How to Determine Your True Cost to Pay Suppliers

Determining the cost of paying suppliers can be tricky.

Many organizations oversimplify or “merge” the variables that affect the cost of making different types of payment. Other organizations overlook “hidden” costs such as the time involved in fielding calls from suppliers, reconciling payments, making paper check payments, or initiating ACH transactions. Some organizations simply don’t track these costs at all.

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Accounts payable (AP) leaders who want to migrate from paper checks to electronic payments need to understand their current costs in order to make a strong business case to justify the investment. In this white paper, we seek to help AP leaders determine their total cost to pay suppliers, reveal the hidden costs of supplier payments, and detail strategies for reducing payment costs.