Survey: Only 4% of finance teams fully automate accounts payable
Automation is quickly growing in retail, hospitality and healthcare – except perhaps in one aspect.
Only 4% of finance organizations have fully automated their AP processes from invoice to payment, according to a new survey from AI-powered accounts payable (AP) platform,
While the majority (93%) of organizations have incorporated some level of automation into their AP processes, most still rely on manual steps for data entry, approvals and exceptions handling. Ottimate says this drives daily frustrations, including manual data entry (48%), inconsistent adherence to the AP process (39%), and manual review of invoices (38%). Almost half (48%) of respondents say their automation tools deliver minimal or no cost savings.
Partial automation also impacts reporting and close cycles, according to Ottimate. More than half (51%) of teams spend six days or more closing the AP books each month. In addition, more than half (52%) spend 11 or more hours running reports each week, and one-in-four frequently rerun reports due to errors or incomplete data.
“Finance teams are handling more volume than ever with tools that weren’t built for this scale,” said Dan Kim, chief financial officer at Ottimate. “When AP isn’t fully automated, bottlenecks form, errors increase, and teams are left reacting, instead of working strategically.”
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Half of finance teams process 5,000 or more invoices per month, and one quarter processes more than 10,000. Nearly four-in-10 (38%) businesses surveyed say it takes five or more days to process a single invoice from receipt to approval.
According to the study, 41% of organizations experienced invoice fraud or overpayment in the past year. Ottimate noted that the figure may be higher, as fraud and errors aren’t often identified until the damage is done. Many teams have controls in place to reduce risk, including manual reviews (52%) and multi-level approvals (50%).
Ottimate commissioned an online survey of 225 U.S. mid‑market finance and accounting decision makers in the hospitality, retail, and healthcare industries, which was conducted by NewtonX from Sept. 5 - 12, 2025.
