It has been my great honor to work with and research AP and finance leaders for so many years. Very soon, Ardent Partners will be publishing the 20th annual State of ePayables report. This report is paired with a similar report in procurement that recently published. Both are annual labors of love and both have had a major impact on my professional career. The State of ePayables 2025: AP’s Unfinished Journey will be available at no charge for a brief time to the practitioner members of our community. There is no cost to join/register – just click here and you’ll gain exclusive access to this new report. My team would kill me if I didn’t also note that there is also one sponsorship slot still open – contact us here if you’d like the details.
Now a little bit about this upcoming report…
The State of ePayables 2025: AP’s Unfinished Journey
Accounts Payable has never been the story of overnight transformation. It is a story of persistence, of pushing forward through challenges, one supplier, one invoice, and one payment at a time. Like Sisyphus reimagined not as a figure of futility but of defiant purpose, AP professionals have spent the past twenty years pushing against inertia, not for glory, but because the struggle itself matters. Every invoice approved, every payment scheduled, every new insight gained and shared marks progress. It is a progress that is real, earned, and meaningful.
In a world obsessed with disruption, AP offers the lesson that while value, from time to time, arises from revolution, more often than not, it is the result of a steady, consistent beat of a drum. This report opens in many ways like the inaugural report in this series did in 2006 with a recognition that AP’s journey is not behind it, but ahead. And so, the beat continues.
This 20th-annual State of ePayables 2025: AP’s Unfinished Journey report is part of the ongoing dialogue that Ardent Partners’ analysts have had with AP, finance, and P2P leaders for two decades. The report examines the general competencies and capabilities of AP organizations today and highlights the management strategies and tactics that leading departments have utilized to drive their organizations forward over the past few years. This report also examines their core plans and top priorities for 2025 and beyond including AI.
While this report reflects on AP’s journey over the past two decades, it remains focused on the here and now, presenting a comprehensive, industry-wide view into the world of accounts payable by capturing the experience, performance, perspectives, and intentions of 204 AP professionals and their organizations. The report includes benchmark statistics, analysis, and recommendations that AP, finance, and P2P teams can use to better understand the state of AP today, gain insight into best practices, benchmark their performance against the Best-in-Class, and ultimately improve their operations and performance.
