It’s the most generous time of the year, and one of the busiest for nonprofits. With donations, invoices, and year-end expenses pouring in, your finance team has a lot to manage.
But while generosity is at its peak, so is risk. In fact, 35% of donors report encountering scams when trying to give during the holidays. Just as you aim to protect your donors, it’s something to consider for your organization too. Manual processes can leave gaps that fraudsters are quick to exploit, putting both your finances and your reputation in jeopardy.
In this blog, we’ll explore how accounts payable (AP) automation can help nonprofits stay secure, efficient, and gain better control towards their mission during the busiest season of all.
Help Minimize Fraud Risk While Maximizing Year-End Donations
With limited finance staff and a season when more than half of Americans are motivated to give, nonprofits face the challenge of managing numerous priorities at once. Tracking expenses manually through spreadsheets, email approvals, or paper checks can increase fraud risk and inefficiency when time and transparency are critical.
Manual processes often rely on human oversight, which becomes harder to maintain when teams are stretched thin. With limited staff and growing workloads, it’s easy for small discrepancies to possibly slip through undetected, such as fraudulent invoices, duplicate payments, or unauthorized charges.
For nonprofits with less than 100 employees, the most common types of fraud include:
- Corruption-related fraud 45%
- Billing fraud 36%
- Check or payment tampering 17%
Fraud can cost organizations an average of 5% of annual revenue, eroding both funding and donor trust.
That’s where AP automation makes a measurable difference. By digitizing invoice capture, routing approvals automatically, and ensuring every transaction is logged and verified, automation helps eliminate manual gaps where fraud can thrive. Increased visibility into spending can allow teams to spot irregularities early without spending hours cross-checking data.
Beyond fraud prevention, automation streamlines the entire accounts payable process. Invoice ingestion and approvals can happen faster and help payment cycles run smoothly without extra administrative effort. For lean nonprofit finance teams, AP automation means fewer manual tasks, fewer errors, and more time to focus on your mission.
How AI-Enhanced Automation Can Help Safeguard Your Nonprofit
AP automation helps protect nonprofits by replacing manual, high-risk processes with workflows designed to be secure and streamlined. With the added power of AI-enhanced automation, nonprofits can take protection a step further towards mitigating internal or external fraud attempts.
AI-enhanced tools are built to detect potential fraud by flagging irregular invoice patterns and validating data against historical trends. Software quickly scans and extracts invoice details, creating a complete digital footprint and dashboards that can help simplify audits and support ongoing compliance.
With built-in approval workflows, enhanced visibility, and digital payments, AP automation minimizes human error and makes it harder for unauthorized transactions to go unnoticed. These safeguards give lean finance teams greater control, helping them prevent issues before they impact operations.
Need additional insight? | Visit Help Future-Proof Your Nonprofit with AI-Enhanced Automation
Help Elevate Protection and Year-End Budget Planning
AP automation can also provide enhanced visibility and control needed to support smarter year-end planning. When 21% of Americans plan to donate exclusively in November and December, having deeper insight into your financials is critical. Automation can make it easier to see how incoming funds are being allocated, and how much is truly going toward your mission.
In addition to managing the year-end donation surge, AP automation enables your finance team to generate detailed reports that are easy to share with board members during budget reviews and planning sessions. With automated invoice tracking and detailed reporting, you can clearly see spending trends, identify outstanding liabilities, and forecast more accurately, setting your organization up for a strong start in the new year.
Make the Most of Giving Season with AP Automation
AP automation helps nonprofits stay in control during the busy holiday season by streamlining approvals, reducing manual work, and increasing visibility. With tracking and automated workflows, finance teams can move faster with greater control.
Detailed reports make it easy to show impact, while digital payments help reduce risk and ensure funds can be used efficiently, giving you more time and confidence to support your mission.
For more information on how AP automation can help enhance your nonprofit’s operations, please visit our AP for Nonprofits page.