How Automation Reduces the Cost of Invoice Processing

Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM) Examines How Automation Reduces the Cost of Invoice Processing and Disbursements 

When costs keep rising, the economy is uncertain, and labor markets are tight, every spending moment counts. There’s no room for inefficiency, overspending, and risk in your finance workflows. While accounts payable teams (AP) are under pressure to manage approvals or deliver timely data insights, they are also facing new challenges to support new initiatives such as hybrid/remote work and sustainability. 

It costs AP departments with no automation and inconsistent processes four times as much to process an invoice as departments with end-to- end automation and consistent processes – $6.30 versus $1.45 per invoice. 

According to IOFM research, controllers rank AP as the most time-consuming, labor-intensive, and paper intensive finance and administration (F&A) function, ahead of burdensome tasks such as accounts receivable (AR), payroll, tax, and audit.2 In fact, AP received nearly twice as many votes from controllers as the most time and labor-intensive F&A function than the next highest ranked function. 

AP departments with end-to-end automation and consistent workflows can process more than twice as many invoices per full-time equivalent (FTE) as their peers with no automation and inconsistent workflows – 18,649 invoices per FTE versus 8,689 invoices per FTE. 

AP automation can bring more efficiency, savings, and certainty into AP processes. The technology frees AP staff to spend their days doing strategic work, not busywork. The visibility provided by automation empowers AP departments to manage cash and spending from every angle. 

Download this white paper to learn the cost of processing invoices and disbursing funds in a manual or semi-automated environment, top drivers of high invoice processing and disbursement costs, and how automating AP reduces the overhead of invoice processing and disbursements.