In this tutorial, Sachin Sharma, founder of Precare Desk, addresses common accounts payable (AP) pain points—lost invoices, lack of status visibility, and time‑consuming approver follow‑ups. He explains why many growing companies suffer from an "email black hole" where invoices land in disparate inboxes, and proposes a three‑step solution: (1) centralize invoice receipt by creating a shared email address that all vendors use, which Precare Desk can automatically ingest into a unified dashboard; (2) improve visibility by using that dashboard to track each invoice’s position in a multi‑step approval workflow; (3) eliminate manual chasing by automating reminder notifications and enabling mobile approvals. As a bonus, he suggests auto‑approving recurring or pre‑approved invoices (e.g., utilities) that meet predefined criteria, thereby removing the approval step entirely. The video concludes with a call to subscribe for more AP automation content.
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I was recently chatting with a controller and she mentioned she spent like an hour finding an invoice. She had to look five different folders, search the email, of course, and so on. And the problem with them was they don't have a central dashboard to track all the invoices that are being processed. And as a result, the team is spending a lot of time chasing invoices, month end is getting delayed and so on. If you find yourself in this situation ever, this video is for you. Because in this video I'm going to walk you through how to set up a central dashboard for tracking all your invoices so that you don't have to go spend chasing time chasing invoices and so on and stick till the end where I'll share one tip which completely eliminate the need for approvals and hence you don't need to find more invoices. If you're joining me for the first time, welcome. My name is Sachin Sharma. I am the founder of Precare Desk, where we help growing companies control spending through AP Automation. So let's jump right in. Number one is emails black hole. Very common process that we see across growing companies. You have a email process where a vendor sends you invoices, but there's no central email. It could go to the department owner, it could go to a project manager, it could come to AP all over the place. And result of that is you don't have a central way to track all your invoices. A simple fix for this is set up a common email and give that email to everybody so that when they get the invoice they can send it to that central email. And of course you want to communicate that to your suppliers and communicate often. Now then you can use a system like Precare Desk that can read the email and automatically create the invoices into a central dashboard, a queue where you can go and look up all your invoices. Right? So that's number one. Number two is there's no status visibility. So when you have approvals on invoices, guess what? People are always wondering where my invoice is, where is my approval? They are either going and asking the approvers or asking AP why my invoice is not approved. And the problem is nobody has visibility into it. So if you have a central dashboard, it is easier to track where the invoice is in your approval process. So let's say there's a three step process and second step is done. Third is waiting. You know where it is and where you need to do the Follow ups. Number three is stop chasing the approvers. So what do I mean by that? With a manual invoice approval process you always have to go chase approvers, remind them via email, call them, nag them, whatever you want to do. Right. And a simple way to fix that would be use technology like Procure Desk where it can automatically send reminders to the approvers so that you don't have to go chase the approvers. Number two is you can have a mobile app. So within the mobile app they can just see the invoice reviewed and approve it. So those are three simple strategies to have a simple dashboard and then making sure that you are able to track the visibility of the status ring. Now about the bonus tip I talked about. So one thing to think about is what are the invoices where you can actually automatically do the approval? So for example you got utility invoices or anything that is recurring in nature where you already have a approved purchase and the amount kind of either remains fixed or within a specific range, then that is where you can use technology to automate the approvals. Right? So there is no need even to send it for approval if it matches that criteria. So do that and eliminate the approvals to begin with. So just to summarize, centralize your emails or capture off invoices. Number two is improve the visibility into the approval process. And three is automate the reminders and implement a mobile app from an approvals perspective. So if you like this video, go ahead and hit the subscribe button so you get notified next time we release videos like this. Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you in the next video.
