Transparency
Methodology: how every number is calculated.
Every statistic on this site is derived from published industry research, calibrated against OmniPATH deployment data. This page explains how each number is calculated and where it comes from.
Last updated: October 2026
Manual cost
Manual invoice processing cost: £19.56.
The cost of processing one invoice manually in the UK is £19.56 in our canonical ROI model with its default inputs. It is not a single benchmark: it is the sum of three cost layers.
| Component | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Base processing labour | £14.50 | APQC AP Benchmarks 2024 |
| Exception handling overlay | £4.06 | 0.39 × 25 minutes ÷ 60 × £25 an hour: a 39% exception rate at 25 minutes each (Quadient State of AP 2025), at a default staff cost of £25 an hour |
| Query overhead | £1.00 | IOFM AP Operations 2024 |
£14.50 + £4.06 + £1.00 = £19.56 manual cost per invoice.
OmniPATH cost and saving
OmniPATH cost per invoice: £2.00. Saving: £17.56.
The automated cost per invoice through OmniPATH is £2.00 in the canonical ROI model: the full invoice lifecycle, including the software and the residual review of the 8% of invoices that need a person.
- Manual cost: £19.56 per invoice
- OmniPATH cost: £2.00 per invoice
- Saving: £19.56 − £2.00 = £17.56 per invoice
- Cost reduction: £17.56 / £19.56 = 89.8%, about 90%
Accuracy
AI extraction accuracy: 99.2%.
OmniPATH’s document AI achieves 99.2% field-level extraction accuracy, measured as:
- Numerator: correctly extracted fields (supplier name, invoice number, date, line items, totals, VAT, currency and PO reference)
- Denominator: total fields attempted across the document set
The 99.2% figure is calculated across the active client base on a rolling 90-day window. It excludes documents that fail ingestion entirely (corrupt files, password-protected PDFs); those are counted separately as ingestion failures, not extraction errors.
Manual baseline: about 85% accuracy for manual data entry, based on IOFM’s 2024 AP Operations report, which cites a 12-18% human error rate in manual invoice keying.
Processing time
Processing time: 12 minutes by hand, 37 seconds by AI.
The manual time of 12 minutes per invoice is the APQC median for end-to-end invoice processing (receipt, data entry, coding, validation and routing for approval). It excludes the approval cycle itself.
OmniPATH’s AI pipeline processes a document in 37 seconds (measured across 35 documents in production), a 20 times speed improvement on per-document handling.
The 80% time saving cited across the site is calculated on end-to-end workflow time, including the human review step on flagged documents:
- Manual: 12 minutes per invoice
- OmniPATH (blended, including review of flagged documents): about 2.4 minutes per invoice
- Saving: (12 − 2.4) / 12 = 80%
Touchless rate
Touchless processing rate: 92%.
92% of invoices processed through OmniPATH need no human intervention: they are extracted, validated, matched and routed automatically. The remaining 8% are flagged for manual review because of:
- Low confidence scores on extracted fields
- Matching exceptions (PO variance, missing GRN)
- A new supplier not yet on the approved list
- An amount over the approval threshold that needs escalation
The 92% rate is measured across the active client base. New deployments typically start at 75-85% and reach 92% or more within the first 30 days as the system learns organisation-specific patterns.
Approval cycle
Approval cycle: 5-8 days to under 2 days.
The manual approval cycle of 5-8 days is the APQC median for request-to-approval in organisations without automated routing. It includes time spent chasing approvers, routing to the wrong person and waiting for physical signatures.
OmniPATH reduces this to under 2 days through smart routing (it identifies the correct approver from amount, category, site and supplier), mobile approval (one tap from any device) and escalation rules (it escalates automatically after configurable SLA periods).
Cost reduction
Cost reduction: about 90%.
The headline cost reduction of about 90% is the direct comparison of manual against automated cost per invoice: (£19.56 − £2.00) / £19.56 = 89.8%.
This covers processing cost only. The ROI calculator models further recovery dimensions (early payment discounts, fraud prevention, duplicate detection, credit note recovery, VAT, maverick spend, price variance, late payment penalties and operational capacity), which typically add 5-8% of total AP spend in recoverable value.
The value model
The 21-dimension model.
Every figure in the ROI calculator comes from a 21-dimension model spanning procurement policy, finance controls and operational productivity, the same one used in live client Value Reviews. Estimates use sector benchmarks; once you’re connected, every dimension is computed from your actual invoices, statements and alerts.
Cash
Direct cash you recover
What your CFO recovers.
- Credit note recovery. 2% recovery on misallocated or unclaimed credit notes (calibrated against the client base).
- Fraud prevention. 0.8% of spend exposed to duplicate or fraudulent claims.
- VAT reclaim. 0.5% of invoices have VAT errors; recovery at the 20% standard rate (calibrated against the client base).
- Early payment discounts. A 50% improvement in taking 2% terms, on the 30% of spend with suppliers that offer them.
- Duplicate payments. 0.5% of invoices paid twice (needs the statements module).
- Spend without invoice. Undocumented bank debits on about 4% of lines (needs the statements module).
- Payment timing. 4.5% opportunity cost on the 25% of invoices paid 15 days early (needs an ERP connection).
- Price spike detection. 1% of spend exposed to undetected price spikes, 50% recoverable once detected.
Avoid
Costs you stop paying
What your CPO and COO stop paying.
- Price negotiation. 4% of spend on volatile products, where locking unit prices saves money.
- Bulk pricing. A 2% discount on the 40% of spend eligible for volume terms (hospitality multi-site benchmark).
- Maverick spend. A 2% premium paid on off-PO invoices (35% of invoices without POs, 10% with).
- Late payment avoidance. Statutory 12.5% interest on the 15% of invoices paid late, 30 days late on average.
- Expense compliance. 8% rejection rate and 5% no-receipt risk (needs the expenses module).
- Cut-off compliance. 1.5% of invoices arrive after period close, 20 minutes to correct each (needs an ERP connection).
- Industry benchmarking. Insight from comparing spend patterns against industry averages, valued at £300 per 1,000 invoices.
- Emissions reduction. A 7.5% consolidation saving on delivery costs of 3% of spend (needs the ESG module).
Ops
Hours you free up
What your AP team gets back.
- Time savings. About 12 minutes per invoice by hand against 3.7 minutes end to end with OmniPATH, valued at your hourly cost. AI extraction itself runs in 37 seconds (measured across 35 documents, 20 times faster than manual).
- Exception handling. 25 minutes per exception at your hourly cost, on a 39% exception rate.
- Statement reconciliation. 15 minutes saved per auto-matched bank line at a 75% match rate (needs the statements module).
- Delivery reliability. 2% of deliveries have discrepancies (short deliveries, substitutions), 60% recoverable (needs the purchase orders module).
- Product variant accuracy. 3.5% of lines have supplier substitutions (a different pack size or brand) at a 5% price impact.
True cost per invoice
The inputs behind the manual cost.
Base processing £14.50, plus the exception overlay (exception rate × handling minutes ÷ 60 × hourly cost), plus query overhead of £1.00. With the defaults (a 39% exception rate, typical for multi-site operators without automation, 25 minutes per exception and £25 an hour) the overlay is £4.06 and the total £19.56.
Inputs
| Input | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Manual cost per invoice (base) | £14.50 | APQC AP Benchmarks 2024 |
| Exception rate | 39% | Quadient State of AP 2025 |
| Exception handling time | 25 min | Quadient State of AP 2025 |
| Hourly staff cost | £25 | Model default |
| Query overhead | £1.00 | IOFM AP Operations 2024 |
| Manual cost per invoice | £19.56 | £14.50 + £4.06 + £1.00 |
Pricing assumed
The plan costs used in payback and ROI.
The calculator picks whichever plan is cheapest for your inputs. ROI = (annual recovery − annual platform cost) / annual platform cost.
| Plan | Monthly | Documents included | Then per document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (1 unit, up to 5 users) | £35 | 50 | £1.00 |
| Growth (1 unit, up to 15 users) | £80 | 150 | £0.85 |
| Pro (1 unit, unlimited users) | £125 | 200 | £0.75 |
| Plus (2 or more units) | £125 a small unit, £250 a large unit | None, metered from the first, pooled | £0.55 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom |
108
Analytics endpoints
OmniPATH exposes 108 analytics API endpoints across 10 intelligence domains: dashboard, supplier, purchasing, invoice, cash, budget, compliance, audit, fraud and trend. Each endpoint supports time-range filtering, site scoping and format selection (JSON, CSV and XLSX).
4
Verification layers
Every supplier passes four checks before receiving a purchase order or payment:
- Companies House: company status, registered name match, postcode match and dispute flag
- HMRC: VAT registration lookup, VRN validation and registered name cross-reference
- Bank modulus check: sort code and account number validation against UK banking rules
- Confirmation of Payee: account holder name checked against the bank’s records
How we keep these numbers current
Platform metrics (99.2% accuracy, 92% touchless rate and 37-second processing) are calculated on a rolling 90-day window from the active client base and updated quarterly. Industry benchmarks are refreshed annually when new editions of the source reports are published. Any material change is reflected across the site within one release cycle. Questions about methodology? Get in touch or ask LEDGE.
See these numbers applied to your business.
Enter your size and see a modelled breakdown of recoverable value, or bring your own invoices to a 30-minute demo.
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