Ardent recently completed its annual AP-themed market research study, “The State of ePayables 2021: Operating in the New Normal”, which is part of an ongoing dialogue that the Ardent team and has had with AP and finance leaders for more than a decade. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing the results from this year’s study in a series of articles on this site. If you’d like access to this report, make sure to register for our newsletter with a business email address.

ePayables 2021: Every Challenge is an Opportunity

A year ago, businesses were mainly focused on two major avenues: business continuity and resiliency. Those early months of the pandemic may still seem fresh to many business leaders, however, the progress made to fight the crisis has evolved considerably in the first half of 2021 to the point that the CDC has recommended that vaccinated individuals in the United States can forgo masks in most situations (minus public transit and certain facilities, such as prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes). While the tide certainly seems to be turning in the fight against COVID, there is no question that there are lingering ramifications from its sixteen month stranglehold on businesses.

Throughout 2020, AP played a critical role in maintaining enterprise liquidity and keeping suppliers paid, even with the vast majority employees working remotely or adopting a hybrid work environment. Now, with a firm level of hindsight, businesses participating in the 2021 State of ePayables research study state that the most crucial outlets and links to enterprise liquidity, including sales, revenue, and cash, have been the biggest areas of impact throughout the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic (35%). This represents a major opportunity for the AP group to capitalize on its unique position to impact cash management and assist the greater organization to support its areas under greatest stress, while also maintaining some semblance of normalcy and continuity. In the early 2020s, cash remains king; and when the king is under siege, all forces must rally in defense.

Of course, AP has many outlets of value, but, supporting cash management strategies over the last decade has been one of the major reasons why the function has increased its bottom line impact and, as a result gained in stature. Accounts payable actively manages one of the biggest outflows of an enterprise’s cash. As discussed later in this report, it will become even more critical for the treasury function to be aligned with AP as the continued disruption from the pandemic remains in view. Throughout 2020 and in the midst of a unique crisis, AP was asked to provide financial visibility; critical business decisions, such as furloughs and layoffs, were linked to how the executive team reacted to evolving market conditions. These top-of-the-chain organizational leaders depended on their AP team to deliver the deep intelligence required to understand how internal and external factors would guide the greater enterprise’s path of continuity and resiliency.

The second area that felt the greatest impact from COVID-19 has been internal operations, where new work-from home mandates completely changed the ways that co-workers communicated and collaborated. Unable to rely on the regular office dynamics that were designed to foster interpersonal connections, AP teams were forced to find new ways to engage and support their business stakeholders. However, as many survey respondents noted, AP was simply one of many teams facing these new communication challenges. What was unique, however, for multiple AP teams participating in this year’s survey was that a need to deal with paper invoices made AP operations “essential” in the context of the pandemic and required staff to work in the office to ensure that suppliers could be paid.

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