How Your AP Team Can Help Fight Recession?

Currently, the business landscape has several economists on their toes as there are several impacts of the pandemic along with the supply chain disruptions, which have restricted the economic output and driven up expenses. These high expenses have led to widespread inflation and prompted the Fed to hike up interest rates while driving up the cost of capital for businesses and borrowing expenses for consumers. These borrowing expenses should eventually decrease the demand for goods and services from both the businesses and the consumers until prices can drop to pre-inflation levels. Inflation does not exist in a vacuum, unfortunately. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and subsequent sanctions have added more nuisance and unpredictability to the global economy today. It makes it challenging to predict what the next 3-6 or even 12 months will break. Recession is one of the most common concerns when prices are inflating quickly. Earlier this summer, experts said that there was the most significant consumer price inflation in the past 40 years and several experts today predict a recession very soon. The experts formally define a recession as two or more consecutive quarters of declining GDP. Others define a session as a decline in economic activities spread across the global economy lasting more than a few months.

Three significant priorities for AP teams during a recession

AP teams feel that the impacts during economic downturns are going to be here, and they focus on

efficiency

Ap teams need to maintain the average level of output with minimum resources during recessions. Without the ability to add headcount or new spending on the business process outsourcing, these teams need to optimise the workflow wherever possible. They must keep a tab on the AP mid-rises so that they can identify areas to optimise the process and then track the improvements.

Vendor relationships

Global supply chain disruptions have made supply relationships an excellent priority for the AP teams. With few suppliers able to reliably sourced necessary goods maintaining healthy supply relationships have an added urgency for their businesses.

Visibility

When it comes to the recession business, stakeholders need to have clear visibility of the cash flow and working capital to navigate important business decisions while facing the cash crunch.

How can AP teams help you fight recession?

Focus on what can be controlled by AP

It would be best if you looked for opportunities to cut down expenses by optimising their processes, and eliminating the efficiencies in analysing the spending information. These are the lessons that you learned during the pandemic. But they also apply to a broader recession.

Establish accurate cash forecasting methods

Cash forecasting is critical during the recession time as the business leaders’ strategies were to cut back the spending. To make a clear-cut organised plan for the businesses, executive teams need to anticipate company spending, which requires to cash a forecasting model.

Hence AP can communicate proactively with the suppliers and can help you deal with the recession effectively.