A supplier invoice lands in someone's inbox. It gets printed, signed, scanned, queried, and paid three weeks later, after the supplier has phoned twice.
If that sounds like your month end, the problem is not your team. It is a process nobody designed.
The problem today: invoices that wait, and records that do not hold up.
Most finance teams do not lack effort. They lack one clear path for an invoice to follow. Invoices arrive by email, by courier and by WhatsApp. Approvers sign when they are in the office. Queries live in email threads that only one person can find.
The cost shows up in three places:
- Supplier relationships. Late payments strain the suppliers you depend on, and your team spends time answering, "when will we be paid?" instead of processing.
- Lost input VAT. SARS is clear that without a proper tax invoice, a business cannot deduct input tax. An invoice with missing details is VAT you may not be able to claim.
- Audit risk. When an auditor asks who approved a payment and on what basis, someone goes digging through email and paper files.
Accounts payable for automation can fix this, but only if you get the process right first. Automate a messy process and you simply get the mess faster.
How to fix it: a six-point checklist before you automate
You can work through this list with your own team, whether or not you ever speak to us.
- Map of how an invoice really travels today
Follow five recent invoices from arrival to payment. Write down every hand, every inbox and every wait. Most teams find steps nobody knew about, and approvals that sit for days with no follow up.
- Give invoices one way in
Pick one supplier invoice mailbox or capture point and tell every supplier to use it. Invoices sent to individuals are invoices that go missing when that person is on leave.
- Check the VAT invoice before anything else
Check the document before it reaches an approver. SARS lists what a valid tax invoice must show, including:
- The words "Tax Invoice", "VAT Invoice" or "Invoice".
- The supplier's name, address and VAT registration number.
- Your name and address, and your VAT number where you are a vendor.
- A serial number, the date of issue, and an accurate description and quantity.
- The value of the supply, the VAT charge and the total.
SARS requires a full tax invoice where the consideration is more than R5 000. Send incomplete invoices back to the supplier at capture, not at month end.
- Match before you approve
Where you use purchase orders, check the invoice against the order and against what you actually received. Price and quantity differences should stop the invoice and go to a named person, not sit in a general queue.
- Write your approval rules down
Decide who approves what, up to which amount, for which cost centre. Name a stand in for every approver. If the rules only exist in people's heads, no system can follow them.
- Keep one record of every step
Every invoice should carry its own history: when it arrived, who checked it, who approved it, what was queried and when it was paid. That record is what makes your process audit ready.
What it looks like in BCMFlow
BCMFlow turns that checklist into one workflow that your finance team and approvers share.
- Capture: invoices come in through one channel and become a record with the document attached.
- Check: your team confirms the VAT invoice details and, where you use them, matches the order and the receipt.
- Approve: each invoice goes to the right approver according to your written rules, with reminders when it waits.
- Record: every step is logged with role-based access, so your records stay audit ready and POPIA aware.
Finance managers see what is waiting, with whom and for how long, without asking around.
See how it works on our Accounts Payable page: https://bcmtransform.com/bcmflow/accounts-payable
Map your accounts payable process.
If your invoices still travel by email, paper and memory, start by mapping one. We will show you where the delays sit and what one clear approval flow could look like for your team.
Use the Map of my process box on our Accounts Payable page, or book a free 30-minute consultation. Live in weeks, not months, with your timeline agreed in writing after a free discovery session.
Call 012 023 0405 or WhatsApp 072 637 8678.
Related reading: Proof of Delivery Software: Stop Losing Days of Cash Flow https://bcmtransform.com/blog/proof-of-delivery-software-stop-losing-days-of-cash-flow
Anriët Pretorius
General Manager