Increasing ROI with AI-first ServiceNow accounts payable solutions

Whether you're leading a large corporation or scaling up an enterprise, you've undoubtedly encountered one of the classic financial process "headaches": missing invoices, delayed payments, misaligned data across departments, and an increasingly unwieldy supplier base that's becoming harder to manage by the day.

What's particularly striking is that most of these issues stem from the same root cause: accounts payable (AP) within the source-to-pay process. Rather disappointingly, the majority of enterprises are still handling this manually.

At a time when AI is no longer a trend but rather the default infrastructure, implementing AI-first ServiceNow for accounts payable operations doesn't merely deliver faster, more accurate processing; it can generate direct impact on your bottom line ROI. This is no longer a technology promise, it's a measurable business equation that can give enterprises a genuine competitive edge in the marketplace.

Why are the current accounts payable operations holding organisations back?

Many CFOs and Heads of Finance still believe their current accounting systems are "fit for purpose" until they need to:

• Trace the origins of an invoice that's been delayed for three weeks in payment processing.
• Or explain to auditors why a duplicate invoice was processed twice.

This isn't an isolated incident but rather commonplace today, resulting in significant financial damage. It's not merely a story of outdated systems – it represents a productivity drain, a compliance risk, and a cost multiplier hiding in plain sight.

According to Ardent Partners' report 'Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2023', the average cost to process a single invoice is $10.18 USD, whilst best-in-class organisations require only $3.12 USD – 76% lower. This differential, when multiplied across thousands of invoices annually, becomes an enormous "hidden" expense (If you're processing 15,000 invoices a year, that's a $129,600 annual savings opportunity). This is precisely why many enterprises believe they're being cost-effective when, in reality, they're hemorrhaging cash flow.

However, the root cause is a perfect storm of disparate systems, unstructured communications, and outdated document tools. How can we fix this? Let’s dive into the challenges and pain points of the legacy accounts payable operations first.

Challenges of the legacy accounts payable operations

Before discussing AI or automation, we need to candidly examine the current reality: legacy accounts payable operations are trapped within a "manual and fragmented ecosystem", where work depends more heavily on people than systems.

1. Fragmented tools, disparate systems and over-reliance on AP specialists

You can easily observe this scenario in any finance department:

• One system for invoice receipt
• Another system for PO reconciliation
• Yet another portal for payment processing
• Email for approvals
• SharePoint for tracking exceptions
• And ERP for the final recording

What's the common thread? No system can "communicate" with another due to fundamental differences in language and operational architecture. Consequently, AP specialists must serve as "living coordinators": copying and pasting, re-entering data, monitoring each email, and constantly chasing approvers.

The consequence: Errors, rework, delays and particularly the inability to scale as the enterprise grows.

2. Email becomes the reluctant workflow engine

Whether it's new invoices, supplier requests, approval processes, or dispute resolution, everything is currently being managed through email.

However, the problem doesn't lie with email itself but rather with the choice of accounts payable tools. Email wasn't designed to handle workflows. It lacks the capability for:

• Status tracking
• Automated prioritisation
• Role-based routing
• Clear historical records

The consequence: approvals get "buried" in inboxes, requests are overlooked, and AP teams drown in an uncontrolled sea of information.

3. "Intelligent" OCR that's not quite intelligent enough

Many organisations have invested in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology within their accounts payable processes, but most of these systems simply read and extract text. When invoices from the same supplier change format or contain multiple line items, OCR begins to falter.

The result is:

• Staff must manually verify every piece of information
• Correct recognition errors
• Validate suppliers
• Manually reconcile POs
• And finally, re-send for approval via email

The consequence: processes become bottlenecked, data gets duplicated, and finance teams gradually lose confidence in automation.

These inefficiencies create a ripple effect across the organisation:

• AP specialists lose hours every day to avoidable manual tasks
• Cycle times balloon, delaying payments and souring supplier relationships
• Duplicate or incorrect payment slips slip through
• Valuable early payment discounts are lost
• Financial forecasting suffers from lagging visibility

In summary, traditional AP processes aren't lacking in effort, they're lacking the connectivity and intelligence necessary to create genuine efficiency. And this is precisely when ServiceNow - the AI platform changes the game entirely.

How ServiceNow accounts payable helps organisations

First, let's explore how ServiceNow accounts payable solutions help organisations solve the challenge of optimising payables operations and strengthening supplier relationships.

When automation becomes a competitive advantage through End-to-End Workflow Automation

Imagine a system that can receive any invoice – from email, scanned files, to e-commerce platforms; then automatically read the content, verify matching against POs, reconcile with actual goods received, integrate with ERP and procurement systems, and only route to you when approval is required. This isn't imagination. This is precisely how ServiceNow accounts payable operations operate daily within numerous global corporations.

The benefits aren't merely about saving time, but also about:

• Completely eliminating data entry errors,
• Reducing overdue invoices to virtually zero,
• And particularly, enhancing supplier experience and improving customer relationships, those who increasingly demand high standards of transparency and payment speed.

You understand that suppliers' roles always have a profound impact on enterprise success or failure. Earning suppliers' trust and favour translates to possessing a competitive advantage in the marketplace, not only in terms of pricing but also in the ability to deliver end products to final users and enhance reputation (particularly when suppliers have significant market standing).

When AI plays the role of not just a tool, but “your colleague"

In modern systems like AI-first ServiceNow accounts payable operations, AI doesn't merely serve as an invoice-reading tool – it becomes the finance department's "silent teammate":

• Understanding the context of each invoice despite them arriving in different formats.
• Self-learning to recognise classification and processing patterns based on historical data.
• Detecting anomalies: duplicate invoices, incorrect pricing, inconsistent payment histories.

Unlike traditional RPA (Robotic Process Automation), ServiceNow Responsible AI operates as a living system that continuously learns, adapts, and provides recommendations. The result is that AP processes are no longer rigid step-by-step chains, but rather flexible cycles of continuous optimisation.

Enhanced intelligent and rapid decision-making capability with unified reporting and visibility

Speed must be accompanied by effectiveness – something every leader cares about. With all AP data in one place within ServiceNow accounts payable operations, teams can see:

• Invoice volumes by type or region
• Exception trends
• Time to resolution
• Supplier performance
• Cash flow exposure

This enables data-driven decisions and improves financial agility.

Example: A public sector health agency used consolidated AP data to identify that 18% of invoice delays were caused by a single department's late PO entry. Fixing it shaved 3 days off their average payment cycle.

ServiceNow Source to Pay: Optimising not just the "payment" step, but the entire value chain

Accounts payable is merely one link in a much broader value chain: the Source to Pay process (S2P). If you only optimise AP whilst ignoring upstream elements like supplier management, tendering, and budget approvals, you've only solved 20% of the equation.

With ServiceNow Source to Pay, you can:

• Monitor and evaluate supplier performance in real-time
• Automate approval and tendering processes according to policy
• Seamlessly connect sourcing, purchasing, invoicing, and payments

According to ServiceNow reports, organisations implementing complete S2P can save up to 20% in procurement operating costs, whilst reducing payment cycles by up to 30%.

Details about ServiceNow Source to Pay and the Strategic Sourcing App, an extended application from S2P, specifically designed to address complex procurements, have been presented in this article. Click to explore!

Increasing ROI within reach for organisational growth

Let's look back: merely reducing invoice processing costs from over $10 USD to under $3 USD represents significant savings. When you add factors such as:

• Accelerated processes
• Minimised errors
• Improved cash flow management
• Increased accounts payable turnover ratio
• And enhanced supplier experience

Then those savings are no longer just "cost reduction", but genuine ROI increases. The higher the ROI, the more reserve capital organisations have for reinvestment in business scaling, customer care investment, enhanced supplier lifecycle operations management, and improved employee welfare.

Intelligent automation with AI is no longer the playground of billion-dollar corporations. With ServiceNow, even growing enterprises can access flexible, integrated, and scale-ready solutions.

Novabridge – Trusted ServiceNow partner for organisations across Australia & New Zealand

Technology is the foundation, but people and the implementation approach are the determining factors for every project's success. This is precisely why many enterprises in the ANZ region have chosen Novabridge as their ServiceNow implementation partner.

• Specialising deeply in ServiceNow, particularly in accounts payable and Source to Pay automation, Novabridge has its own product, the Strategic Sourcing App, that is suitable for organisations with complex procurement operations.
• Procurement is in our DNA, as Novabridge experts all come from backgrounds as procurement specialists with years of experience. Therefore, Novabridge genuinely understands accounts payable processes within Source to Pay in depth and possesses the capability to comprehend issues for any organisation.
• Understanding the unique characteristics of the ANZ market, from compliance regulations to domestic financial systems and advisory networks from multinational public sectors, we have the capability to create breakthrough solutions tailored for each organisation in ANZ.
• Beyond the 5 major Australian cities, including Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, we also maintain a permanent presence in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. This ensures reduced waiting times and provides rapid, direct solutions for all clients.
• Results-focused, with a dedicated and proactive consulting, implementation, and operations team.

For these reasons, Novabridge is the trusted ServiceNow accounts payable operations implementation partner in ANZ. From designing appropriate processes and flexible system configuration to ensuring genuine user adoption, Novabridge partners with you throughout every stage of the journey, ensuring each dollar invested in ServiceNow solutions generates clear returns.

Conclusion

Implementing AI-first ServiceNow accounts payable operations isn't simply upgrading accounting technology. It's a mindset shift about how finance operates – faster, more intelligently, and more strategically.

👉 If you're ready to reassess your entire source-to-pay operations, or simply want to eliminate 90% of accounts payable frustrations, it's time to integrate digital transformation with ServiceNow solutions.

And if you need a partner who understands both technology and complex procurement expertise, contact and meet with Novabridge experts today!