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The CFO’s Roadmap for Successful BPA Implementation
Many of the top CFO concerns going into 2025 revolved around technology. Automating and digitizing financial processes is a high priority, as is figuring out how Artificial Intelligence (AI) fits into your company.
While many companies have already digitized and some have started automating financial processes, there are still many that don’t have a robust automation system that truly streamlines their financial processing. Implementing such a solution can be a daunting task, but it’s an important part of staying ahead in the modern business world.Successfully implementing Business Process Automation (BPA) software requires planning. Not all implementations work as planned, but you can map out a route to successful automation in your company. Laying the groundwork within your company and working with a reliable BPA provider will set you up for success.
Build A Task Force
One of the first steps to laying the groundwork for successful BPA implementation is building a cross-functional task force. Including finance, IT, and operations in the early stages of automation ensures alignment and resource buy-in. Work with these stakeholders to plan what type of automation to implement, which departments to automate, and how you’ll measure success.
Big decisions to consider before automating include setting goals for automation, deciding how employees will use their time after automating aspects of their roles, and choosing what automation system to use. Your task force might start by choosing between a cloud-based or an on-premises BPA solution. An on-prem solution can give you more direct control, but it’s also a greater burden on the IT department and is often harder to scale, update, and maintain. For most companies, a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) system will be the more cost-effective, easy-to-implement choice.
Work Your Way Up
You don’t have to try to do everything at once, even if your goal is end-to-end automation for the company’s financial processes. Start with high-impact, low-complexity processes like invoice approval or employee reimbursements to demonstrate early wins. In a large company, you can also consider rolling out the new software solution in stages by identifying your most influential users and giving them first access to the system.
Even when you’re starting small, make sure to plan long-term. You need to know how much you want to automate before you pick an automation provider. You don’t want to be stuck with software conflicts down the road if you find a great AP automation system now, only to learn that the provider doesn’t offer other software modules you need later. Making your budgeting, capital expense (CapEx) management, procurement, accounts payable, and employee expense reimbursement systems work together gives you far more control over the entire process than you could get by automating just a few departments.
Start Training and Answering Questions
SaaS software platforms are easy to use, but there’s still a learning curve. Also, people often have worries and questions when the C-Suite starts talking about tools like automation and AI. They wonder how it will affect their jobs and whether the software might replace them. Head these worries off by sharing information to keep employees in the loop and offering training as the software rolls out.
Reassure employees that they’re not being replaced by BPA software. Rather, the software is designed to make their jobs easier and free them from tedious tasks. It also opens doors for them to make increasingly meaningful contributions to the company since their time isn’t taken up by repetitive, routine tasks. Surveys of employees at companies that implement automation software show that 89% of employees are more satisfied after BPA implementation than they were before. Your employees can be like that too, especially if you set them up for success early in the implementation process.
Measure Success and Plan to Adapt
Getting stakeholders on board and making a plan puts you on the right track toward successful BPA implementation. To know if your implementation is successful, though, you need to be ready to track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). As you make your plan, establish clear goals and the KPIs that you’ll track to ensure you’re meeting those goals.
You can measure and communicate success through clear KPIs like cycle time reduction, error rate improvements, and lower cost-per-process. If your goal is to reduce the cost-per-invoice processed by the AP department (for example), track the cost before and after BPA implementation so you can measure your success. Tracking KPIs like this lets you determine if automation was successful and gather data to communicate the success of your BPA implementation to stakeholders. It also gives you a guide to change the software settings if you’re not hitting your goals yet. That’s one of the great things about SaaS BPA software–you can easily customize and scale it to meet your company’s unique needs.
Find A Good Partner
Working with a good automation partner is critical to successful BPA implementation. A reliable supplier is key to keeping your data secure, successfully streamlining your financial processes, and customizing a user-friendly system that works for your company.
NextProcess is an industry leader in Procure-to-Pay (P2P) technology. Our innovative software makes the whole P2P process as simple as possible for your company. We also offer one of the highest successful implementation rates in the business and ongoing customer service support. End-to-end automation and seamless ERP integration are areas where only a few of the BPA software providers stand out. Most don’t offer a true end-to-end automation solution the way NextProcess does. Our system includes modules to automate the whole procure-to-pay cycle as well as support budgeting, capital project management, and expense reimbursement. Contact us today to set up a free demo so you can see our software in action and get answers to your questions about successfully implementing BPA software in your company.
