition among students. Being a teacher, is just a 9 to 5 job. What is the difference? Why students, 1000 years back were morally and physically stronger? Why Gurukul, with no infrastructure, was considered better?

Here are the reasons:

Students were kept away from all the materialistic happiness while they were in Gurukul and were delivered applied knowledge.

Students were taught on-field science and morals were given priority.

Compared to the present education system, students knew how to control their minds and levels of consciousness.

Children left their homes and near and dear ones at the tender age of eight and stayed away from their parents for over 12 years.

All were considered equal at the Gurukul and guru (teacher) as well as shishya.

The essential teachings were in subjects like language, science, mathematics through group discussions, self-learning, etc. Not only this, but the focus was also given on arts, sports, crafts, singing that developed their intelligence and critical thinking. Activities such as yoga, meditation, mantra chanting, etc generated positivity and peace of mind and made them fit. It was also mandatory to do daily chores on own with a motive to impart practical skills in them. All these helped in personality development and increased their confidence, sense of discipline, intellect and mindfulness which is necessary even today to face the world that lay ahead.

Gurukul was free from rank-based judgment. There existed a healthy competition.

Teachers were actually the people, who enlightened students and guided all their way out in life. Whenever there was any confusion or dilemma situation among students, students used to run to their gurus without any hesitation. Gurus were actually enlightened and more conscious than students.

दुग्धेन धेनुः कुसुमेन वल्ली शीलेन भार्या कमलेन तोयम् ।

गुरुं विना भाति न चैव शिष्यः शमेन विद्या नगरी जनेन ॥

This was the beauty of Gurukul. Many a time, I feel lack of Guru in my life, and we all do. Do we need a Gurukul? Yes, we do! Because what these modern infrastructures lack basic teachings of life. Unfortunately, the above concept has disappeared and the modern system of education brought to India in the year 1835 by Lord Macauley is all about clerical work and rat race which is completely useless.

Our minds are brainwashed in a way that we consider our history as mythology even after the existence of proofs. We study western ways, we study the french revolution, we study world wars in our history books, but we don't study Vedic literature, we don't study Indian culture, we don't study spirituality because these things aren't cool, maybe not true according to many of us. India has a rich culture but our culture is so underrated that many of us don't like to be called Indians. It's not our fault, it's the thought process our rich schools and Britishers fed in. We know the name of our freedom fighters, but only 30 percent of Indians know their stories and how they fought.

Still irritated from the headache of manually managing the documents, bills, and expenses? Or feeling dizzy from this monotonous and tedious job? If yes, then you definitely need to automate your Accounts Payable. If we look at the reasons in detail, then according to Finly, the 5 signs which prompt you to jump to AP Automation are losing productive time and delayed vendor payments. In addition to these, erroneous data entry, team inefficiency and damaged financial records due to physical maintenance are also some of the factors.

And ever wondered, there are many industry leaders out there, providing you easy, and user-friendly solutions to solve these problems.

If you don’t understand what Accounts Payable Automation is, here’s a quick short definition, In today’s day and age, organizations have adopted digital technology such that they cannot sustain without it. Documents are being shared via email and getting digitally signed. Automation has taken over through most of the businesses. However, finance teams are still struggling with the same old paperwork, manually filing expenses, accounting entry, etc. In fact, with this methodology, companies incur many costs. Accounts payable automation software can help reduce the business expense by streamlining and automating your payable.

Accounts payable automation is a great way to improve business processes and reduce costs. With the right solution in place, you can eliminate many of your current pain points, making life easier for both your team and your vendors.

Let’s have a look at some global as well as local industry leaders who are dealing with Accounts Payable Automation.

1 Airbase

California based Airbase is a cloud-based spend management platform for US-based companies with 50-1,000 employees. Clean up your corporate card spend and eliminate expense reports. Implement expense pre-approvals, issue physical and virtual company cards, pay bills, and automate your expense account coding.

#2 AvidXchange

AvidXchange’s solution is comprised of three main applications: purchase order application, invoice application, and payment application. These applications are supported by several service teams to enable our users to have a very supported software experience.

#3 Beanworks AP Automation

Beanworks AP automates accounting workflow to empower teams to succeed. It frees up the Controller’s time, previously spent chasing approval and verifying information, for more strategic work. From purchase to payment, Beanworks AP integrates with your software to make accounts payable (AP) simple and delightful.

#4 Coupa

Coupa’s AP automation software solution provides e-invoicing choices from EDI and cXML to a supplier portal and emails. It’s Business Spend Management(BSM) platform provides one single place to manage business expenses. You can streamline processes and speed up adoption by seamlessly integrating enterprise applications using CoupaLink, their open API integration platform. CoupaLink supports APIs for tax engines, single or multiple ERP integrations, invoicing, payments, travel and expenses, and middleware platforms.

#5 Finly

Finly comprises of an Intelligent & Scalable Accounts Payable Automation solution to manage employee travel and expense, e-procurement, invoices, enterprise utility bill payments, agreement based payments, budget, and vendors.  The powerful policy engine governs all business transactions & an integrated payment technology system allowing automated reconciliations. These solutions enable easy enforcement and control of spend policies, budgetary controls across the organization and eliminate human errors or frauds along with saving resources including time and money.

#6 MineralTree

MineralTree offers the end-to-end APA solution that automates invoice and payment processing. Plus, MineralTree’s APA solution includes two-way integration (automatic sync) with NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Xero, and Caliber. And, check and electronic payments are processed directly from the business’s bank.

#7 Nvoicepay

Nvoicepay’s payment solution enables AP teams to pay all supplier invoices in a single automated workflow, without keeping track of payment instructions or going through a complicated ERP integration. To get started, we reach out to enable all your suppliers for payments via Nvoicepay.

#8 Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct gains real-time financial and operational visibility throughout your business.  Sage Intacct financial management software delivers the automation and controls around billing, accounting and reporting that finance needs to reduce errors. Sage Intacct helps CFOs access integrated management and financial reports across their business entities.

#9 Stampli

Stampli is a powerful APA available, giving AP full control of the invoice lifecycle. By centering communications on top of the invoice, issues are quickly resolved, and approval happens 5x faster. Stampli makes it effortless to automate AP. Their AP Automation software solution uses Artificial Intelligence technology — Billy the Bot — to automate AP invoice processing and learn an organization’s unique patterns to simplify GL-coding, automate approval notifications, identify duplicates and more.

#10 Tipalti

Tipalti is the end-to-end solution to automate the entire global payables operation in a cloud platform. It provides the systems infrastructure to scale, with robust tax and regulatory compliance built-in and financial controls to govern your AP operations.

You can choose the 1 most appropriate solution among these or a complete automation suite like Finly which is fully customizable and configurable which suits your needs and fulfills all the requirements. Be it Expense Management, or Vendor payments, you can have it all here. Make sure to check all the features provided by these companies.

If we talk about the trending culture in the Finance Industry, Automation of Accounts Payable is surely the one!

_What is the one thing an AP automation company must take care of? Give it a thought! _

Good question! Ain’t it? As we all know, Today, more firms are starting to seek accounts payable solutions that automate invoicing and payments processes, as they look to cut costs, decrease fraud, improve efficiency, and gain more visibility into payment data. These changes are bringing a deluge of providers — including software companies, card networks and providers, banks, and payment networks — into the ecosystem. And this means that, there’s a tremendous necessity of Accounts Payable Automation.

What market says?

Now, let’s have a look at the terms of sheer market size, this segment is Huge and growing at an exponential rate. MarketsandMarkets report says that The global AP automation market size is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2019 to $ 3.2 billion by 2024. This attributes to an 11% CAGR growth rate owning a huge chunk to IT spending on the automation of the payable processes to enhance business growth and reduce losses.We all are evolving and moving towards globalization. Psst! And, that leads to a disgusting and time-consuming process.

Let me walk you through the problems in this process that industry has lived with for quite some time now.

What are day to day issues, faced by the industry?

1. High cost:

Just Imagine, you are a part of the Finance team of a relatively huge company. You have one day to sort 50 invoices coming to you in different formats like pdf, png or anything. Boring? isn’t it? Yes, indeed!. And, eventually, you start thinking that you are not adding any value to the company because you’re doing this every time, manually. There’s no system that could help you in managing invoices.

The process of receiving invoices from suppliers can be very complex.  Suppliers usually send invoices in different formats and through different mediums like email and fax. Invoices can arrive in different formats like PDF, DOCX, XML, PNG, JPG, TIFF, fax files, and even conventional paper. This can be complex for most organizations. The problem is compounded when these invoices are to be sorted, classified into different categories and further managing the physical copies becomes more ambiguous. Any company that values its employees’ time shouldn’t do this manually.

2. No Transparency:

Once invoice sorting is done, you have to check and match the invoice and that too manually, Oh Gosh! Before paying an invoice for goods acquired through a purchase order (PO), the invoice must be matched against other relevant documents, including receiving reports, to ensure that only the correct invoices are processed and paid. It causes a lack of understanding, what all payables are upcoming.

3. Large turnaround times:

You spend your weekdays and weekends doing this. No weekends :(! That’s too bad.

Manual data entry is one of the most tedious accounts payable processes. It’s time-consuming, costly, error-prone, and downright boring. And after all, who likes delayed audit closures?

4. Manual Checks:

Even if you’re done with matching and data entry, still you can’t shout Yay, because there’s a lot to do yet. Before an invoice is processed, it must go through a series of approval for authorization. You also need to ascertain the invoice’s validity and accuracy. Without such assurances, it cannot be paid. These approval often occur at different stages handled by different people.

5. Late Payments:

Wait and Watch! That’s what you can do right now.The purchasing department might have to approve the invoice to confirm the suppliers’ billing is accurate. And just before payment is disbursed, someone in management, (say, the CFO) might have to give it a final approval to ensure that the correct amount is paid into the right account. For an invoice to be approved, it must go from approval to approval. If a company processes invoices manually, it means that a paper invoice would have to go from desk to desk for the series of approval. This is the major reason for the delay in payment processing in organizations.

6. Lack of Governance and Policy Controls:

It becomes difficult to control norms and check manual errors. Ensuring everyone is sticking to right and standard operating procedures, it is necessary to keep track of vendor terms, clauses and agreements. It is indeed important to adopt robust governance practices.

What is the process of Accounts Payable Automation(APA)?

After all these processes are done, you finally sit on your couch, passing your time on social media and Alas! You came across this blog, which is the story of yours and at the point, after doing all these processes, you come to know that there’s an automatic process to do this task. Now, these problems need to be solved and that can only be done by the boom of Accounts Payable Automation Industry. I know you must be thinking how does the rise of APA help in the resolution of these issues? Simple! Remove the redundant work in the system, standardize the process, fix the algorithms according to one’s requirement and you are there. You have figured out a crack to $ 3.2 Billion Industry.

Automation of the processes not only helps in reducing cost but increases efficiency, reduces the risk of fraud, gives more visibility and data insights into payments and helps in maintaining good vendor relations. (who doesn’t like money on time?)

But, What is Account Payable Automation aka APA? Who will explain it to you? How would you inculcate it? Why use it? Huh? Don’t worry, here’s the answer.

According to SAP Ariba, Accounts payable process automation is a method of minimizing human intervention and eliminating error-prone tasks from the accounts payable process. AP automation delivers greater efficiency and effectiveness. AP Automation enables companies to toothless process supplier invoices without any human intervention by providing a digital workflow to manage steps previously handled by staff members. Automated accounts payable systems can create a process that’s simpler, more accurate and highly efficient. It helps in reducing the business payment cycle, governs the financial policies, automates the approval mechanisms and stores the record in a digital archive — making the entire process paperless.

Yes, now you can sit and do this in minutes because disruptive technology has enabled accounting teams to eliminate a lot of unnecessary manual intervention that was dragging down operational efficiency. Accounts payable plays a crucial role in business operations in ways many companies are only just starting to realize. We all know that this job function is what keeps the lights on in your office, but it also has a direct impact on cash flow management. The APA industry is a great product-market fit, as it will play a very crucial role in making eternally successful fully automated organizations.

This certainly has the sound of ruling the corporate world which will definitely take your financial aspects to the next level.

This poem shows the endangered humanity which is soon going to be extinct. If we look around, this world appears the same as what we dreamed for but do you think, it'll be the same in future? Or it'll turn into an appalling nightmare?

It's strange that life is moving on and on,

with rising dusk and falling dawn.

It's strange that this universe is getting full of ingenious minds,

making our nobles and morals blind.

It's strange that those are pinned against the wall,

who were once called as dolls.

It's strange that still, we overlook these ruthless sting of pain,

And damn again, all her wails went in vain.

It's strange that I don't fear those spooky demons of hell anymore,

Half of the time of this generation is squandered on what to choose as their career. I was in the same labyrinth when I was in my high school. Then I chose to pursue engineering in computer science out of my interest. But it was not I urged for, it was not the field I was enjoying completely. It was my interest but not my passion. But, then another big question was, what was my passion? What is that one thing, I enjoy doing. I tried dancing, it was not that good, I tried singing and cooking, same happened. I tried speaking. Yeah, it worked. I joined clubs, and classes, yeah it fascinated me. I participated in competitions, I never won but yes I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed preparing, failing and learning new tactics, for the next time. It was my passion, I was pretty good at it but still there was a scope of improvement every next time, I tried it.

One day, I got a new work. I was told to design a poster by my colleagues. I started designing, Damn, again it fascinated me. I tried again and again, yeah it was another passion of mine. I really enjoyed doing these two things even if I was not perfect. I loved learning, and trying. I failed several times, but every time I was struggling to get better. This is how I found my passions.

‘LEADERSHIP’, this word is so common for all of us as we hear it almost every day. But, have you ever thought, what it really means? If we search for its dictionary meaning, then business dictionary defines leadership as the activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this. Leadership involves establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with others so that they will follow willingly, providing the information, knowledge and methods to realize that vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholders. A leader steps up in times of crisis, and is able to think and act creatively in difficult situations. Unlike management, leadership cannot be taught, although it may be learned and enhanced through coaching or mentoring. This is the exact meaning of leadership but is this the sufficient requirement? Of course not! If you want to achieve your goals, specifically speaking about entrepreneurs. ‘Right’ leadership is the quality, you need to develop while you’re working on your aspirations with different people, who are also working on the same.

Now, how an entrepreneur acquire these qualities? Being an entrepreneur, you should be specific and clear about your vision. Everything starts with a purpose and vision. Both of these, must be concrete. Once you’re done with finding purpose and deciding your vision, you need to share it with the people who share common interests because if your ideas are not intelligible to people then it’s a total time waste. Therefore, target people who are suitable and are willing to understand your ideas. Divide your work accordingly, in a way, such that it consumes less time and focuses more on provoking finished outputs. Always remember to analyze your co-workers and acquaintances, commend their work and suggest for improvements. This will motivate them to improve. A right leader always stresses on development as a whole rather than individualistic development.

You’ve to keep in mind that although you’re a leader and you maybe superior to others but everything is interdependent. You are equally dependent on others as much as they are dependent on you. This thinking will always help you to be on the ground and understand more, focus more and manage your work efficiently. You’ve to be future-oriented rather than present-intended and now, you’re right on your way to be a right leader.

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India’s education system pushes us to be a book smart. We didn’t get practical skills rather we always focus on cramming up and getting degrees. Today’s growing and fostering environment demands being practical and skilful and we can achieve this only by being a street smart.

Now, the question is, how to be a street smart? Here are some simple techniques for being a street smart:

1.First and the foremost need is SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: You need to be aware of each and every situation happening around you. You have to assess the environment you are in, who is in it, and what the available angles are. Being on the street, or in the trenches, or whatever low to the ground metaphor you prefer, requires you learn to trust your own judgment about people and what matters. This skill, regardless of where you develop it, is of great value everywhere in life regardless of how far from the streets you are.

2.Most important perhaps, being street smart comes from experience. It means you’ve learned how to take what has happened to you, good or bad, think about it, and learn to improve from it. The prime distinction between street smarts and book smarts is who is at the center of the knowledge. On the street, it’s you. In a book it’s you trying to absorb someone else’s take on the world, and however amazing the writer is, you are at best one degree removed from the actual experience. Street smarts means you've put yourself at risk and survived. Or thrived. Or have scars. You've been tested and have a bank of courage to depend on when you are tested again. Being street smart can lead to book smarts as the street-smart sense what works and what doesn't, and adapt accordingly.

3. Get different perspectives. Having access to more people’s thoughts will give you a better idea of how people think and what’s going on out there. Don’t just keep to yourself; ask people for advice and opinions. Increase your points of reference by tapping into people’s knowledge.