Prioritizing Payables: How AP segmentation Refocuses AP Management To Reduce Costs, Minimize Errors, And Strengthen Financial Control

Successful businesses understand the Pareto Principle, also known as the "80/20 rule" or the "law of the vital few." Effective marketing organizations, for instance, have become experts at focusing their attention and resources on their most profitable customers. Yet when it comes to business operations in finance and accounting, most companies give little, if any, thought to this rule. In the case of Accounts Payable (AP), most businesses don't handle high-value invoices differently than routine payables - mainly because they don't recognize what invoices are high value or don't have a process to treat them with priority. Instead, the conventional thinking in payables processing is that an invoice is just an invoice, regardless of its possible impact on the bottom line.