Remote A/P
I currently work for a construction company as A/P along with several other hats. We are moving, and my employer is discussing allowing me to work remotely, but we cannot seem to come up with a way to remote-ize the A/P process, so I was curious if there were…
I currently work for a construction company as A/P along with several other hats. We are moving, and my employer is discussing allowing me to work remotely, but we cannot seem to come up with a way to remote-ize the A/P process, so I was curious if there were any ideas here. Currently, I receive invoices via email (that part still works), or our field guys bring me receipts for our vendor accounts (Lowe’s, for instance), that I stick a tag on to assign job, cost code number, etc. These items then route to the project managers for approval, then our Treasurer for approval, then back to me to enter into our accounting system, where checks are cut on check run days, which can be handled in office. Does anyone else have a similar flow that can share what you’ve done to make it remote friendly? My bosses are hesitant to change the system, it’s very paper heavy, and I’m not sure how to get around that. Thanks!
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Its all done by email in our office. What is preventing that in yours? Invoices are emailed and then forwarded around for approvals and put in our online system. Receipts are emailed with the relevant information and forwarded around for approvals the same way. We also have folders on the server with copies of the emails.
In my experience, the field guys aren't going to take the time to scan anything. They hand off paper receipts, and barely at that.
It took a minute but our field guys have learned to take photos of their receipts to upload to the app we use for the company card (especially if they sign an expense policy that says unverified expenses need to come out of their paychecks). Also I am 99% sure you can get your lowes receipts online if it's a vendor account. The hard part is getting their managers on board. Once they made it a job expectation they were suddenly capable.
We use A-Systems JobView
Yeah, that’s basically the only hiccup. And it’s a huge one lol. Sometimes they come in with literal stacks of receipts (like 30+ for a day), and to get someone to scan all those to me is going to be like pulling teeth
I was thinking if I could get them to just send me a pic of their receipts, that would maybe work- the issue is the majority of our receipts are like 18 inches long 😅 So they’d be really hard to see the info on them if they just took a pic.
We use A-Systems JobView. The checks aren’t an issue, honestly- it’s just the paper form receipt processing.
I had this same problem however we did have a central location where the field staff report to at least once a week. We purchased a Ricoh ScanSnap scanner which handles long receipts very well. We installed one in this central location and they can put the whole stack in the receipt intake on the scanner and scan them all in one go. The scanner automatically emails it to our payables email. Very easy and little pushback once they saw how easy it was.
I’m hoping they’re open to small changes. Currently, the system is really old school, so digitalizing it would be really helpful.
If it were up to me to not print checks, I would absolutely do it differently… unfortunately that’s not my call.
Exactly this. Our field guys aren’t tech savvy, and I have a feeling there would be significant pushback if we asked them to use a computer.
What ERP on you on?
I work in a very blue-collar industry where there is always a ton of push back when trying to implement and changes that involve technology. The only thing that has worked for us is implementing Jotform. They guys are able to take a picture from their phone and upload it then it gets sent to the appropriate supervisor for approval and so on.
if theyre open to samll changes. id start by scanning or uploading every receipt instead of passing paper around. digital approvals usually make remote ap much easier, and you still keep a clear record of who approves each invoice
Have the field guys scan the receipts or take pics with their phone. And good god stop printing checks yourself. Obviously much better workflow products that will help with the receipts and invoices, but those two things alone would allow you to work remotely until you get some more efficient processes in place.
Everything can be handled by email, Google drive or whatever equivalent platform, the only hiccup would be the receipts from the field guys. If there's a physical office that the field guys report to, then someone there can scan the receipts and send them.
What software are you using? Do you have to use checks? You could try bill.com or QuickBooks approvals and ach payments.
All done on a local server in my organization. Every one has a folder for their approvals. When it’s approved they drop it into the next person’s folder (or you move it) until it’s appropriately approved and then you can park it in a to be posted folder. When it’s posted it’s moved to an unpaid folder and when it’s paid it goes to the paid folder. For receipts, instead of you getting the physical copy of a receipt, the person takes a picture or scan and uploads it to the a folder on the server or emails you the copy. Someone in the office is responsible for filing the physical copy if accountant thinks it should be kept. Having it all saved to a private server that the company owns is best from what I understand from IT. I’m not sure how they back that up though if that’s a concern. Our server is also housed on a server farm so would be protected if we had a fire or flood in our location.
I have a question different than original ask: how do you handle account receivable AR in the company?
Okay thank you for asking this! I tried to ask this in a post I made 2 days ago and everyone thought I was an idiot. Following to see if your questions receives better feedback and solutions.
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I created an app within Microsoft Applications that helps my Company to manage AP payments. Approvals, accounting, status updates & much more. It cut the process from weeks to less than a day. If any of you think it helps to have this in your organization, I would be happy to schedule a call to discuss further. OP - I think this will help you.
bill.com
One client of mine used Hubdoc. Just have them take a pic of the receipt after they write the job on it and it goes to the your hubdoc account which you can choose who sees them for approval. We used quickbooks and the hundox photos , bills etc integrated right into quickbooks
The scanner suggestions (ScanSnap etc.) solve the "get it off paper" problem but not the one you specifically flagged - the job number written on top of an 18" receipt that a photo or basic scan won't capture legibly. That's a labeling problem, not a scanning problem, and it's usually fixable without any new tech: give the field guys a stack of pre-printed job-code stickers or a stamp (not handwriting) that goes in the exact same spot on every receipt - top-left corner, big and bold - before it goes on the pile. A stamp is faster for them than writing it out, more legible than handwriting, and consistent placement means whoever scans doesn't have to guess where to look each time. It's a five-dollar fix for what sounds like the actual bottleneck in the whole remote conversion, versus trying to get "cranky construction guys" to adopt new software.