Workday Financial Management gives you clear visibility into budgets, expenses, and financial performance. But there's one area where it can feel chaotic: accounts payable (AP).
Even the best financial management platforms have limits when it comes to the AP process. Invoices pile up, approval requests get lost in email threads, and your team spends hours on manual data entry. You have this powerful ERP system, yet you're still drowning in paper trails and spreadsheets.
How can you crawl out of the chaos? The answer is simple: AP automation.
AP automation is the use of technology to take care of the repetitive, manual parts of your accounts payable process. This includes capturing invoices, routing approvals, issuing payments, and keeping records in sync. Think of AP automation as your personal assistant. It handles the tedious tasks, so your team can work smarter, not harder.
AP automation offers a variety of advantages, especially for organizations using Workday. Let's look at six key benefits of adding AP automation to your existing Workday system:
1. Lightning-Fast Invoice Processing
Remember the last time you manually entered hundreds of invoices? Not exactly fun, right?
Manual invoice entry takes time and leaves you open to errors. And even a small mistake can mess up your entire reconciliation process.
Here's where powerful, purpose-built technology helps. OCR (optical character recognition) scans invoices when they arrive and pulls out key details like vendor names, amounts, and purchase order (PO) numbers. Then AI-powered automation validates this information against POs and receipts for accuracy.
The result? Invoices that move through your system faster and with fewer errors — meaning you have more accurate records, more time for other tasks, and more satisfied employees.
2. Approval Workflows Made Easy
A slow or clunky approvals process can keep your finance team up at night. Invoices sitting in someone's inbox for weeks, requests getting lost, or hunting down the right approvers can create headaches and hassle.
With an automated workflow, you set up approval rules and let the system do the rest.
No more guessing who needs to sign off on what. No more follow-up emails asking if someone got your approval request. The system handles the routing, sends reminders when things take too long, and gives everyone visibility into where each invoice stands. Your approvers get the context they need to make quick decisions.
Plus, everything is tracked, so you always know exactly where things stand.
3. Seamless Data Flow Between Systems
When you manually move data between different platforms, inconsistencies can creep in. This can lead to hours of extra work as you look for where things derailed and re-enter your data.
Using an AP automation solution that integrates directly with your Workday platform helps you avoid the problems caused by manual data entry.
A seamlessly integrated workflow treats your ERP as the single source of truth. Once an invoice is processed, data automatically flows into Workday, ready for payment processing. No double entry, no missing data, no mysterious discrepancies that show up later.
Your data stays clean and consistent across all systems, which means your financial reports are more accurate and your team can trust the numbers. When audit time comes, you'll have confidence in your records.
4. Real-Time Data for Better Decision-Making
Finance leaders need insights that help them make smarter decisions. A manual AP process can keep your data fragmented. Information could be locked away in a filing cabinet, buried in an email thread, or found in spreadsheets across departments.
AP automation changes this by providing real-time dashboards and reporting that work with your Workday analytics. You can see exactly where your money is going, which suppliers are paid, and where bottlenecks are slowing down your processes.
This visibility is especially helpful for organizations with multiple locations, teams, or departments. Instead of information living in different places, everything is in one centralized view — so you can spot trends, catch errors early, and make data-driven decisions that boost your bottom line.
5. Cleaner Audit Trails
An audit can feel like a scavenger hunt. Digging through physical papers, scouring email threads, and trying to piece together what happened with specific invoices months ago wreaks havoc on your workflow.
AP automation eliminates this stress by creating digital audit trails for every transaction. Each invoice, approval, and supporting document is stored in a searchable, organized system that works with your Workday records. When audits arise, you can pull up complete documentation in minutes, rather than days.
Internal controls also become stronger because every step is documented and tracked. Compliance and reporting become routine tasks, instead of major, time-consuming projects.
6. Growth Without Growing Pains
As your company grows, so does your AP workload.
But manual AP processes don't scale well. More invoices mean more data entry, more approval bottlenecks, and more opportunities for things to fall through the cracks. Growth creates more work instead of more value.
This is where AP automation truly shines. Whether you're processing 100 invoices a month or 10,000, an automated system adapts with you, helping your team scale without the stress.
With automation, new business units can be added to approval hierarchies with just a few clicks and departments can integrate smoothly without disrupting existing processes. And instead of hiring more people to handle tedious data entry, you can invest in strategic roles that drive revenue and growth.
Ready to Kick Your Workday Experience Up a Notch?
If your organization is using Workday, adding AP automation can take your workflow to the next level. The right automation solution will work seamlessly with your existing processes, while eliminating the tasks that slow your team down.
When your AP process runs smoothly, your entire team benefits. Stress levels drop, accuracy improves, and you have time for the strategic work that actually moves your goals forward.
That's why Nimbello's AP automation platform is specifically designed to work with Workday. Our team knows the nuances of Workday’s platform, and we've built our integration to handle everything from multi-line POs to complex approval hierarchies.
Ready to see how AP automation can transform your Workday experience? Contact us today!