[Editor’s Note: Ardent Partners recently published its Accounts Payable-themed report, “Accounts Payable 2025: BIG Trends and Predictions”. Over the next several weeks, this site will feature our series highlighting the key BIG Trends and Predictions from the report.
As we step into 2025, the world of Accounts Payable (AP) is poised for a transformative year, driven by the accelerating forces of artificial intelligence (“AI”), advanced automation, and the growing recognition of AP’s potential to deliver measurable operational and financial impact.
Since the pandemic began, AP has emerged as a strategic cornerstone for businesses looking to streamline operations, enhance cash flow management, and bolster profitability. AI-powered solutions are helping to redefine the function; the need for smarter cash management and stronger supplier relationships are also aiding the cause.
In this new age, smart executives have identified AP as an area of investment and a lever for driving strategic value. This attention has empowered many AP teams to move beyond transactional tasks, embracing roles that directly influence financial performance and operational excellence.
This Week’s BIG Trend and Prediction
BIG Trend #7 – Global Invoicing Complexity, Part 1
The challenges managing AP processes for a global vendor base increase with the complex and divergent invoicing regulations that exist in different countries and jurisdictions. Governments are increasingly implementing electronic invoicing mandates to improve transparency and reduce tax evasion. Ardent Partners expects the proliferation of global invoicing regulations to accelerate within more countries
and regions over the next few years. The complexity of navigating varying tax laws, compliance requirements, and invoicing formats across different countries poses sizable challenges to AP teams managing global supply chains. These mandates differ widely in scope and technical specifications, presenting AP teams with a labyrinth of requirements.
To avoid statutory and financial penalties, AP teams must work to stay ahead using one or a blend of strategies. One strategy is to track invoicing regulations at the local level (i.e., geographies where the enterprise and its suppliers operate). The second strategy is to utilize a baseline ePayables solution that can help standardize and streamline global invoicing workflows. The third strategy is to find a partner that can help ensure invoice processing and payments meet country-specific standards while also maintaining accuracy and timeliness. This will be key to minimizing the risk of financial sanctions for noncompliance penalties.
Prediction #7 – Many CFOs and Treasurers Contemplate Cryptocurrency
Many business pundits and investors believe that the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president bodes extremely well for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether over the next four years. This is perhaps stating the obvious since Trump has promised to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and to stockpile Bitcoin. What is less obvious is the potential impact these promises will have on global corporations. Earlier this decade, a few corporations like MicroStrategy (Ticker: MSTR), Block (Ticker: SQ), and Mass Mutual made treasury investments in Bitcoin. As a result of its investment, MicroStrategy has seen its market capitalization soar and now refers to itself as a “Bitcoin treasury company.”
Cryptocurrency is not without its fair share of controversy and skeptics, but the very strong indication that the United States treasury will soon invest in cryptocurrency further legitimizes it as an investment vehicle. Accordingly, in 2025, many CFOs and treasurers will begin to investigate crypto as a potential asset to invest their cash and begin making smaller investments in the asset. Some, however, will take larger, more aggressive bets. As more finance executives gain experience and comfort investing in crypto, the path to using it to eventually pay vendors expands greatly, particularly if the currencies stabilize over the next few years. B2B payment professionals should watch this space!
AP 2025 BIG Trends & Predictions (Part 8): Next week we’ll explore a new trend and prediction — new tariffs make life tougher for AP and pressure on back office operations in Eastern Europe will build, respectively.
