AP automation ROI calculator
- Net saving a month after the software
- $4,195
- Hours a month on payables today
- 220
- What that costs a month
- $7,040
- Cost per invoice today
- $5.87
Every figure here comes from the figures you enter and the method stated beside it: your invoice volume, your team's hourly cost, your own purchase-order coverage and your own tolerance. Where a worksheet uses a published constant it names the source and the date it was read. This site publishes no accounting treatment, no tax position and no audit opinion; what a transaction should be booked as is your accountant's and your auditor's.
The figures above start from a worked example ($4,195). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the AP automation ROI calculator worked example (CSV)
The AP automation ROI calculator works out what your current invoice process costs and what a change would have to deliver to be worth making. It runs on your own figures rather than an industry average: how many invoices you handle, how long each takes, what your team costs, and how many go into exception. The output is a cost per invoice you can defend in a business case, and a payback period that is yours rather than a vendor's.
AP automation ROI calculator: common questions
What figures do I need before using it? Invoice volume per month, the time an invoice takes end to end, the fully loaded cost of the people doing it, and roughly what share go into exception. Approximate numbers you can stand behind beat precise ones you cannot.
Why not use a published cost per invoice? Because the range across published figures is enormous and none of them describe your PO coverage, your exception rate or your team's cost. A number derived from your own inputs is one you can defend when finance asks where it came from.
What does the calculator not tell you? Whether the saving is achievable. It costs the current process and the modelled one; closing the gap depends on supplier data quality and PO coverage, which are the two things that decide how much can actually run without a person.