Businesses could save money and decrease environmental impact by modernizing their accounts payable departments, which lag other business departments in reducing environmental impact.
About 83 percent of A/P departments are managing about the same amount of paper invoices as they did four years ago. Meanwhile, about 68 percent of A/P departments are processing the same amount of manual payments as they did four years ago, according to the "E-payables Benchmarking 2009: Accounts Payable Rising" study from the Aberdeen Group.
Ironically, despite the lack of a move to paperless invoicing, about 70 percent of A/P departments report being under "high" pressure to reduce costs (see above chart).
Here is a look at how best-in-class A/P departments are outpacing their peers in use of processes, organization, knowledge and technology.