Accounts payable statistics
Benchmarks for invoice processing, taken from the published report rather than from summaries of it. That distinction changed a figure: write-ups of this report circulate an exception rate of 22% and the report itself states 14%.
Sources confirmed August 2026.
Cost and time per invoice
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$9.40
The average accounts payable organization spends $9.40 to process a single invoice, covering staff and operating costs across receipt, processing, and approval.
All-inclusive: salaries, benefits, technology, and overhead, not the cost of a software license.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
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9.2 days
The average accounts payable organization takes 9.2 days to process a single invoice.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
Exceptions and automation
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14%
The invoice exception rate fell to 14% in 2024, counting invoices held for coding errors, missing information, approval bottlenecks, or absent purchase order data.
The original report states 14%. Some secondary articles state 22%.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
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32.6%
32.6% of invoices are processed straight through, without human intervention at any step.
The corollary is the useful figure: roughly 2 invoices in 3 still involve a person.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
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75%
Ardent Partners estimates 75% of all accounts payable departments are using some form of AI.
An estimate by the analyst rather than a survey response, and labeled as such in the report.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
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61%
61% of purchase-to-pay professionals expected AI to have a transformational or significant impact on their function in 2025, while 10% expected no impact at all.
Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025, Ardent Partners, April 2025
Sources
Cite the original sources. Each figure comes from the publisher's document.
- Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2025
- Ardent Partners. Published April 2025. Ardent Partners' annual benchmark of accounts payable operations.
Questions
- How much does it cost to process an invoice?
- $9.40 on average, according to Ardent Partners' 2025 benchmark. That figure is all-inclusive: the staff and operating costs of receipt, processing, and approval, including salaries, benefits, technology, and overhead, rather than the price of any software.
- How long does invoice processing take?
- 9.2 days for the average accounts payable organization to process a single invoice, from the same benchmark. Ardent notes this continues to improve year on year and that approval delays are where most of the time goes.
- What is a normal invoice exception rate?
- 14% in 2024, per Ardent Partners. Be careful with this number: several widely shared write-ups quote 22% with a 9% best-in-class figure, which does not match the published report. Exceptions here mean invoices held for coding errors, missing information, approval bottlenecks, or missing purchase order data.
- What proportion of invoices are processed without a person?
- 32.6% go straight through with no human intervention. The more useful way to read it is the other way around: about 2 invoices in 3 still require somebody to touch them.