The clock is ticking. The end of the workday is approaching, but your desk is still littered with invoices waiting to be manually entered into SyteLine. You've been at it for hours, and your eyes are starting to blur from staring at numbers and vendor codes.
And then: You spot a duplicate invoice that almost resulted in a double payment — potentially costing your company thousands of dollars.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. For many accounting teams using SyteLine, manual invoice entry is one of the biggest accounts payable (AP) risks hiding in plain sight. And the struggle to prevent duplicate payments becomes more challenging every day as invoice volumes increase.
When your team manually types invoice data into SyteLine, they're essentially doing the same work twice. The information already exists on the invoice, yet someone must transfer it into your system by hand. This redundancy creates several critical problems:
It happens more often than most companies realize: An invoice arrives by email, gets entered into the system, and is paid. Then the paper copy arrives in the mail, looks unfamiliar to another team member, and gets entered again.
Without systems to catch these duplicate invoices, you’re at risk of making double payments for the same things. For many companies, these duplicate payments can be a significant and unnecessary drain on resources.
A simple typing mistake can throw off your books and trigger hours of detective work to find the discrepancy. These errors add up over time, creating records that don't match reality.
When your AP process moves at the speed of manual typing, payments get delayed. Vendors start reaching out, wondering where their money is. Your team spends valuable time answering these calls instead of handling more important work.
Your team wasn’t hired for their typing speed. They were hired for their analytical skills and financial knowledge. Every hour spent on tedious data entry is an hour they can't spend on tasks that actually drive value for your company.
Double entry is a problem that can ripple throughout your entire organization. The inability to prevent duplicate payments becomes one of the most serious accounts payable risks your team faces. While the immediate pain is felt by your AP team, the consequences extend far beyond the finance department.
For manufacturing companies using SyteLine, this can threaten your operational excellence and bottom line in ways that aren't always obvious at first, such as:
Backlogged vendor invoices can affect your ability to order supplies and prevent production from running smoothly.
Without clear visibility into your invoice history, making accurate financial projections becomes nearly impossible. Undetected duplicate invoices can further distort your financial forecasts, leading to poor decision-making and cash flow problems.
Duplicate payments and inconsistent data entry can turn a routine audit into a stressful ordeal. Explaining why the same invoice was paid twice requires uncomfortable conversations and damages confidence in your financial processes.
Nobody wants to spend their day doing monotonous data entry, especially when there are other critical tasks to take care of. Your best team members may become overwhelmed as work starts piling up.
Despite these challenges, there's a better way to handle invoices — and it doesn't involve typing the same information twice. Automated AP workflows use technology to eliminate repetitive tasks while improving accuracy and visibility.
Their key goal? Preventing duplicate payments before they happen.
When you automate the AP process, everything changes. Your work flows smoothly, from invoice upload to SyteLine sync.
An AP automation solution helps your team through:
Eliminating manual data entry from your AP process saves time and reduces risks. These improvements touch every aspect of your financial operations, from day-to-day tasks to long-term planning.
Teams that make this shift enjoy many benefits that extend far beyond the AP department:
With automated data capture and built-in validation, error rates plummet and duplicate payments disappear. Your financial records become more reliable and your bottom line becomes stronger.
What used to take days can now take hours or even minutes thanks to the power of automation. Invoices move through your workflow faster, helping you avoid late fees and take advantage of early payment discounts.
Automation gives your AP team more time to focus on other important activities, like analyzing spending patterns, strengthening vendor relationships, and finding ways to improve cash flow.
With a more efficient workflow in place, you’ll always know the status of each invoice. This means no more hunting through email chains or paper stacks to find a missing document or look up past payment records.
If you're ready to help your team escape the double-entry trap, here's how to get started:
Companies that eliminate double entry and implement smarter AP workflows typically see:
Manual data entry in SyteLine can cost your company time, money, and talent. But with the right AP automation solution, your team can spend less time on repetitive, high-risk tasks and more on work that can boost your bottom line.
Nimbello offers a purpose-built solution created for SyteLine users. Our platform integrates directly with your SyteLine environment, so you can experience a faster, more efficient AP process.
Ready to see how much easier AP can be? Schedule a demo today to learn how Nimbello can help your team prevent duplicate payments and work smarter, not harder.