Payables reporting fails in two opposite ways: nothing at all, or a pack nobody reads. The version that works is one page, produced weekly, containing numbers that prompt a specific action. Anything on that page that would not change what somebody does this week should be somewhere else or nowhere.
What goes on the weekly page
Counts of invoices by state, the age of the oldest item in each state with the owner's name, and the total value awaiting approval. Three small tables. Between them they answer where work is accumulating, who is holding the oldest items, and how much money is waiting on a signature.
What goes on the monthly page
The exception reason mix, the share of invoices arriving with an order and a receipt behind them, and the count by department of invoices arriving without an order. These are the numbers that change other people's behaviour, and they belong in a monthly conversation rather than a weekly glance.
What to leave out
Anything nobody would act on. Total invoice volume without context, days payable outstanding as a performance measure, and averages of anything where the tail is the problem. Averages in particular hide exactly the cases that generate complaints, which is why the oldest item beats the mean age every time.
Questions people ask about accounts payable reporting
Who should the weekly page go to?
The payables team and whoever manages them. The monthly one should reach purchasing and finance, because it describes their contribution.
Should we report cost per invoice?
Only if measured internally and read alongside the exception mix, since a harder mix raises the cost without anybody working worse.
How long should producing it take?
Minutes. If it takes an afternoon, the underlying data is not structured well enough and that is the thing to fix.