In this concise presentation, Sachin Sharma, founder of ProcureDesk, explains how accounts‑payable (AP) automation can replace the need for additional headcount and deliver measurable ROI. He walks through a real‑world CFO scenario where hiring two new AP clerks was considered, then outlines three primary financial benefits of automation: (1) labor cost savings—showing average AP staff cost (~$75‑$78k annually) and how 70‑80% of invoice‑processing time can be eliminated; (2) error reduction—highlighting hidden costs from late‑payment penalties and duplicate payments that automation can curb; and (3) strategic time liberation—demonstrating how month‑close cycles can shrink from 10‑15 days to 4‑5 days, freeing senior finance staff for analysis. Sharma adds a bonus, often‑overlooked benefit: improved team morale and reduced attrition when overtime and burnout are mitigated. He concludes with a quick recap and a call‑to‑action to subscribe for more content.
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If your AP team is processing more and more invoices every month and you're thinking of hiring a headcount to keep up with the volume, watch this video first. Headcount, as with many other companies, is the most expensive resource for a company. And before you start hiring, you should think about how automation can help you reduce the overall cost. Recently we worked with a CFO who was thinking about hiring two more AP resources for invoice processing. And we help them with automation. They of course landed not high in those resources. So in this video, I'm going to talk about three things or three benefits of AP automation and how you can think about an ROI and building the business case for AP automation in your company. And towards the end, I'll share one bonus tip on a very commonly overlooked category when it comes to roi. If you're joining me for the first time, welcome. My name is Sachin Sharma. I am the founder of Procure Desk, where we help growing companies automate their procurement and AP processes. So let's jump right in. Number one is labor cost savings. I mean, if you take the average resource cost for AP, it is around $60,000, right? In the US at least on an annual basis, you add 30% benefits, you're looking at 75 to 78,000 per resource. So if the easiest way to kind of think about is let's say on an average an invoice take 15 to 20 minutes, look at how many invoices you're processing every month and you can take 70 to 80% of the time towards automation. So that is what the automation can help you reduce and not hire additional headcount. Right? So that's labor cost savings. Number two is the error reduction. So what do I mean by that? Many companies overlook this because it's not right visible all the time. So if you're processing invoices manually, you probably have late payments because invoice processing takes time. Your vendors are getting paid late and they are charging you late payment charges. And number two is you might be paying duplicates. Everybody say they don't do duplicate payments unless they start looking closely and they find those problems there. So I would encourage you to kind of look at what is the total cost you have today when it comes to late payments and duplicate payments to the vendors. Number three is opening up strategic work time. What do I mean by that? Most companies we work with before automation have a month close cycle time around 10 to 15 days. And API automation can help you reduce it to four to five days. So imagine now how much time your controllers have now to. Or, you know, your VP of finance have now to look into the patterns. Okay. What are the deviations from the forecast and why that is happening versus spending time on chasing invoices? I mean, you can. Controllers are not cheap, right? So you can look at the resource costs in there as well. So those are the top three categories. Now, number one thing which is often overlooked among all this is the team morale. Now what happens when you don't have enough resources? People are working overtime, working weekends to close books and so on. And they can do it month, two, three months. But month over month, it just burns them out, right? So you see burnout people leaving and you have attrition costs. Then you have to hire more and you can just look at your hiring cost as is. Right. So this is an additional category you should consider when you're thinking about the benefits of API automation. So just to summarize what we talked about today, number one is labor cost savings because of AP automation. Number two is saving on those late payment charges or duplicate payments. And number three is opening up time for strategic work. If you like this video, go hit subscribe button. So we'll let you know when we release videos like this. Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you in the next video.
