3 Traits of Any Successful Accounts Payable Team

Every year we watch The Big Game. Every year, we watch 14 teams scratch and claw for 17 weeks, vying for the right to be crowned league champions. It begs the question: What makes a champion-caliber team?

Talent alone can only take players so far. The best teams always seem to have the winning mixture of talent and intangibles like unity, perseverance, intelligence, and integrity, to name a few.

The same can also be said about just about every department within a company. But today, we’ll apply this topic to your Accounts Payable team. 

You may have the most talented accountants working with you. They may come from different backgrounds and add a plethora of experience and knowledge to your team. Even so, if your team isn’t infused with the values mentioned above, they may not be working at optimal levels. Let’s take a look at the top 3 traits of a successful AP team. 

The best teams in any profession possess specific attributes that make them successful in the long term. What is on the list you may ask? The truth is that every team is built differently, so they vary from group to group. However, we consider a few traits to be absolutely necessary no matter what team you’re on.

Here are the top 3 traits of successful Accounts Payable teams

1. They understand that Relationship Building is Important:

The best Accounts Payable teams know how to create strong business relationships.

They value building relationships within their team because they understand that everyone on the team has their own unique set of skills, insights, and individual characteristics, which they can utilize to help improve themselves and the group. By encouraging your team members to build these relationships on a daily basis, you’ll help create a culture of unity and trust and, as a result, you’ll see your productivity, quality of work, and team morale rise. 

Building strong relationships within your department is a worthy endeavor.  It’s also essential to build relationships across departments. 

 Your team most likely relies on other company departments to acquire important financial data. Without such data, your group can’t operate at its fullest potential or provide the company with the most accurate information they need to grow its business.  This may sound obvious to you but, believe it or not, many businesses and teams continue to operate in siloes. By breaking down those siloes, as well as building and maintaining bridges of trust with other teams in your company, you can keep the flow of information healthy between departments, which boosts productivity and revenue across the entire business.   Just as building relationships within your department and with colleagues in other departments within your company is important, you also want to build relationships with your system of suppliers.

It’s imperative to have a great connection with your network of suppliers. Without them, your company would be unable to generate any revenue due to the lack of resources to develop your products and services. One of the keys to creating and preserving an excellent rapport with your supplier base is making your payments to them in a timely manner.  Failing to meet the payment expectations you’ve set with your suppliers may result in them dropping their business with your company. Finding a way to consistently make your payments on time will help keep those relationships intact. One of the best ways you can accomplish this is through a high-level Accounts Payable automation system, which you can learn more about by clicking here.

2. They Always Strive to Achieve Higher Levels of Efficiency

Despite the recent boom in the quality and quantity of business technology, some Accounts Payable departments still haven’t established a set Accounts Payable process. In part, this is due to complacency and wanting to continue conducting business using more conventional practices for invoicing. “It’s the way we’ve always done it, and if it isn’t broke, why fix it?”  This mentality hinders the speed at which our society is growing accustomed to doing business across companies. If your process is not up to date, your suppliers and customers may choose to work with other companies. By using antiquated methods, you’re more prone to committing errors because of the potential use of inaccurate data. That means revisions are in order. Such errors could delay your process and result in more changes being made to the process itself, which could lead to lower levels of productivity. Your business practices can directly affect the speed and accuracy with which you pay your suppliers. Thus, excellent business practices help build healthy relationships with them. The best AP teams have a driving hunger to find the best resources, tools, and information out there that can help boost their overall efficiency. 

Using the right Accounts Payable automation software for your team will reduce the need for the old-fashioned manual entry method, which means more time for your group to accomplish other tasks and a heavy boost to your overall productivity levels. You’ll also reduce the number of invoice errors which leads to improved cash flow, boosted team morale, and an increase in the number of holiday cards and/or gift baskets in the mail from your suppliers. 

3. They Always Have an 'Adapt or Fail' Mentality

Jessica Hagedorn, an American playwright, writer, poet, and multimedia performance artist, once said, “Adaptability is the simple secret of survival”. 

As mentioned above, the old-fashioned method will cause issues like missing payments, lost productivity, and damaged supplier relationships. Every industry has had to adapt to changing times at one point or another and the Accounts Payable industry is no exception. The biggest driver, currently, is the use of up-to-date business technology. The best Accounts Payable teams embrace that kind of technology, like Accounts Payable automation.

Accounts Payable Automation has proven to be a huge asset for many teams. With benefits like reduced costs, streamlined processes, higher productivity levels, and improved security, it’s hard to justify the “old-fashioned way” as part of a modern business.  Every team is unique. Therefore, they’re all built through slightly different processes. . Regardless of your team’s culture, your ability to build relationships within your team, across teams, and with your suppliers will affect the magnitude of your efficiency and freedom to adapt. Conclusion

If you’re looking to improve your business relationships, boost your efficiency, and push your AP department to new levels of success, considering an Accounts Payable automation solution is an excellent place to start.

At DataServ, we offer AP automation solutions designed to streamline AP processes for our clients so they, can rise to the top of their games. We accomplish this by customizing our AP automation services to best serve our partners. Additionally, we offer around-the-clock support, universal integration, and other incentives that are beneficial to businesses of all sizes.

If you're ready to bring your team to their A-Game, let's set up a consultation to

to streamline your processes today!