This is a sponsored post from Accusoft.

Accusoft researched several of the factors driving technology and innovation in the financial services industry to better understand the current and future role of FinTech in the marketplace. Find out what they learned, discover assets that can help you solve your content processing, conversion, and automation challenges, and learn more about their FinTech solutions >>

The following is a sponsored post by Tracy Schlabach, Senior Manager, Product and Customer Marketing, Accusoft.

Digital transformation has been on the radar of most financial institutions for years. In a 2020 Digital Transformation Survey by BDO of financial services professionals, 68% of respondents in 2019 saw a growth in revenue directly related to digital investments. While many have made digital transformation a priority, some have faced roadblocks including risk-aversion and lack of corporate sponsorship.

With COVID-19 sweeping the globe, priorities are shifting, emphasizing the need for digital transformation.  As noted in a state of the industry report authored by the Institute of International Finance and Deloitte, “COVID-19 has generated leadership and organizational support by highlighting the need for digital transformation as a means to reach customers and maintain operational resilience.” Of those surveyed by BDO prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, 36% see industry disruption as the primary digital threat. In addition, a recent survey by IDG Research states that 59% of respondents are seeing an acceleration of digital transformation in their companies driven by the pandemic.

Now that implementing the digital strategy has taken center stage on the fintech roadmap, developers are looking to meet the needs of leadership as well as customers and employees in a timely and budget efficient manner.

What Is Digital Transformation?

The name digital transformation embodies a wide assortment of initiatives, from the customer engagement experience to transforming legacy systems. In an article by The Financial Brand, financial executives were asked to select their top digital transformation priorities for 2021. Out of the long list of initiatives, four of the highest priorities are:

• Improve Customer Experience
• Improve Use of Data, Analytics, and AI
• Enhance Innovation Agility
• Improve Back Office Efficiency

Financial institutions are prioritizing several diverse initiatives to remain relevant during the global pandemic. Project managers need to shorten development time, meet executive mandates, and launch products that significantly improve the employee and customer experience.

SDK and API Integrations Streamline Fintech Development

Development teams can effectively meet those timelines by partnering with software manufacturers who build and maintain software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). Developers can integrate these SDKs and APIs into their product offerings to add unique document processing capabilities. By partnering with a high-tech software solution, your team can save development time, shorten sprints, and reduce maintenance cost. While these are significant benefits, partnering and integrating third-party software manufacturers come with many advantages, including the ability to:

• Remove the burden of building and maintaining extensive document processing libraries
• Access the manufacturer’s support and engineering team who can assist with implementation and resolve issues
• Significantly reduce time to market of your product

Let’s take a deeper look at each of these advantages.

Integrate vs. Build & Maintain Document Processing Libraries – Consider how many different file formats are available in the market for submitting data to financial institutions.  Fintech users receive everything from Word documents to PDFs to images taken with cell phones. All of those file formats need to be taken into consideration when building a fintech application that streamlines the process of capturing data from those files. Building out libraries of code that can address every possible option is extremely cumbersome and time-consuming.  However, developers can leverage an SDK or API that has been developed specifically for document processing and open up time to focus on their core competencies.

Access to Support and Engineering Experts – When financial institutions embed third-party document and image processing solutions, they are also gaining access to a team of experts. At Accusoft, each customer has access to technical support and product developers that have helped hundreds of companies with implementing and utilizing these document processing SDKs and APIs. Digital transformation is a pressing concern for financial organizations. You can help them meet their needs with our SDKs and APIs. Get this new functionality up and running quickly in your application so your developers can focus on more mission-critical tasks.

Reduce Time to Market – As noted in the report by BDO, “Most financial services companies anticipate high returns on revenue and profitability from digital transformation.” Project managers that prioritize research and implement third-party software solutions can significantly reduce the time to market. This, in turn, will allow their company to realize profits faster than their competition.

With the recent changes in the world, the need for digital transformation is not slowing down.   Financial institutions that prioritize those initiatives and research ways to develop and implement their new offerings quickly will be ahead in realizing revenues and returning profits to shareholders.

Accusoft is a software development company specializing in content processing, conversion, and automation solutions. From out-of-the-box and configurable applications to APIs built for developers, we help organizations solve their most complex content workflow challenges. Our patented solutions enable users to gain insight from content in any format, on any device with greater efficiency, flexibility, and security. Visit us at www.accusoft.com

This is a sponsored post by Accusoft. For more information on sponsored contributions please email sponsor@finovate.com.

Accounts payable (AP) processes remain a sticking point for many organizations. Caught between the efficiency issues of paper-based solutions and the potential complexity of adopting technology-driven services, stagnation often results. Accusoft explores its top five tips to smooth out your system and reap the rewards.

Businesses now recognize the necessity of change, but many aren’t sure where to start. When it comes to new permutations of payable processes, a roadmap is invaluable. Here’s a look at five key forms completion and invoice processing improvements to help companies account for evolving AP expectations.

1. Identifying errors

Staff remain the biggest source of AP errors. There’s no malice here; humans simply aren’t the ideal candidates for repetitive data entry. In this case, effective implementation of new processes depends on customizable software tools capable of accurately capturing forms data and learning over time to better identify and avoid common errors. The benefit? Staff are free to work on time-sensitive AP approval and reviews rather than double-checking basic forms data.

2. Improving invoice routes

Invoice routing is time-consuming and often confusing for AP staff. To avoid potential oversights, most companies use two to three approvers per invoice, creating multiple approval workflows. While the process reduces total error rates, it also introduces new complexity. What happens if invoice versions don’t match or approvers don’t agree on their figures? In the best-case scenario, your company needs extra time to process every invoice. Worst case? Double payment of AP invoices or payments result in missed critical deadlines. Here, a single-application approach to invoice processing helps improve invoice routes and reduce redundant approval steps.

3. Integrating data location

Where is your accounts payable data located? For many companies, there’s no easy answer; some invoices are paper, others are digitally stored on secure servers, and there are still more trapped in emails and messages across your organization. Instead of chasing down AP data, implement an invoice rehoming process. Solutions like Accusoft’s FormSuite for Invoices support thousands of invoice formats and keep them all in the same place.

4. Innovating at speed and scale

Complexity holds back many accounts payable programs. If new technologies complicate existing processes, employee error rates will go up and there’s a chance they’ll avoid digital deployments altogether in favor of familiar paper alternatives. In this case, automation is the key to implementation; speedy solutions capable of scanning paper forms, identifying key data, and then digitally converting this information at scale. 

5. Increasing visibility

You can’t fix what you can’t see. Paper-based invoice processing naturally frustrates visibility by making it difficult to find key documents and assess total financial liabilities. Integrated APIs that work with your existing accounts payable applications can help improve inherent visibility by creating a single source of AP data under the secure umbrella of your corporate IT infrastructure.

Want to learn more about the potential pathways available for companies to improve their AP processes and reduce total complexity? Check out Volume 1 of our Accounts Payable eGuide series, No Pain, No Gain?