What’s Slowing Down Your Finance Team (Hint: It’s Not Just the Workload)

If your finance team constantly feels behind, stressed, or stuck in a cycle of last-minute scrambles, the issue might not be the size of the workload alone. In many cases, it’s actually the systems and processes dragging things down — not the number of invoices or payments to handle.

One of the biggest game-changers for modern businesses has been introducing accounts payable automation early in their growth. Instead of relying on outdated spreadsheets, manual approval trails, and inbox chaos, automation streamlines everything from invoice capture to final payment, helping teams work smarter, not just harder.

Let’s dive into what could be slowing your finance operations down — and more importantly, how you can fix it.

Manual Processes Create Hidden Bottlenecks

You might not notice them at first. But manual finance processes create a heap of hidden friction points that slowly choke team productivity:

Entering invoice data by hand (and fixing typos)

Waiting for paper or email-based approvals

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Manually matching purchase orders to invoices

Chasing missing documentation

Double-checking and reconciling payments manually

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Each of these might only take a few minutes individually, but together they add up to hours — or even days — of lost productivity each month.

Mistakes Multiply Under Pressure

Humans make mistakes, especially when they’re overworked or rushing to meet deadlines. Manual finance processes open the door for small errors that can have big knock-on effects:

Incorrect amounts entered

Missed early payment discounts

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Payments made to the wrong supplier

Late payments damaging supplier relationships

And the worst part? The more stressed your team becomes, the more likely these errors are — creating a vicious cycle that’s hard to break without a proper system.

The Approval Bottleneck

Waiting for approvals is another major slowdown. When invoice approvals rely on busy department heads manually checking emails or printed documents, things inevitably get stuck in people’s inboxes or lost entirely.

Automating the approval process with clear workflows and automatic reminders speeds everything up dramatically — without sacrificing checks and balances.

Lack of Visibility = More Stress

When processes are manual, it’s almost impossible to get a clear picture of where things stand at any given time. Where’s that missing invoice? Has John approved that payment yet? Why isn’t the supplier showing as paid?

Without real-time reporting and tracking, finance teams waste precious time chasing down answers instead of moving work forward.

How to Start Turning It Around

Good news: you don’t have to do a full digital overhaul overnight to see major improvements. Here’s where to start:

Automate approvals first: Set up an automated workflow for invoice approvals with clear escalation paths.

Digitise invoice capture: Use OCR (optical character recognition) tools to pull data straight from invoices into your accounting system.

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Track payments centrally: Have one system where your team can see the status of every invoice and payment in real time.

Prioritise user-friendliness: If your automation tool is clunky or confusing, no one will use it properly.

Train your team: Even the best system needs people who know how to get the most out of it.

Ease your workload now

Even a few small steps toward automation can free up hours each week — and dramatically reduce end-of-month stress.

It’s easy to assume that more staff or longer hours will fix a busy finance department. But often, the real solution is smarter systems, not bigger teams.

By tackling the hidden process issues slowing your team down, you create a better, faster, less stressful way of working — one where accuracy improves, suppliers stay happy, and your finance team gets to work with the business, not just for it.

And that’s a win for everyone.