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What is a Best-in-Class Accounts Payable Process?

What is a Best-in-Class Accounts Payable Process?

Accounts Payable (AP) automation serves to create “Best-in-Class” Accounts Payable Processes with streamlined data capture, integrated workflows, and an overall improved invoice lifecycle. With AP automation, organizations eliminate manual and non-value add processes, freeing up AP resources to become strategic.

Ardent Partners’ report on the State of ePayables shows that “Non Best-in-Class” invoice processes cost companies more than $12.00, taking an average of 10 or more days from retrieval to payment. In contrast, AP automation streamlines this process leveraging modern technology. Meanwhile, “Best-in-Class” invoice processes significantly reduce exception rates, provide a turnaround time of just 2.9 days and reduces costs to $2.18 per invoice (all-inclusive)!

As described perfectly by Ardent Partners, a “Best-in-Class” Accounts Payable Process achieves per-invoice processing costs that are nearly 6-times lower, and invoice processing times are over 3-times faster than all other groups. Such a process has invoice exception rates that are 57% lower, and has a 2.5-times higher percentage of PO-based invoices than peers. “Best-in-Class” Accounts Payable Processes also process 65% of invoices in a straight-through manner, a factor which likely contributes to their overall success.

The question is what are the tactical steps involved to deploy a "Best-in-Class" Accounts Payable Process?

A “Best-in-Class” AP process involves various forms of automation to fit with the type of business and target future state of AP. Octacom has spent the last 15 years working with large enterprises to enable automation in accounts payable, and can be a resource to you as you embark on your transformation. Please contact us anytime!

There are two key elements to a successful AP automation program: 

diamond-color Pick the right AP automation software:

AP automation software can transform your AP culture and give management full visibility into the process. However, in our view, AP automation software must tick the following boxes:

  • Invoice approval workflows with ability to tailor to your delegation of authority
  • Exception management
  • Supplier management and portal
  • Spend management
  • Processing analytics
  • End to end integrations with your P2P or ERP

diamond-color Pick the right invoice processing approach:

Invoice processing can be managed internally, which comes with various resourcing and technology challenges, or through outsourcing to a “scan and capture” partner like Octacom. In our experience, outsourcing invoice receipt, data capture and 2/3-way matching leads to greater than 50% cost savings along with higher accuracy. 

So... what next?

Please contact us to learn about Octacom’s OdissTM AP Portal and Invoice Processing Services, which has been designed and developed alongside our clients to ensure it enables them to achieve their target state.

Please read about how we’ve helped organizations like Ontario Power Generation and The Salvation Army to automate their AP process with ease!


Octacom is a SOC 2, Type II Audited enterprise software and services company focused on document and data automation solutions, including automated data capture. Founded in 1976, Octacom specializes in accounts payable automation and automated invoice processing, among other digital / automated business process outsourcing services. 

If your organization is looking to learn more about our solutions and services, please contact us and we would be glad to help.

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