Ardent recently completed its annual AP-themed market research study, “The State of ePayables 2021: Operating in the New Normal”, which is part of an ongoing dialogue that the Ardent team has had with AP and finance leaders for more than a decade. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing the results from this year’s study in a series of articles on this site. If you’d like access to this report, make sure to register for our newsletter with a business email address.
The State of AP in 2021: Stronger than Ever
The State of AP in 2021 is stronger than ever with the majority of organizations impacted by the pandemic now coming out the other side with higher levels of automation and greater levels of stakeholder engagement and respect. This year’s study finds that the operations of 94% of all AP departments were impacted by COVID-19, with 9% of leaders defining that impact as “massive” and 22% defining it as “high.” Yet, when compared to the overall business, it is clear that enterprises around the world, more often than not, had much bigger issues to contend with than AP. This does not mean that AP was untouched over the past sixteen months – it was. In fact, many organizations’ weaknesses were quickly exposed due to their reliance on paper and manual processes.
Many groups took quick and decisive action, deploying ePayables (or AP Automation) solutions to address the main issues (this led to a historic year of sales in the global ePayables solutions industry).
In 2020, AP’s role in supporting and addressing key business challenges such as tighter overall cash flow and uncertain supplier relationships expanded, catching the attention of many business leaders and other key stakeholders. This has created an environment in which the changes over the past year have cleared the path for AP groups to accelerate their transformations and expand the value that they are currently delivering.
In 2021, as other parts of the enterprise begin to recover, financial decisions will be more closely monitored, while tighter controls around core enterprise operations will become ever more critical. In addition, the rising threat of financial/digital fraud will place a greater emphasis on the full invoice-to-pay cycle. This means that now is the time for AP functions to step up and be more proactive. This means that now is the time to start developing (and executing) the strategies that will propel AP forward and into the “new normal.”
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