Benchmarking - Metric of the Month

Benchmarking your performance against your peers is a crucial first step in any improvement efforts – no matter if you’re addressing your team’s training, processes or automation. After all, you can’t know where to concentrate your energies if you don’t know where there’s the most opportunity for more efficient or effective performance.

At the beginning of each month, IOFM will post a crucial AP metric to enable you to measure yourself against the profession's best. Bookmark this page and make a note to return again and again.

October 2021: Automation Readiness

IOFM’s 2021 benchmarking survey revealed that overall, more than half of organizations that bought automation solutions in the last couple of years are already looking to replace them.

August 2021: The Aging Workforce

Metric of the Month: The Aging Workforce

According to recent IOFM benchmarking data, many organizations are dealing with AP teams approaching retirement age. In the coming five-year period,

September 2021: 2021 Quarterly Trends in Invoicing

Metric of the Month: Invoices on the Rise

The number and size of invoices have climbed for the vast majority of AP teams for the third consecutive quarter, a recent IOFM poll revealed. Every new

July 2021: Cost Per Invoice

Something we’ve been talking a lot about lately is “type of decision-making.” This simply refers to how decisions are made about processing AP work. Do the individual processors

Decision Making Style by Level of Automation

One of the things that caught our attention in our soon-to-be-published 2021 Benchmarking Survey is how many organizations are automated, yet still using desk-level decision making. When everybody

May 2021: Unclaimed Property Audits

Unclaimed property is something that AP must address, but how prevalent is a UP audit and what are the repercussions? One in five of survey respondents said they’d undergone an audit, with some

Unclaimed property is something that AP must address, but how prevalent is a UP audit and what are the repercussions? One in five of survey respondents said they’d undergone an audit, with some… Read More

April 2021: Annual Invoices per FTE as a Function of Organizational Structure

How an AP team is structured has a strong correlation with productivity. This data, derived from IOFM’s most recent benchmarking survey, shows the correlation between how centralized an

How an AP team is structured has a strong correlation with productivity. This data, derived from IOFM’s most recent benchmarking survey, shows the correlation between how centralized an… Read More

March 2021: Invoices Increasingly Received Electronically

IOFM benchmarking data indicates there has been a steady increase in electronic invoice submittals over the past three years. With many finance teams still working from home, we can expect that trend

IOFM benchmarking data indicates there has been a steady increase in electronic invoice submittals over the past three years. With many finance teams still working from home, we can expect that trend… Read More

February 2021: Nearly 3 in 4 AP Teams Are Now Automated

2020 brought us more than a pandemic—it brought us significantly increased levels of AP automation. We expect to see that number continue to climb in 2021, as AP departments that had previously

2020 brought us more than a pandemic—it brought us significantly increased levels of AP automation. We expect to see that number continue to climb in 2021, as AP departments that had previously