I recently completed an accounts payable (AP) specialist certification course offered by the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM). I'm sharing why I chose this certification, what the course entailed, and how I can better serve G2 buyers and vendors with it.

Why accounts payable?

G2 promotes continuous learning and professional development for its employees. This practice strengthens our skills and expertise and benefits G2 and its buyers in the long run by having a more knowledgeable and skillful workforce. Looking to further educate myself and our buyers around the Accounting & Finance categories that I own and maintain, I found the IOFM. IOFM provides training, education, and certification programs around accounts payable (AP), procure to pay, accounts receivable (AR), and credit and collections.

After reviewing the available training and certifications, I took a specialist certification course for AP. Out of the 27 Accounting & Finance subcategories on G2, the AP Automation category is the fourth most visited page, responsible for 9% of all traffic to Accounting & Finance categories over the past two years. In the same period, the AP Automation category grew by 28%, adding 44 new products, and a 96% increase in verified, authentic user reviews. 

Also, according to the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership, only about 9% of AP departments are fully automated. However, by 2025, two-thirds of finance professionals expect their AP departments to be fully automated. This can help them significantly cut invoice processing costs while saving time and resources. These facts and trends further highlight the popularity and importance of accounts payable functions. This made me want to understand better how AP automation software streamlines these processes and how I can better serve our buyers and vendors that utilize these categories.

AP automation technology and data integrity

The course consisted of eight modules, the most important being the last section: technology and automation. 

The other seven modules in this course were:

• Internal controls
• Tax and regulatory
• Vendor master file (VMF)
• Invoices
• Payments
• Travel and entertainment (T&E)

The eighth module reviewed how technology and automation help to improve process inefficiencies and enable business process improvements around the first seven sections. It also emphasized how AP automation software helps with data security and integrity. 

Accounts payable software contains a lot of sensitive information, such as bank account data for payers and payees. Hence, it’s essential that organizations are aware of what data is being accessed, who is accessing the data, and what the data is being used for. I learned that this software has tools in place to add levels of security to transactions, such as data encryption, digital signatures, and data authentication. Also, AP automation software often uses digital certificates, which are electronic files that authenticate the identity of a website, individuals, organizations, users, devices, or servers. These security features can give companies peace of mind that their’s and vendors' data are secure and compliant.

How does this certification help buyers and vendors

An integral part of a senior research analyst's job is curating and maintaining the G2 taxonomy and conducting calls with vendors to discuss these categories, other relevant vendors in the space, and trends we are currently seeing. 

As discussed above, the AP automation category is popular and relevant, with over 200 products and more to be added throughout the upcoming years. After completing this course, I am more confident and knowledgeable of the AP process and how software can help automate and improve these processes. This will allow me to have more meaningful discussions with our buyers and vendors, provide more in-depth thought leadership, and better evaluate new and current products for inclusion into the category. This particular category is also of importance because it directly affects financial statements (accounting), cash management (cash flow management), vendor relationships (vendor management), purchasing, and of course, AR automation, which are other categories I manage. 

Overall, this certification course helped me understand how buyers of procurement-related platforms can benefit from the features included in AP automation software.

Edited by Shanti S Nair