

Your AP employees may also need to hand-deliver approval requests, reach out to multiple departments, and spend time chasing down requested information. Only then can they be sent off for approvals, which can take weeks. Paper invoices must be gathered from the mail, opened, entered, double-checked for accuracy, and matched with purchase orders. There is an undoubted human cost when it comes to trying to figure the average cost to process an invoice, particularly in companies that primarily use paper-based processes. A 2021 whitepaper and survey by Stampli and Treasury Webinars, “The How, the Why & the ROI of AP Automation” found that companies were most likely to be leveraging payment technology at 68%, following by invoice management at 66%, and approval workflows at 55%.īut some companies haven’t gotten this far, instead just having their staff process paper bills by hand, as they come in. Other companies have perhaps updated part of their AP technology. Implementations of this sort used to be nightmarish and companies have perhaps held off on updating for fear of going through it all over again or what the cost might be to upgrade.

Some companies might be sticking with the expensive proprietary system that they had built in-house, say 10 to 15 years ago. While a wide range of cloud-based AP automation systems exist in the market today, it’s safe to say that many companies haven’t fully taken advantage of current capabilities. Outdated, Incomplete, or Non-Existent AP Technology Let’s look at three factors that can drive up the average cost to process an invoice in largely paper-based processes. That said, there is a hidden cost to each invoice. This will help them get an idea of overall averages across processing and payment types. What Drives the Average Cost to Process an InvoiceĪdobe noted that it costs anywhere form $15 to $40 to process a single invoice, which depends on many factors and one particularly being time.įor companies curious how they compare, they can attempt to divide the total number of invoices processed by key metrics like the operating cost for their accounts payable department. Today, we’re going to look at why the average cost to process an invoice can be so expensive, how AP automation can dramatically slash these costs, and how Stampli is particularly useful in this regard.

It makes it so that the average cost to process an invoice generally hovers north of $10 a piece and can be as much $30 to $40 an invoice when conducted manually. There are also many hidden costs that many firms might not consider, such as fines levied due to errors uncovered in the audit process. The average cost to process an invoice is never just about whatever the bill says, particularly for companies that are still largely reliant on paper-based accounts payable processes.Īfter all, paper invoice processing costs include a range of direct costs, such as labor, as well as indirect costs, such as storage.
