New Year, New World… Are You Ready?

While we celebrate the coming of 2021, many challenges remain before us. At ICG, we are optimistic about the weeks and months ahead, and with the proper planning and preparation, opportunity abounds in this new year and new world.

2021 Financial Back Office Themes:

  1. Do as much as possible remotely in a secure and compliant fashion
  2. Become as efficient as practical
  3. Drive more processes to a vendor self-service model so your people can focus on value-added activities

Tools at your disposal to help you prepare:

Cloud-hosted portals offer many tools that support remote operations, drive efficiencies, and promote secure vendor self-service programs. Wherever your responsibilities lie on the procure-to-pay spectrum, these tools can help:

AP Automation

ICG’s cloud-hosted accounts payable automation solutions are designed for rapid deployment in a remote processing environment to support business continuity in a highly secure environment.

  • Data and Document Capture: Turn everything incoming into actionable data for your back office. Our data and document capture tools are designed to accommodate large and medium-sized AP operations that receive a wide variety of invoices/payment demands from multiple sources and formats.
  • Workflow: Effective business process management (BPM), commonly known as workflow, can improve business performance, increase revenue, and decrease the time it takes to complete a task.

Vendor Portal

A Vendor Portal is a web-based, vendor self-service solution that allows you to communicate, collaborate, and transact with your vendors in a secure, online environment 24/7.

  • ERP & System Integration: ICG takes an agnostic approach when it comes to integrating with your back-end systems. Our customers all have their own set of back-end financial and related ERP systems in place, and we interface with each one. Our ERP-agnostic method allows us to move faster and work with minimal or zero customization required.
  • Vendor Onboarding: Vendor onboarding is gathering documents and data needed to set up a company as an approved vendor. It also mitigates risk by providing numerous compliance and validation steps to avoid fraudulent vendors and ensure your vendors are healthy and compliant with all of your requirements and federal, state, and local regulations.
  • Vendor Management: Vendors can update their information on their own when things change.
  • PO Dispatch & Update: This solution allows you to automatically dispatch purchase orders to the appropriate company and contact. The contact receives a URL that allows them to access the PO and perform many actions. You can also proactively request real-time vendor updates on the status of PO fulfillment.

Get Started

In this new year and new world, ICG provides a full suite of cloud-hosted solutions in a secure, single-tenant environment. Our solutions also promote remote processing and facilitate vendor self-service. And even more importantly, ICG can provide the experience and expertise to ensure you are following best practices. Contact ICG today for more information, or click here to schedule a demo of our world-class solutions.

Posts you might like:

Why Responsible AI is Non-Negotiable

In the financial back office—the engine room of any enterprise—efficiency, accuracy, and security are not aspirations; they are existential requirements. The surge of Artificial Intelligence promises transformational improvements, yet its deployment must be approached...

Why the Back Office is Crucial for Financial Health

When you think of a thriving business, images of innovative products, dynamic sales teams, or captivating marketing campaigns often come to mind. But beneath the surface, there are many essential functions ensuring everything runs smoothly; these are the back office....

What AI Does in the Back Office (And What It Doesn’t)

Recently, the financial back office has been abuzz with the promises of AI. From automating tedious tasks to providing unprecedented insights, the hype suggests a future where AI handles everything seamlessly. But what's the real story? While AI undoubtedly holds...

The Life Cycle of an Invoice for Buyers

The invoice is a crucial document that demands payment for goods or services delivered. It undergoes a fascinating, multi-stage life cycle. Understanding this process is key to maintaining healthy cash flow, accurate financial records, and strong vendor relationships....

3 Strategic Moves to Transform Your Financial Back Office

For too long, the financial back office has been viewed as a necessary evil, a place where transactions are processed and risks are managed. It wasn't viewed in a strategic way, and back-office upgrades were seen as low priority. But today, this perspective is...

5 Ways to Optimize Your AP Process for Growth

Why Your AP Process is More Than Just Paying Bills Accounts Payable is one of the most critical functions in any business. For too long, the AP department has been viewed simply as the team responsible for processing invoices and cutting checks; however, an optimized...

ICG Solutions: Built with the End User in Mind

ICG embodies the phrase "Built with the end user in mind" with all of our solutions. For our team, it's so much more than a catchy tagline. Instead, it means creating a product or service that is intuitive, efficient, and genuinely solves the problems of the people...

Adopting a Proactive Back Office Approach

The back office is often seen as a reactive function. It's the functions and team that process, file, fix, and respond to issues after they've occurred. But what if your back office could move beyond simply cleaning up messes and adopt a proactive back office...

What’s Slowing Down Your Back Office (and How to Fix It)

Your back office handles the crucial processes that keep everything running: accounting, HR, compliance, and more. When these systems struggle, the entire organization slows down, impacting everything from customer satisfaction to your bottom line. So, what are the...

5 Questions to Ask Before Choosing New Technology

Choosing a new technology solution for your business is a big decision—one that can transform your operations or become a costly mistake. Before you sign on the dotted line for the latest "must-have" software, you need a clear, strategic framework. Here are five...