Infor’s accounts payable (AP) modules are integral to many organizations’ financial operations.
But when business processes become more layered, with lengthy approvals, a growing list of exceptions, and overall, more complexity, the limitations of standard AP tools can slow your teams down.
In this post, we’ll explore where the challenges associated with standard AP functionality tend to surface, different types of solutions organizations should consider depending on their needs, and the value in choosing purpose-built tools like Yoga for FSM to close the gap entirely.
The Automation Gap Inside Infor AP
Infor’s financial management tools are among the most advanced that an ERP offers out of the box. The AP module provides powerful support for PO matching, transaction controls, and seamless integration with procurement and general ledger systems. Simply speaking from a financial processing standpoint, it’s an industry leader.
But many organizations have AP processes that involve more than simply paying invoices, it’s the additional moving parts along that process, like how those invoices get into the system in the first place, how they’re validated, routed, and tracked that also need to be accounted for and unfortunately that’s where many teams find themselves relying on manual processes.
Infor doesn’t currently offer a native OCR or invoice ingestion solution. Instead, organizations must either handle invoice intake manually, which involves keying in data from paper or emailed PDFs, or implement Infor’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tool to automate some of those repetitive data capture tasks–-but more on that below.
As a result, while the ERP handles the “pay” side of AP well, the steps leading up to it, like receiving, coding, routing, and exception handling, often require patchwork solutions.
And unfortunately, it’s these areas that AP teams spend the most time and subsequently where bottlenecks occur. The result? A semi-automated process that relies heavily on staff intervention, with limited visibility into where invoices are in the pipeline.
When Lighter Solutions Make Sense
Now, as we previously mentioned, Infor does have an RPA tool that was recently developed to help fill some of these upstream gaps. It’s a versatile option that can be configured to extract data from emailed invoices, log into systems, populate forms, and perform basic validation steps before handing the data off to Infor’s core AP module.
For organizations with lower invoice volumes or simple business rules, this can be a perfectly viable AP automation solution. It offers a flexible way to reduce manual data entry without a major system overhaul, and many teams appreciate the control it gives them over customization.
That said, the RPA tool is typically designed to automate discrete tasks and not manage entire workflows. They don’t provide native lifecycle tracking, case management, exception routing, communication and collaboration tools, or invoice-focused user interfaces.
To achieve that level of control, organizations often need to build out and maintain custom logic and scripts, which can require specialized expertise and significant upkeep over time.
So, while RPA may be a strong fit for smaller teams or those with straightforward needs, organizations with larger invoice volumes or more complicated procure-to-pay workflows often find that its limitations make it a less-than-ideal long-term solution.
What Purpose-Built AP Automation Looks Like
When Infor accounts payable teams want to eliminate manual routing, email-based approvals, or disconnected exception handling, they usually start looking for a more centralized solution that doesn’t just automate pieces of the process but makes the entire invoice lifecycle easier to manage.
As opposed to standard ERP AP solution, or Infor’s RPA tool, a purpose-built AP automation system is designed to:
- Receive and classify invoices from any source
- Apply configurable business rules for validation and routing uniformly across sources
- Flag and label issues early and direct them to the right people
- Track invoices from submission to approval to posting
- Provide audit trails, document attachments, and status visibility along the way
- Integrate seamlessly with major ERP systems for a consistent transfer of data
In short, point solutions are designed to help AP teams work more efficiently and with less manual oversight.
Choosing a Solution That Works for You
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to AP automation. For some, a lightweight tool or RPA-based setup is sufficient. This is even more so the case when processes are simple and internal teams are comfortable managing scripts or rules.
But for organizations with more moving parts, high invoice volume, decentralized approval chains, and strict audit requirements, a purpose-built AP platform offers a more sustainable and scalable path forward.
If you’re using Infor and looking to reduce manual effort, gain visibility, and tighten up your process end-to-end, Yoga Flexible Software is designed to meet you where you are and help you move forward without the friction.
Why Many Infor Clients Choose Yoga
For organizations running Infor FSM or Lawson, Yoga for FSM is often the best fit because it integrates seamlessly with Infor and is built specifically for the types of AP challenges services organizations often experience.
Yoga doesn’t require custom development to get started and comes with pre-configured workflows and validation rules based on over two decades of AP automation experience. Moreover, these workflows are fully configurable, so they can reflect your actual policies and business structure without being hard-coded.
Yoga also provides a centralized interface where AP users can manage invoices, exceptions, and supporting documentation. You can see where every invoice is in the process, who’s touched it, and what needs to happen next, without leaving the platform or relying on spreadsheets and email to track down answers.
Because Yoga is shaped by real feedback from clients in healthcare, local government, utilities and other service-oriented industries, it handles complexity without feeling heavy. And because it continues to evolve, it scales with your organization, without forcing you to rebuild workflows every time your process changes.
Want to see what that looks like in practice? Read how Cooper University Health Care transformed its AP process with Yoga, achieving a 98% EDI processing rate and 33% touchless invoice automation below.
