Electronic Invoice Adoption Benchmark Report

Seeking to gain insights and current trends in electronic invoice (eInvoice) adoption, electronic payments (ePayments) adoption, and emerging working capital solutions, PayStream Advisors conducted an in-depth survey among Accounts Payable professionals. This report contains the results.

Among key findings in the 2012 Electronic Invoice Survey:

- More companies are migrating to a centralized system, where invoices are approved and paid from one central location.

- The top accounts payable automation goal for 2012 was electronic invoicing, with 37 percent of survey respondents reporting eInvoicing as their top goal.

- Over a quarter of survey respondents report they would like to achieve at least 75 percent electronic invoicing technology.

- The top factor driving organizations to focus on electronic invoices is the reduction in overall processing costs.

- Purchasing cards represent the most widely used technology with 86 percent adoption rate.

- Electronic payments are widely adopted with an 84 percent adoption rate.

- Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of survey respondents are currently utilizing electronic invoicing and 46 percent are currently evaluating the usage of eInvoicing.

- Fifty-six percent of survey respondents ranked the reduction in procure-to-pay cycle time as the top benefit achieved from the usage of electronic invoicing.

- The top barrier to electronic invoicing is the shortage of IT resources – 64 percent. This is a dramatic increase from only 7 percent in 2011.

- The primary method used to trade business-to-business invoices is paper at 59 percent.

- Large companies (companies with revenues over $1 billion) have higher automation adoption rates which have resulted in the reduced volume of paper invoices in Large companies.

Based on the results of PayStream’s Electronic Invoice survey of over 300 accounts payable and procurement professionals at U.S. based enterprises, AP professionals are encouraged to explore electronic invoice solutions with the goal of reduced processing costs, increased visibility, increased on-time payments and capture of supplier discounts, improved vendor satisfaction, fewer duplicate invoices, and a reduction in exceptions and discrepancies.