Monday First Thing

In Ardent Partners’ AP Metrics that Matter in 2020, our research indicated 55% of B2B payments were made electronically last year. The positive lining here is the percentage of B2B payments made electronically has been creeping up slowly over the last decade. Unfortunately, besides inertia, there is little sound business reason for North American businesses [...]

In honor of earth day which took place on April 22, this week we are going to discuss the delivery and receipt of invoices.  It’s impossible to know exactly how many invoices are sent globally on an annual basis, but Ardent Partners’ estimates the number to be well over one hundred billion, yes, billion, per [...]

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been discussing topics such as creating an intelligent Accounts Payable (“AP”) operation and turning data into value. Transforming AP from a transactional department into a more strategic, value-adding business function requires a change of mindset when it comes to the management of data. Modern AP teams need to [...]

Last week I discussed the importance of converting data into value in Accounts Payable (“AP”). This week, I want to focus on how to go about creating an ‘intelligent’ AP operation. The first thing to keep in mind is developing an intelligent AP operation is a marathon – not a sprint. Accounts Payable leaders and [...]

[Editor’s Note: Ardent Partners recently published its annual AP-themed report, The State of ePayables 2019: Driving Value in the Age of Intelligence. Today’s article is part of an on-going series focused on the report’s key findings. If you would like to get the full report, it is available for download here (registration required).] Over the last decade, Accounts [...]

A few years ago the mere mention of data mining and data scientists in the same sentence as Accounts Payable would probably have gotten you puzzled and even concerned looks from your colleagues and counterparts in other areas of the business. But today, the concepts and ideas are not as far-fetched as they once seemed. [...]

In 2019, businesses and consumers are now fully engulfed by technology and the data it both creates and captures. The same holds true for accounts payable (“AP”) departments across the globe. Accounts Payable’s Big Data has the potential to become the next major force and catalyst for the profession. In fact, over the next few [...]

[Editor’s Note: You can download The State of ePayables 2019: Driving Value in the Age of Intelligence Report by clicking here.] I am excited to announce the publication of Ardent Partners’ 14th annual State of ePayables research report. The theme of this year’s report is “Driving Value in the Age of Intelligence”. This report presents a comprehensive, industry-wide view [...]

As I’ve written about the last few weeks, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotic Process Automation are having an impact on Accounts Payable (“AP”), and will continue to do so at an even greater pace moving forward. Today, we are going to take a look at another technology, predictive analytics, which holds great promise not [...]

What exactly is Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially as it relates to the world of Accounts Payable (“AP”) and Finance? Today, AI seems to be a ‘catch-all’ term used to lump together so many different things having to do with automation. In far too many conversations I’ve had, and in articles I’ve read, Robotic Process Automation [...]