In "Cutting the Fat from Accounts Payable", authors Tad Leahy and Ivy McLemore report:

"Typically, the accounts payable process represents the greatest opportunity for improvement in the accounting function . . . The stakes are high: The average company processes 190,000 vendor invoices per $1 billion of revenue, pays each employee $36,705 per year in salary and benefits …"

During the 90's, The Hackett Group and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants co-sponsored a benchmarking study of key corporate financial functions. Four hundred companies, including over 100 major US corporations, participated in this study. In this same article, Leahy and McLemore interviewed Mark Krueger, Vice President of The Hackett Group, a consulting firm in Hudson, Ohio. According to Krueger, "The average company … processes 11,100 invoices per person per year."

The math is straightforward: $36,705/11,100 = $3.31. That is, direct labor cost alone for payables processing averages $3.31 per invoice. For most companies, direct labor represents 30% of fully allocated payables costs when indirect labor, equipment, postage, supplies, administration, overhead, and other cost components are considered. (See attached.) Applying this 30% factor then to the $3.31 direct labor cost above, yields a fully allocated average payables cost of $11.03 per invoice.

This average invoice payables cost is closely validated by IOMA's ( Institute of Management and Administration) "Managing Accounts Payable" publication. In its late 90's Payables Benchmarking Survey, MAP notes:

"On average, it costs an accounts payable department $16.54 to process a vendor payment . . . These figures may seem a little high. However, over 7% of the companies responding reported a check-processing cost of over $50 … When the numbers were rerun, eliminating all who had entered $50 or higher, the average dropped to $10.55 for vendor payments …"