Follow the exceptions, not the AP automation rate
AP & P2P Analyst
In Brief
- A high AP automation rate shows how many invoices skip manual work, not how much work is left or why.
- IDC tells enterprise buyers to follow the exceptions, saying exception management is often where the economics of AP automation are won or lost.
- Ask what remains manual, which suppliers, entities and transaction types cause it, and whether the platform resolves exceptions or only routes them.
Vendors tend to lead with an automation rate. An AP automation rate is the share of invoices that pass through without a person touching them. It is easy to quote, and it tells you least about the work your team still does. IDC makes the point in the buyer guidance of its IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Accounts Payable Automation Software for Large Enterprise 2026 Vendor Assessment: a high automation-rate claim should not end the discussion.
This post sets out what IDC advises buyers to look at instead, why the advice matters most in complex environments, and how to apply it to your own numbers.
What an AP automation rate leaves out
The AP automation rate counts invoices. It does not count effort. Two organisations can quote the same rate while one spends its remaining manual hours on a few awkward suppliers and the other spreads them across every entity it owns.
The rate also says nothing about why an invoice fell out. A missing purchase order reference, a price mismatch and a changed bank detail each create one exception, yet they need different fixes and different people. A high rate shows how many invoices skip a person. Exceptions show what is left.
A high rate shows how many invoices skip a person. Exceptions show what is left.
Vendors also call the rate touchless processing or straight-through processing. The names differ, but the limit is the same. Each one describes the invoices that needed no help, not the ones that did.
What IDC tells buyers to follow instead
The MarketScape (September 2026) includes guidance for buyers. Its advice is to follow the exceptions, not the automation percentage. IDC says a high automation-rate claim should not end the discussion. Buyers should ask what remains manual, and then work out why.
IDC also says where to look. Buyers should understand which suppliers, entities, transaction types and processes create the most human work, because that shows where the human work sits.
“At enterprise scale, exception management is often where the economics of AP automation are won or lost.” IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Accounts Payable Automation Software for Large Enterprise 2026 Vendor Assessment
The arithmetic here is ours, not IDC’s. A small share of a very large number of invoices is still a large amount of work. Therefore the rate matters less than what sits behind it.
SoftCo was positioned in the Leaders category in the same assessment, as we reported when IDC published it.
Why exceptions grow in complex environments
In our reading, exceptions grow with every ERP, entity and approval route an invoice has to cross. IDC points the same way. It warns that a successful demonstration inside one ERP environment proves relatively little for a global enterprise, and advises buyers to ask vendors to show how the platform behaves when AP spans several systems.
IDC makes a related point in its profile of SoftCo. It describes enterprises with distributed finance operations, where ERP heterogeneity and multi-entity approval complexity have historically limited straight-through processing rates.
Each extra system or approval route adds a place where an invoice can fall out of the automated path. That is our reading, not IDC’s. As a result, a rate measured in one clean environment may not hold across several, and the rate is least informative where the environment is most complex.
What to ask about your exceptions
Ask what is still manual, why it is manual, and whether the platform resolves exceptions or only reports them. IDC’s guidance turns into questions that work in a vendor meeting and in your own month-end review. If a vendor quotes an AP automation rate, ask which large, complex environments that figure comes from.
Is each exception identified or resolved?
IDC asks buyers to check whether a platform merely identifies exceptions or actively helps resolve them. In practice that means asking whether it supplies the information needed to resolve each one, works out the right owner, and can talk to suppliers or internal users.
Does the platform learn from the last one?
IDC also asks whether a platform learns from prior resolutions, spots recurring exception patterns and surfaces the process problems underneath them. It suggests putting questions like these to every vendor:
- What are the most common sources of AP exceptions?
- How does the platform help eliminate recurring exceptions rather than simply route them?
- What are the largest and most complex production environments you currently support?
- How do you measure automation across those customers?
A vendor that answers the first two with specifics has looked at its own exceptions. One that answers with the AP automation rate again has not.
What SoftCo tracks alongside the rate
IDC describes how SoftCo runs customer engagements. It says they are structured around measurable AP outcomes, including straight-through processing rates, invoice cycle times and exception volumes, and tracked continuously against goals set during the sales process.
The pairing is the point. The rate shows how much runs untouched. Exception volume shows how much does not, and cycle time shows how long the rest takes. A report that carries only the first can look better than the operation behind it.
IDC also describes SoftCo’s AP automation platform as designed from the ground up for organisations running multiple ERPs across multiple entities and jurisdictions. That is the environment where the three numbers diverge most.
What to do with your own numbers
You can apply the same test to your own AP team this month. Start with four steps.
- Report exception volume next to your AP automation rate, in the same table, every month.
- Split the exceptions by supplier, entity and transaction type, the lenses IDC names.
- Group them by cause, then trace the biggest causes upstream, to supplier data, contracts and purchase orders.
- When you evaluate a vendor, ask for the same three numbers from a customer whose ERP landscape resembles yours.
The first step is the easiest and the most revealing. If your reports hold the two figures on different pages, nobody reads them together. Side by side, they show within a month whether a rising rate comes with falling exception volume, or only moves the work somewhere else.
The third step is where control work starts. SoftCo’s Supplier Control Framework sets out control questions for each stage of the supplier lifecycle, which is one way to structure that trace. It argues that an automation rate measures throughput, not control. The sharper question is how many automated approvals rested on data that was still valid at the moment of payment. That is SoftCo’s view, not an IDC finding.
None of this makes the AP automation rate irrelevant. It makes it one number in a set, read alongside the exceptions it leaves behind.
Talk to us about your AP environment.
Bring your automation rate and your exception numbers.
Frequently askedquestions
An AP automation rate is the share of invoices that pass through accounts payable without a person touching them. Vendors also call it the touchless or straight-through processing rate. It counts invoices, not the effort the remaining ones take.
An invoice exception is any invoice that leaves the automated path and needs a person to resolve it. Typical triggers include a missing purchase order reference, a price mismatch or changed supplier details.
A high rate shows how many invoices skip manual work, not how much work remains or why it remains. IDC advises enterprise buyers not to let a high automation-rate claim end the discussion, and to ask what is still manual.<br /><br />
Ask what the most common sources of exceptions are, and how the platform helps eliminate recurring exceptions rather than simply route them. IDC also suggests asking which large, complex production environments the vendor supports and how it measures automation across those customers.
Count the invoices that need a person each month, then split them by supplier, entity, transaction type and cause. Report that volume next to your AP automation rate so the two numbers are read together.