Are you curious about the state of accounts payable in 2024? Look no further. We’ve curated, vetted, and categorized a list of up-to-date accounts payable statistics that highlight the current landscape, challenges, and future trends in AP processes.
From the costs and time involved in manual invoice processing to the strategic impact of automation and market growth projections, these insights provide a comprehensive overview of the evolving AP environment.
Top Accounts Payable Statistics
- 68% of respondents manually key invoices into their ERP/accounting software, while less than 32% have an automated process.
- The average cost of processing an invoice manually is $15.
- There is a positive move towards automation, with 20% of teams already fully automated and 41% planning to automate their payables processes within the next 12 months.
- The market size for Account Payable was valued at USD 1.219 billion in 2023.
Cost, Time, and Errors in Processing Invoices
- The average cost of processing an invoice manually is $15.
- The average time to process an invoice manually is 14.6 days.
- About 39% of invoices contain errors.
- Nearly half of global respondents (49%) spend more than 5 days per month processing invoices.
- 63% of US teams spend over 5 days, compared to 26% of UK teams. This has improved since 2019, when 66% of respondents spent more than 5 days a month processing invoices.
- 56% of respondents spend more than 10 hours per week processing invoices and administering supplier payments, while only 5% spend less than 1 hour each week. Notably, all respondents who spend less than 1 hour have an automated process.
- 60% of respondents process more than 1,000 invoices per month, and nearly a quarter (23%) process over 10,000 invoices monthly.
- Many businesses have partially automated invoicing systems. Among them, 41% have automated invoice approval workflows, the most common automated task for accounts payable.
Importance and Challenges of Accounts Payable (AP)
- 66% of all businesses find accounts payable (AP) essential.
- The main issues caused by processing challenges include stress to the AP teams (30%), damaged relationships with vendors and suppliers (21%), and delays in the delivery of goods and services (20%).
- Top processing challenges for AP teams include the time spent processing invoice exceptions, which causes delays (22%), and too much manual data entry (21%).
- Just under one-third of respondents (31%) state their AP team needs to be equipped to handle a sudden increase in invoice volumes.
- Over one-third of respondents (38%) feel their team could handle a sudden increase well or very well.
Automation Trends and Strategic Impact
- The number of AP teams that are fully automated has nearly doubled in the last two years with 9% fully automated compared with 5% a year ago.
- There is a positive move towards automation, with 20% of teams already fully automated and 41% planning to automate their payables processes within the next 12 months.
- 17% of respondents anticipate their AP department reaching full automation within 6-12 months, compared to 12%.
- 41% of UK respondents and 32% of US respondents expect automation to rise.
- The 42% of respondents consistently expect full automation within 1-3 years:
- 68% of invoice data is entered into the ERP software manually by AP teams.
- 41% of respondents were not expecting to automate the process before 12 months, while 42% of them underlined that full AP automation can take 1-3 years.
- Most of the already automated processes are invoice management (25%), PO management (17%), and expense management (17%).
- 88% of respondents believe that improving invoice management and supplier payments would free up their finance team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Market Trends and B2B Payment Strategies
- Only 9% of respondents think that their method of measuring AP metrics and KPIs is extremely effective.
- 66% of businesses still use Excel spreadsheets, and 38% use whiteboards, emails, or nothing.
- The Account Payable Market size is projected to grow from USD 1.4182 billion in 2024 to USD 2.791 billion by 2032, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.83% during the forecast period (2024 – 2032).
- The market size for Account Payable was valued at USD 1.219 billion in 2023.
- Top B2B payment strategies in AP were focused on paying invoices that are due and or payments are late by 59%. Paying early to receive discounts followed by 32%.
- Spend on the Accounts payable invoice automation software and supplier e-invoicing software markets will be nearly $1.75 billion through 2026, up from approximately $925 million in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14%.
Related Information
Looking for more statistics? Check out these resources:
- Accounting and Bookkeeping Statistics 2024
- Credit Card Debt Statistics 2024
- Data Entry Statistics 2024
Or use these resources to learn more about data entry processes:
