The Sage Intacct User’s Guide to AP Automation Best Practices

Introduction

Mid-market finance teams often struggle to scale AP operations when relying on manual tasks. Paper invoices, email approvals, and spreadsheet trackers lead to bottlenecks and risks. In fact, 66% of AP teams still manually key invoices into their ERP/finance system.. This not only slows down processing (manual invoice approvals can take 14+ days), but also benchmarks show top-quartile cost-per-invoice near $1–$2, while laggards pay several times more (use ranges vs. a single average). Common pain points for Intacct users include data entry backlogs, delayed approvals, and compliance headaches when trying to manage AP by hand. These inefficiencies cause stress for AP teams and can damage vendor relationships when payments are late. Manual processes lengthen cycle time and boost exceptions—IFOL reports more teams spending 10+ hours/week on processing and flags “manual data entry” and “data errors” as the top two challenges.

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The good news is that Sage Intacct, combined with AP automation best practices, can turn AP from a tedious chore into a streamlined process. Top-performing companies leverage automation and smart workflows to achieve 46% lower processing costs and handle 60% more invoices per employee than average. They also capture more early payment discounts and resolve exceptions faster by using OCR data capture, automated 3-way matching, and electronic approvals. The following best practices guide will help Intacct users implement similar strategies. We’ll cover how to use Intacct’s native AP features (like approval workflows, dimensions, and audit trail) effectively, and how adding a specialized AP tool such as Centime can enhance these capabilities with AI-driven invoice capture, intelligent coding, supplier collaboration, and payment automation. Each best practice is presented with context, examples, and relevant benchmarks. Let’s dive in!

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1. Establish Clear Approval Workflows and Segregation of Duties

One of the first pillars of AP best practices is a structured approval process. Every bill should be reviewed and approved by the right people before posting to the ledger and payment. Sage Intacct makes it possible to configure robust approval workflows for bills in the Accounts Payable module. Leverage Intacct’s permissions and approval settings to enforce segregation of duties – ensure the person entering a bill (preparer) is not the same person approving it. This separation helps prevent internal fraud and errors. Without distinct preparer and approver roles, vulnerabilities arise (e.g. an employee could create a fake vendor and approve payments to themselves, or invoices might slip through without proper oversight). Intacct’s audit trail and user permission features will flag if the same user tries to both submit and approve a bill, supporting compliance. Intacct permissions + workflows are core to Segregation of Duties (SoD); configure distinct preparer/approver roles to prevent same-user submit/approve.

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Configure multi-tier approvals in Intacct to match your company’s needs. For example:

Value-based approvals: Set up thresholds so that any bill over a certain amount requires higher-level approval. Intacct allows routing bills above, say, $10k to a CFO or Controller for sign-off, while smaller bills can be auto-approved or approved by department managers. This ensures material expenses get extra scrutiny.
Department or Location-based approvals: Intacct can route bills to different approvers based on dimensions like department. A multi-step approval can trigger if multiple departments or entities are involved in a single invoice. For instance, an IT software invoice allocated to both Marketing and Sales departments might require managers from each to approve their portion.
User or role-based approvals: You can designate specific approvers for certain vendors or expense types (e.g. the Facilities Manager must approve all office supply bills). Intacct’s role-based workflow rules let you tailor who needs to sign off on what.

By standardizing approval policies in Intacct, you create a controlled, auditable process for invoice review. Make sure to communicate these approval thresholds and roles to your team, so everyone knows when and how bills get approved.

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How Centime Helps: Centime integrates with Sage Intacct to supercharge the approval process without disrupting your workflow. Using Centime’s AP automation, you can customize approval workflows with even more granularity. For example, Centime allows setting up conditional approvals (if an invoice is above a certain amount and non-PO, route to Finance VP, etc.) and time-based escalations (if an approver doesn’t act within X days, the request automatically moves to an alternate approver). All approval actions sync back to Intacct, and Centime’s interface provides finance teams a clear dashboard of pending approvals across the organization. This means no invoice sits forgotten in someone’s email inbox. Every approval (or rejection) is logged, with electronic timestamps and audit trails for each step. By enforcing approvals through Centime and Intacct, companies strengthen internal controls — audit failures due to lack of approval evidence or segregation of duties can be avoided. The result is a faster, compliant approval process that scales as your invoice volume grows, without sacrificing control.

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2. Automate Invoice Capture to Eliminate Manual Data Entry

Data entry is one of the most time-consuming aspects of AP. Manually keying invoice details into Intacct not only wastes staff hours but also introduces errors and delays. A best practice for any Intacct user is to minimize manual typing by digitizing and automating invoice capture. At a basic level, this means transitioning away from paper invoices and ensuring vendors send you invoices electronically (email or portal). Intacct allows you to attach invoice documents to bills and even has an AI-powered Automated Bill Entry feature where you can upload or email an invoice and let the system generate a draft bill. If you use this Intacct capability, Sage’s AI will extract the vendor name, invoice date, amount, and even line item details, producing a pre-populated bill ready for your review. According to Sage, this kind of automation can cut AP processing time in half. Even if you don’t have Intacct’s AI module enabled, you should at least scan and OCR your invoices with some tool, because on average more than half of invoice data (57%) still gets re-typed by hand across businesses – a major efficiency drain.

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Hand-keying invoice info also contributes to errors and exceptions (approximately 39% of invoices have errors in a manual environment). These errors then require rework and delay payments. The best practice here is clear: let machines do the data capture. Use Intacct’s built-in document capture or an integrated solution to read invoices automatically, so your AP staff only needs to verify the data, not enter it from scratch. This speeds up the invoice intake process significantly. It also means invoices can start the approval workflow sooner since you’re not waiting on data entry. Faster invoice processing has a ripple effect – companies with high levels of AP automation often take advantage of early payment discounts and avoid late fees simply because invoices move quicker through the pipeline.

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How Centime Helps: Centime’s AP automation adds world-class OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and AI-driven invoice capture fully embedded into Sage Intacct. Instead of manually entering invoices into Intacct, Centime allows you to automatically extract all key data from vendor invoices (whether they come in as PDF, image, or EDI). The system’s AI engine has high accuracy in recognizing vendor names, amounts, dates, line items, and even GL coding (as we’ll cover in the next section). For example, when a vendor emails an invoice to your designated AP inbox, Centime can ingest that email attachment, read all the details, and create a draft bill in Sage Intacct with those fields pre-populated – all within minutes. You simply review the draft and click approve to submit it into Intacct’s AP module. This process virtually eliminates manual data entry, freeing up your AP staff from typing tasks. It also improves accuracy (no human typos when the AI is pulling directly from the document). By using Centime for invoice capture, Intacct users can handle higher invoice volumes with the same staff – one person can oversee the automated capture of thousands of invoices. In fact, organizations that adopt this level of AP automation often reduce invoice processing costs by 60-80%, bringing the cost per invoice down to a few dollars or less. The payoff is immediate: invoices are in the system faster, ready for coding and approval, and your team can focus on exceptions rather than data entry.

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Average cost of processing an invoice manually is $15, but AP automation can slash this cost. Eliminating manual entry with AI-driven invoice capture is a key step to reduce AP processing expenses.

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3. Leverage AI for Intelligent Coding and Use Dimensions for Reporting

Accurate invoice coding is vital for financial reporting and spend management. Sage Intacct’s GL structure is highly dimensional – you can tag transactions with various dimensions like department, location, project, vendor, class, etc. This is a best practice to adopt: code AP bills with all relevant dimensions so that you can slice and dice your payables data in reports (by department spend, by project cost, by vendor, and so on). Intacct’s AP module allows you to distribute an invoice across multiple accounts and dimensions easily, but doing this manually for every invoice can be labor-intensive and prone to inconsistency. Controllers often find that manually coded invoices can have coding errors or missing tags, which then require fixes during month-end close or cause reporting inaccuracies.

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To optimize this, companies should standardize their coding rules and utilize AI assistance for coding whenever possible. At minimum, maintain a clear vendor-to-GL account mapping or reference so that AP clerks know how to code each invoice (e.g. Office Depot -> Office Supplies expense). Intacct’s Smart Rules can enforce certain coding requirements (like requiring a project dimension for specific vendors, etc.), and its memorized transactions can help repeat invoice entries use the same coding. However, an even more powerful approach is using AI-based coding predictions. Modern AP automation tools can learn from your historical data and suggest or auto-apply GL codes and dimensions to each invoice line, based on patterns. This ensures consistency (every invoice from Staples is coded to Office Supplies + Department 100 automatically, unless overridden) and saves time.

**Adoption is rising—29% of AP teams already use AI in their process and 51% are evaluating it for the next year (top use cases: data extraction, matching/approvals, duplicate/fraud detection).

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How Centime Helps: Centime brings AI-powered invoice coding directly into your Sage Intacct workflow. As Centime captures invoice data, it doesn’t stop at just extracting the header details – it also can predict the appropriate GL account and even dimensional tags for each invoice line item. For example, if an invoice from “ACME Software Inc.” usually is coded to the “Software Subscriptions” account and tagged to the IT department in Intacct, Centime’s AI learns this pattern. The next invoice from ACME will come in with those fields pre-filled for your review. Centime can even handle multi-line invoices, allocating each line to the correct expense account or item based on descriptions or SKU matches. This greatly reduces the risk of mis-coding, which in turn improves your financial reporting accuracy. Fewer coding errors also mean fewer corrections and journal entries later (saving your accountants time during reconciliation). Furthermore, by ensuring all invoices carry the proper dimensions (like department, location, etc.), you’ll get better visibility in Intacct’s dashboards and reports – you can trust that the spend data by department or project is complete and accurate. In short, Centime’s AI coding feature helps Intacct users process invoices faster and with fewer errors. Your AP team can review AI-suggested coding instead of starting from a blank slate, which is much quicker. And if your company has custom coding rules, Centime can be configured to follow them. This intelligent coding not only speeds up AP but also contributes to audit readiness – consistent coding means anomalies stand out and auditors can more easily trace expenses to the right categories.

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4. Implement 3-Way Matching and Strengthen Internal Controls to Reduce Fraud Risk

As companies scale, fraud prevention and error reduction in AP become critical. One best practice that Intacct users should employ is 3-way matching for purchase order (PO) related invoices. If your company issues purchase orders and receives goods, matching the vendor’s invoice against the PO and the receiving report (proof of delivery) is a proven control to catch discrepancies. Sage Intacct’s purchasing module supports matching – you can link POs, receipts, and vendor bills. Best practice is to require that any invoice tied to a PO must be matched to what was ordered and received before approval for payment. This prevents over-billing (invoice quantity or price higher than ordered) and helps flag fraud, such as a fake invoice for goods that were never delivered. Even for non-PO bills, Intacct provides some controls like duplicate invoice detection and spending alerts. Intacct’s Spend Management feature can alert if a bill will cause a budget to be exceeded, which helps prevent unauthorized overspending. Additionally, Intacct automatically flags duplicate vendor invoice numbers if entered, which can prevent accidentally paying the same invoice twice (a common scheme in fraud cases or simple clerical error).

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Use Intacct’s audit trail and vendor management features to bolster controls. Ensure that new vendors are vetted and set up in Intacct by someone other than the person who pays bills (segregation of vendor setup vs. payment). The audit trail in Intacct keeps a record of any changes to vendor records or bill amounts, so review those logs periodically. Given that 79% of organizations experienced payments fraud attempts in 2024 (with methods like fake vendor emails and bogus invoices on the rise), it’s crucial to deploy strong controls inside Intacct: require approvers to review supporting documents, verify bank details for new vendors, and insist on proper documentation (like PO and receipt) before paying large invoices.

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How Centime Helps: Centime enhances Intacct’s internal controls through automation and additional fraud safeguards. First, Centime’s platform has built-in 3-way matching intelligence. As invoices come in, Centime can automatically match invoice line items to the corresponding purchase order and receiving data. If everything matches within defined tolerances, the invoice can move forward; if not, Centime will flag an exception for your team to review. This means your AP staff spend time on the true mismatches (price or quantity discrepancies, missing receipts, etc.) rather than manually comparing every line. It also greatly reduces the chance of paying an incorrect or fraudulent invoice – any invoice that doesn’t tie out to a valid PO or receipt will be caught.

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Centime also flags duplicate invoices and suspicious entries automatically. Just as Intacct’s Sage AI can warn you of a duplicate bill number, Centime will cross-check new invoices against those already processed to prevent double payments. Moreover, with Centime’s supplier portal (covered in the next section), there’s more control over how invoices enter your system – reducing the risk of fake invoices. Vendors have to submit through the portal or to a designated email, which lowers the chance of phishing emails slipping through. Centime can validate vendor information on invoices against the vendor master data in Intacct, warning you if, for example, a vendor’s banking details have changed (which might indicate fraud).

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All these automated controls mean you are far less likely to fall victim to AP fraud schemes like business email compromise or invoice scams. Considering that checks are the payment method most often targeted in fraud (63% of companies faced check fraud in 2024), Centime’s ability to facilitate electronic payments (ACH, virtual cards) also helps by moving you away from vulnerable paper checks. Ultimately, by using Centime with Sage Intacct, you create a fortified AP process: every invoice is verified (matched to a PO or contract), approved by the right people, and paid through secure channels. This significantly reduces the opportunities for fraud and human error. It also keeps a detailed audit trail of all matching and approval activities, so if an auditor inquires about a transaction, you can easily show the matched PO, the receiving report, who approved the invoice, and when it was paid – all in one system. Proactive controls like these are why specialists recommend automation; the potential losses from AP fraud and errors (estimated at $7 trillion globally in 2024) are too great to ignore.

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5. Provide a Self-Service Supplier Portal to Improve Collaboration and Compliance

Managing vendor relationships and communications is an often overlooked part of AP best practices. When your AP process is manual, AP staff spend a lot of time fielding vendor inquiries: “Has my invoice #123 been received? When will it be paid? Can you update our bank details?” These tasks can eat up time and also create risks (e.g., updating vendor bank info via an email request can be risky if not verified). Given BEC’s prevalence, require out-of-band callbacks and portal-based banking updates tied to vendor authentication. Sage Intacct on its own doesn’t include a vendor self-service portal, but it does allow you to record plenty of vendor information and track status of payments internally. A best practice for Intacct users is to centralize vendor communications and data as much as possible. Maintain complete vendor records in Intacct (addresses, contacts, payment terms, default expense accounts, etc.) and use Intacct reports to answer vendor questions quickly. You can also take advantage of Intacct’s notes or Collaborate feature to log communications about a vendor or bill, keeping a history in context. However, to truly streamline, consider adding a supplier portal as part of your AP automation strategy.

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With a supplier portal, vendors can upload invoices directly, check their payment status, and update their own contact or banking information in a controlled way. This reduces back-and-forth emails and ensures that all invoice submissions and changes are tracked. The result is faster invoice submissions (no lost emails or paper) and happier vendors since they have visibility. It also strengthens compliance: for example, if all vendor banking updates must go through a secure portal, you can require verification (like the vendor must log in and provide verification details), which helps prevent fraudsters from impersonating a supplier and diverting payments. Additionally, a portal can enforce that certain fields or documents are provided with each invoice (like requiring a PO number on the invoice if applicable), thereby improving the quality of invoices your team receives.

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How Centime Helps: Centime offers a Supplier Portal as a key feature of its AP automation for Intacct. This portal is a game-changer for Intacct users who want to extend self-service capabilities to their vendors. With Centime’s supplier portal, your vendors can log in to a secure online hub to submit invoices, view the status of their invoices and payments, and manage their account details. For example, instead of emailing an invoice to your AP clerk, a vendor can upload it on the portal; it goes straight into Centime’s capture workflow and on to Intacct for processing – no email triage needed. Vendors can see if an invoice is pending approval, approved, or paid, which greatly cuts down on those “just checking on payment” emails to your AP department.

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From the compliance perspective, the portal can require vendors to provide tax IDs, W-9 forms, or other compliance documents as part of onboarding. All these documents can be stored and linked to the vendor record in Intacct via Centime. When a vendor updates their ACH bank details, Centime can capture that change and even enforce an approval step for your vendor management team before it takes effect, adding another layer of security. Improved communication is another benefit: messages or disputes can be handled within the portal, creating a written record. If a vendor inquires why an invoice hasn’t been paid, your team can respond via the portal (perhaps the invoice was on hold pending a PO receipt – now the vendor knows exactly what’s needed). By giving vendors transparency and control over their information, Centime helps Intacct users build stronger supplier relationships. This leads to suppliers being more willing to offer early payment discounts and favorable terms, because they trust your AP process. It also frees your AP staff from acting as go-betweens for routine questions – they can focus on higher-value tasks instead of constantly replying to vendor emails. In summary, Centime’s supplier portal elevates your AP process into a collaborative platform, which is a best practice for modern AP departments aiming for efficiency and better vendor service.

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6. Streamline Payments and Optimize Timing (Capture Early Discounts, Avoid Late Fees)

After invoices are approved in Intacct, the final step is payment. It’s here that many companies either stick to old habits (printing checks, manually initiating bank transfers) or struggle with timing (paying too early, too late, or missing discounts). Best practice for Sage Intacct users is to streamline the payment process and strategically time payments to optimize cash flow. Intacct’s AP module can produce check runs, ACH files, or even integrate with payment services. It also supports multiple payment methods (check, ACH, credit card). Controllers should set up payment approval workflows if large payments need sign-off, and schedule regular payment runs (e.g. weekly or biweekly) to batch process outgoing payments efficiently.

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A key opportunity here is capturing early payment discounts. Many suppliers offer terms like 2/10 net 30 (2% discount if paid in 10 days). However, if your AP process is slow, you might miss that 10-day window and end up paying the full amount on day 30. Automation and better scheduling can fix this. Track which vendors offer early-pay discounts and let that inform your payment schedule – pay those invoices first within the discount window. Conversely, avoid late payment penalties by having a clear view of due dates. Intacct provides an Accounts Payable Aging report and can show due dates for each bill; make it a practice to review that and ensure payments are made by the due date. Late fees are essentially wasted money. Also consider payment method optimization: checks are not only fraud-prone, they’re also slower and cost more to process. Shifting to electronic payments (ACH, wire, or credit card) is a best practice. Intacct can store vendor bank details (or you can use an integrated partner to handle the actual disbursement). The goal is a fast, predictable, and secure payment process that maximizes discounts and minimizes costs.

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Another angle is the use of corporate cards or virtual cards for AP. Some organizations pay vendors via virtual credit cards which can generate rebate revenue (cashback) from card providers. Intacct doesn’t natively issue virtual cards, but if you use them, ensure the reconciliation of those payments back into Intacct is smooth.

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How Centime Helps: Centime’s AP automation includes integrated payment processing that works hand-in-hand with Sage Intacct. From one platform, you can schedule and execute payments to vendors via ACH (electronic bank transfer) or virtual card. Centime will pull approved bills from Intacct (with all their due dates and terms) and allow you to create a payment run. You can decide which invoices to pay and when, and Centime will handle the rest – initiating the ACH transfers to vendor bank accounts or sending out virtual card payments. Once executed, the payment status (paid, date, method, reference number) syncs back to Intacct automatically, so your ledger and cash balances are up to date without manual intervention.

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One big advantage here is the ability to capture early payment discounts systematically. Centime can be configured to highlight invoices that have an early-pay discount available and are within the discount window, so you don’t overlook them. You could set a rule to always pay those invoices on the next day or immediately once approved. This ensures you never miss those savings. (For context, industry benchmarks suggest many companies only capture about 30% of available discounts, whereas best-in-class capture ~70%. With automation, you can move closer to that best-in-class range.) In fact, Centime even offers a feature to manage ACH payment discounts you give to your customers or vendors, helping offset fees – but in the AP context, it’s about making sure you take discounts offered to you.

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Centime’s payment engine also helps avoid late payments by allowing you to schedule payments ahead of time. The system can alert you to upcoming due dates. And if cash flow is a concern, Centime integrates your AP with cash flow forecasting (since it’s an all-in-one cash management tool) so you can see the impact of paying certain bills on your cash position. This means you can strategically choose when to pay – for example, maybe wait until just before the due date for large outflows to maximize cash on hand, but pay early when a discount is available. All these decisions can be made in one dashboard. After payment, Centime marks the bill as paid in Intacct and attaches any payment confirmation or references for easy lookup.

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Another benefit: reducing payment fraud. Because Centime handles payments through secure electronic methods, you eliminate the risk of check theft or alteration. Plus, every payment is tied to an approved invoice, creating a clear audit trail from invoice to payment. If a vendor says they didn’t receive a payment, you can quickly pull up the record in Centime/Intacct and even resend an ACH if needed, all tracked. And if using virtual cards, Centime’s platform can generate unique card numbers per transaction, adding security and potential rebate income (some organizations earn rebates of 1% or more on AP spend via card programs, effectively turning AP into a revenue opportunity).

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In summary, Centime transforms the last mile of AP – payments – from a manual, risk-prone process into a streamlined, optimized flow. You’ll pay the right amounts at the right times, keep suppliers happy, capture discounts that improve your bottom line, and protect against fraud. The resulting efficiency can cut your AP processing time dramatically, as Sage Intacct users have seen when combining Intacct with automation tools (reports show AP processing times dropping by 50% or more with AI-driven solutions).

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7. Maintain Audit-Ready Records and Monitor AP KPIs for Continuous Improvement

The final best practice is about staying audit-ready and data-driven. A huge advantage of using Sage Intacct is its continuous audit trail – every change to every transaction is logged (who, when, what changed). To make the most of this, ensure that all your AP activities are recorded in Intacct (or integrated systems) rather than offline. This means attach all key documents (invoices, receipts, approvals) to the transactions in Intacct, and avoid processing anything “off the books.” Intacct’s audit trail, combined with proper documentation, can answer most auditor questions in minutes. For example, if an auditor asks why a certain expense was higher this quarter, you can drill down in Intacct and see the transactions, and even see the discussion or notes (via Intacct Collaborate) explaining those transactions. Make it a routine to audit your own AP process: periodically sample a few paid invoices and trace them through Intacct – verify you can see the original invoice image, the approval history, and the payment info. If something is missing, that’s a gap to fix before a real audit finds it.

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Being audit-ready also ties to compliance with policies and regulations (e.g. SOX compliance for public companies requires demonstrating controls are working). Intacct provides a solid framework for this, but you have to use it consistently. A best practice is to never approve or pay an invoice outside of the system. Even if there’s an urgent situation, record it in Intacct (you can always explain exceptions, but you can’t explain missing records).

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Additionally, monitor your AP performance metrics to drive continuous improvement. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for AP include: invoice processing cycle time (from receipt to payment), cost per invoice, approval turnaround time, discount capture rate, and error rate (exceptions). Sage Intacct offers dashboards and reports where some of these metrics can be tracked (for example, you could create a custom report for number of invoices processed per month per FTE, or use Intacct’s performance cards to display AP aging and cash metrics). Use these to identify bottlenecks. If you see that the average approval takes 8 days, perhaps you need to adjust your workflow or send reminders. If your discount capture rate is low, maybe prioritize those invoices differently. Remember, what gets measured gets managed.

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How Centime Helps: Centime is not just about automation—it also provides enhanced visibility and reporting that complements Intacct’s capabilities. When you integrate Centime with Sage Intacct, you gain a centralized view of the entire AP process, from invoice receipt to payment completion. All of the data flows in real-time between Centime and Intacct, so you can trust that your reports reflect the latest status. Centime’s dashboards can show you metrics like invoices processed this month, pending approvals, average processing time, and total payments made. It can also track how many invoices hit exceptions (and why). These analytics help you pinpoint areas to improve. For instance, you might discover that a particular department’s invoices always take longer – perhaps because their approver is frequently out of office – so you can add an alternate approver to fix that. Or you might see that you’re only capturing half of the available discounts; with that insight, you could set up a new automation rule to pay those vendors faster.

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From an audit standpoint, Centime ensures that all AP documents and actions are stored and easily retrievable. Every invoice processed through Centime is kept as a digital record with its metadata. Auditors can be given read-only access to Centime’s audit trail or you can quickly pull up any transaction they request. Because Centime works within Intacct (it has an embedded experience for Intacct users), your finance team can retrieve information without jumping between systems. For example, within Intacct you could click a Centime tab for a vendor and see all invoices and payments related to them, including images and approval logs. This kind of integration means at audit time, you’re not scrambling through file cabinets or disparate systems – it’s all in one place.

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Centime also helps enforce your policies consistently, which is key for compliance. The system won’t allow an invoice to be paid unless it went through the designated approvals and matches the rules set up. This reduces the chance of an auditor finding an instance where a control was bypassed. By using Centime, one company found that it could reduce the time spent on audit preparation by days, since everything the auditors needed was readily available in the system’s records (no more hunting down emails or paper approvals).

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Lastly, consider the broader impact: with a fully automated and optimized AP process, your team can shift from firefighting mode to a more strategic role. Instead of just processing transactions, they can analyze spending trends, negotiate better terms with suppliers (backed by data on how quickly you can pay), and collaborate with the CFO on cash management. Centime’s all-in-one design (integrating AP, AR, and cash flow forecasting) provides insights into working capital so you can manage payables in tandem with receivables and cash goals. In essence, you’re not just cleaning up AP for the sake of the audit, you’re transforming it into a well-oiled machine that supports the company’s financial strategy. That is the ultimate best practice – to make AP not an isolated function, but a key part of your financial success.

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Conclusion

Optimizing accounts payable in Sage Intacct isn’t just about using the software – it’s about adopting a mindset of continuous improvement and leveraging the right tools to automate low-value tasks. By following these best practices, Intacct users can speed up invoice processing, cut costs, strengthen controls, and improve vendor relationships. We started with the fundamentals: clear approval workflows and roles to ensure every bill is properly vetted. We then removed the manual bottlenecks by automating invoice capture and coding with AI, ensuring data flows into Intacct accurately and quickly. We reinforced controls through 3-way matching and fraud prevention measures, recognizing that AP is a common target for scams and errors. We also expanded the scope of AP to include vendor collaboration via a portal and efficient, timely payments that take advantage of discounts. Finally, we stressed the importance of audit readiness and tracking KPIs so that your AP process stays reliable and transparent as your business grows.

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Sage Intacct provides a powerful platform to implement these practices – from its dimensional reporting and approval engine to its audit trail and real-time dashboards. Adding a specialized AP automation solution like Centime takes these best practices to the next level by embedding advanced OCR, AI, and workflow capabilities directly into your Intacct environment. The synergy of Intacct + Centime means you can do more with less manual work: process more invoices without adding headcount, close your books faster with fewer errors, and even turn AP into a profit center by capturing discounts and rebates. Importantly, all of this can be achieved without overhauling your ERP – Centime’s integration keeps everything seamless, so Intacct remains your system of record while automation works in the background.

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In the era where digital transformation is no longer a luxury but a necessity, mid-market companies that automate AP are reaping significant benefits. They enjoy faster cycle times, better supplier terms, and peace of mind knowing their controls are solid. If you’re a Controller or AP Manager using Sage Intacct, now is the time to apply these best practices. Start by evaluating your current AP workflow against these recommendations – where are the gaps? Perhaps begin with one or two improvements, like setting up Intacct approval rules and deploying OCR for invoice entry, and then build on that success.

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Remember, the goal is to free up your finance team from transactional busy-work and enable them to focus on analysis, exceptions, and strategic activities. By optimizing your AP process with Sage Intacct and Centime, you’ll not only improve efficiency but also contribute to better cash flow management and vendor satisfaction for your organization. In short, you’ll transform AP from a back-office burden into a streamlined, value-adding function.

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Next Steps: If you’re interested in seeing how Centime’s AP automation works with Sage Intacct in action, consider scheduling a demo. Embracing these best practices will set you on the path to join those leading organizations. It’s time to take your AP process to the next level and ensure that every step – from invoice to payment – is handled with best-in-class efficiency and control.

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The Sage Intacct User’s Guide to AP Automation Best Practices

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