It is with great pleasure that Ardent Partners announces the publication of its latest state of accounts payable (AP) research report—“ePayables 2015: Higher Ground.” Like the annual reports that came before it, the 2015 ePayables report focuses on the state of the AP function as well as assessing how AP teams leverage ePayables solutions to improve business results and offering up Best-in-Class metrics that allow readers to benchmark their own operations against top performers. (The report is available for download here, here, here, and here.)

How Can AP Reach the “Next Level” of Performance?

AP’s historic role as a transactional, back-office function has resulted in many organizations focusing on efficiency as a method of AP transformation. This is not a bad thing, but there should also be some attention paid to the value that AP can provide to the organization at large. It is, in fact, this value that results in pushing AP to the “next level” of performance—a critical move if the enterprise wishes to remain competitive in the wider business world.

Obviously, AP transformation depends on the available resources and what the strategy is at the corporate level … that said, the top strategies used to help move AP to the next level of performance include improved exception handling, more and better technology, and tighter collaboration with procurement.

Improved Exception Handling

By and large, exceptions are the AP staffer’s least favorite part of the job. Incorrect invoice header data, missing or delayed information, and invoice-line exceptions are just a few of the issues that can interrupt the flow of real-time data AP can provide to their internal partners and the executive suite for planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Because of this, it is little surprise that 56% of respondents to Ardent’s ePayables 2015 study consider improved exception handling and root cause analysis to be the top action that will move AP to the next level of performance.

New or Improved Technology

A strong ePayables technology implementation is key to elevating the AP team to the next level. With a manual invoicing process, there are only so many invoices each full-time employee can process. Automate all or most of the process, however, and each full-time employee can manage the approval of up to three times more invoices per month than doing the same work with a manual process. Increased automation also leads to improved visibility into AP data, which leads to AP showing its value to the wider organization. It is for this reason that 53% of ePayables 2015 survey respondents noted that better technology is needed to push AP to the next level of performance.

Better Collaboration with Procurement

Collaboration is the name of the game for many internal business functions, as internal stakeholders working closely together can always drive improved results. For accounts payable, working with procurement can provide insights across the entire procure-to-pay cycle, so it is little surprise that 45% of all respondents to Ardent’s ePayables 2015 survey see opportunity in better collaboration between AP and procurement. Spend visibility is highly prized data in the procurement sphere, and is something that AP can provide in spades.

Final Thoughts

Accounts payable teams at organizations of all sizes are slowly dispelling the myth that the function does not provide any value to the enterprise beyond processing invoices. This is not an easily misconception to defeat, especially given that executive support is a critical need for any transformation to happen. Even with executive support, however, moving to the “next level” of performance requires key steps that the organization must take. The road will not necessarily be easy, but it is most certainly worthwhile if AP wishes to show its value to the organization at large.

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