Using data management best practices helps to ensure that your customer and vendor master data is correct and up to date. Clean master data reduces errors, disputes and unauthorized deductions.
Here are the most important times for your accounting team to use best practices in data management.
Onboarding New Customers and Vendors
The onboarding process is critical to new customer and vendor relationships. Setting up master data correctly the first time with up-to-date department email addresses and valid TINs is key to establishing and maintaining useful contact information. This is essential if your accounting operations are paperless, automated and provide a self-serve portal for business partners.
Annual Anniversary
On a yearly basis your team should review master data to ensure that you are in compliance with documentation requirements, and contact information is correct and current. Annual updating can help to avoid problems and keep operations running efficiently. If you have hundreds of contacts, in a year you may have a large number of accounts which need to be updated. This can be a daunting task if you don’t have up-to-date department email addresses for your contacts.
Account Reactivation
When inactive accounts are reactivated, it’s very important, as with onboarding, to set up master data for reactivated accounts correctly. This can be particularly important if you have automated your accounting operations since the account went inactive.
Data Refresh
Data management technology can also be used in batch mode to refresh your database and cleanse master data for contacts. If email bounce backs and errors have increased, you may need to refresh your master data to find other issues.
Best practices should always be used, not just occasionally, or when problems are discovered after the fact. They should be part and parcel of your accounting operations. Your accounting team should employ best practices whenever they manage data.
It is more productive to use data management best practices when you have automated accounting operations. With a connected accounting solution for your AR and AP teams to coordinate work with customers and vendors, you can go digital and enjoy the benefits of office automation.
Lockstep, a leader in cloud-based connected accounting solutions, can help you boost productivity and optimize cash flow with:
- Digital Onboarding – Collect master data directly from your customers and vendors
- Accounting Inbox – Make it easy to divvy up work and track progress
- Smart Automation – Automate menial task with accounting integration
- Online Accounts – Give customers and vendors online access to their accounts
Lockstep is an experienced software partner that can help you increase efficiency and accelerate cash flow.
If you would like to learn more about how you can benefit from connected accounting solutions, please contact Lockstep at www.lockstephq.com.
