Uncovering the hidden bottlenecks in your accounts payable process

Accounts payable (AP) is often one of the most manual, fragmented areas within finance teams, leading to avoidable costs and inefficiencies. From delayed approvals to paper-based errors, these bottlenecks drain resources that could be better spent on strategic analysis and supplier engagement.

Research shows that 72% of finance teams spend at least 520 hours annually on manual AP tasks such as data entry, chasing approvals and reconciling discrepancies, with 28% spending double that time.

Automating AP processes can remove these hidden inefficiencies and boost financial visibility, which will free your team to focus on high-value activities that support growth.

Poor visibility from paper-based workflows

Paper-based and email-driven AP workflows provide limited visibility across your financial operations, making it harder to track outstanding liabilities and manage cash flow effectively. Invoices can easily get lost in email chains or sit in internal queues, causing bottlenecks and delaying payments.

According to Ardent Partners, manual AP processes take an average of 10.3 days to process an invoice, compared to 3.2 days with automated systems. That’s a 70% reduction in processing time!

This lack of visibility not only increases the risk of late payments and missed discounts but also impacts your ability to forecast cash flow accurately. By transitioning to an automated, ERP-enabled accounts payable process, organisations can gain real-time insights into liabilities and make better financial decisions.

Costly inaccuracies from manual data entry

Manual data entry in accounts payable processes increases the likelihood of errors that can be expensive and time-consuming to fix. Common issues include duplicate payments, incorrect amounts, or invoices coded to the wrong cost centres, all of which require added effort to find and resolve.

Research indicates that manual AP processes have an average error rate of 3.6%, resulting in approximately 36 errors per 1,000 invoices. Each error can cost businesses more than $50 to rectify, which quickly adds up across high volumes of invoices.

By automating invoice capture and validation within your ERP platform, your organisation can end these errors at the source, improving accuracy while reducing the cost of processing each invoice.

Manual processes impact supplier relationships

Slow, manual AP processes can also impact supplier relationships, as delayed or incorrect payments erode trust and damage your reputation. Missed early payment discounts, frequent payment errors, and delayed approvals can all impact supplier cash flow, leading to potential disputes and longer negotiation cycles.

Data from the Australian Small Business Ombudsman (via Deloitte) shows that one in five manual invoices is sent to the wrong contact, and around 30% contain errors, further straining supplier interactions.

Your organisation can build stronger supplier relationships by automating these finance processes, gain access to early payment discounts, and position itself as a reliable partner within your supply chain.

Weak compliance from inadequate approval tracking

Without automated approval workflows, it is difficult for organisations to maintain consistent compliance across their accounts payable processes. Paper-based and email-driven approvals can lack clear audit trails, making it harder to verify who approved an invoice and when.

This can expose your organisation to fraud, duplicate payments and audit challenges, particularly when invoices bypass established approval hierarchies due to manual workarounds.

By automating approvals within your ERP platform, you gain clear visibility over every invoice’s status, ensuring consistent compliance, faster audits, and peace of mind for your finance team.

Why your business needs eInvoicing and ERP integration

eInvoicing is a secure, standardised way of exchanging invoices electronically between a buyer’s and supplier’s financial systems, using the Peppol network approved by the Australian Government. Unlike emailed PDFs or paper invoices, eInvoices are sent directly between systems, reducing the need for manual data entry and the risks of lost or incorrect invoices.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) estimates that processing a paper or emailed PDF invoice costs businesses around $27–$30 per invoice, while using eInvoicing reduces this to under $10 per invoice. For organisations managing hundreds or thousands of invoices each month, these savings are significant, freeing up resources that can be reinvested in higher-value activities.

Integrating eInvoicing with your ERP system streamlines your entire accounts payable process, removing manual touchpoints, reducing errors, and ensuring faster, more accurate payments to suppliers. It also enables real-time financial visibility across your organisation.

Benefits of automating finance processes

Automating finance processes delivers measurable improvements in efficiency, accuracy and visibility, allowing finance teams to shift focus from manual tasks to analysis and strategic decision-making.

Here's a summary of the key benefits:

Potential risks of financial automation

While financial automation offers clear benefits, it is important to consider potential risks and address them with the right implementation strategy and change management.

Here are the key considerations:

Remember, these pros and cons are general only, and don’t necessarily apply to every business, organisation, industry, or chosen software.

How TechnologyOne’s ERP transforms accounts payable invoice processing

TechnologyOne’s ERP software enables organisations to automate accounts payable workflows end-to-end, from invoice capture through to payment and reconciliation, eliminating manual touchpoints and reducing errors.

By integrating eInvoicing with accounts payable and other critical finance functions, our Financials product gives you real-time visibility across your financial operations, ensuring invoices are processed accurately and efficiently while supporting compliance with Australian regulatory requirements.

With built-in approval workflows, automated matching and system-to-system invoice transfer, Financials helps finance teams reduce invoice processing times from weeks to days, improve cash flow management, and strengthen supplier relationships through on-time, accurate payments.

It’s a smarter, scalable way to manage accounts payable while freeing your team to focus on high-value activities that support organisational growth.

Learn more about ERP software

For more information on all things ERP, check out the following articles and guides from the TechnologyOne team:

• How to successfully implement an ERP system
• What features should you look for in a modern ERP system?
• What are the benefits of using an ERP system?
• How to choose the right ERP system for your business
• Why ERP systems are essential for supply chain management
• What is Enterprise Asset Management and how does ERP help?
• Why ERP is critical for construction and manufacturing industries
• Why managing payroll with an integrated ERP system saves time