Healthcare organizations cannot afford inefficient spend management to drain resources from patient care. Yet many still rely on manual processes, disconnected systems, and spreadsheets that limit visibility into invoices, suppliers, and enterprise-wide spending. 

Accounts payable (AP) may operate behind the scenes, but its impact extends far beyond the back office. When AP teams spend their time entering data, tracking approvals, resolving routine exceptions, and reviewing transactions manually, healthcare organizations lose time and visibility that could be used to make more informed financial decisions. 

Modernizing AP can help healthcare organizations reduce administrative burden, strengthen financial controls, and redirect more resources toward their primary mission: delivering quality care. 

AP is Becoming More Strategic 

Healthcare organizations manage spending across a wide range of departments, facilities, suppliers, and payment channels. That may include: 

• Purchase order invoices 
• Non-purchase order invoices 
• Procurement card transactions 
• Employee expenses 
• Recurring supplier payments 
• Clinical and administrative purchases 

When these transactions are managed through separate systems or manual workflows, it becomes difficult to see where money is going, identify potential risks, and understand upcoming liabilities. 

This visibility is becoming increasingly important as AP takes on a more strategic role within the organization. 

According to Ardent Partners’ Accounts Payable 2026: BIG Trends and Predictions, AP’s ability to protect liquidity and provide timely, accurate financial intelligence has never been more important. The report identifies automation, data management, real-time compliance, fraud prevention, and closer alignment between AP and treasury as some of the major forces shaping the function in 2026. 

For healthcare AP teams, these priorities are closely connected. Better processes create better data, and better data gives finance leaders greater visibility into cash flow, compliance, supplier spending, and organizational risk. 

Manual Processes Create More Than Administrative Work 

Healthcare organizations often feel the effects of manual AP processes more acutely because of high invoice volumes, complex supplier relationships, varied purchasing categories, and multiple approval requirements can make processing especially difficult to manage. These types of AP processes can create hidden costs and risks across the invoice lifecycle, including: 

• Repetitive data entry 
• Lost or duplicated invoices 
• Delayed approvals 
• Matching errors and exceptions 
• Inconsistent policy enforcement 
• Limited visibility into liabilities 
• Increased compliance risk 
• Greater exposure to fraud 
• Difficulty scaling without adding staff 

These challenges don’t just make invoice processing slower. They can also prevent AP teams from supplying the timely financial information leaders need to manage budgets, forecast cash requirements, and make confident spending decisions. 

Ardent Partners reports that eliminating manual processes and approval bottlenecks remains an unwavering priority for AP teams in 2026. Establishing a stable digital foundation is also essential for organizations that want to take advantage of more advanced AI, analytics, and automation capabilities. 

Automation Gives AP Teams Time to Focus on Higher-Value Work 

AP automation digitizes routine processes such as invoice capture, data extraction, approval routing, matching, and transaction tracking. An IOFM report found that best-in-class AP teams use technologies like SAP Concur to operate at: 

• 77% lower invoice-processing costs 
• More than 2x as many invoices processed per AP employee 
• Only 7% of transactions that require correction 

Organizations using SAP Concur solutions can see positive ROI in an estimated seven months and achieve 628% ROI over three years. Rather than manually reviewing and entering information from every invoice, AP teams can use automation to: 

• Capture invoices in one central location 
• Extract and validate invoice details 
• Route invoices to the appropriate approvers 
• Match invoices against purchase orders and receipts 
• Flag duplicate or unauthorized invoices 
• Apply policies and controls consistently 
• Track invoice status and liabilities 
• Integrate invoice data with ERP and financial systems 

This reduces the operational noise surrounding invoice management and allows AP professionals to spend more time addressing complex exceptions, strengthening supplier relationships, supporting audits, and interpreting financial data. 

Ardent Partners describes this as a transformation of the AP workflow. As technology absorbs more repetitive work, AP professionals can shift from processing transactions to managing exceptions, supporting stakeholders, and using financial intelligence to contribute greater strategic value. 

Automation Must Be Supported by Visibility and Control 

Efficiency is important, but processing invoices faster is only part of the opportunity. 

Healthcare finance teams also need clear, timely insight into what is being purchased, which suppliers are being used, where exceptions are occurring, and whether spending aligns with organizational policies. 

This is especially important in a highly regulated environment. Without connected data and consistent controls, healthcare organizations may struggle to identify duplicate transactions, unauthorized purchases, missing documentation, or unusual payment activity before funds leave the organization. 

Ardent Partners predicts that AP teams will increasingly serve as a centralized source of financial intelligence. The report also emphasizes the importance of owning and improving AP data, integrating compliance checks into digital invoice workflows, and using automated, intelligence-driven controls to identify fraud and anomalies at scale. 

A connected approach to invoice, travel, and expense management can give healthcare organizations a more complete view of spending while applying consistent policies across multiple transaction types. 

How Solis Mammography Simplified Compliance 

For Solis Mammography, managing compliance through manual processes would require significant time and staffing. 

The healthcare organization uses SAP Concur to manage expense, travel, and invoice processes on one platform. By embedding compliance into everyday workflows and gaining real-time visibility into spending, Solis has created a leaner and more efficient AP operation. 

According to Jesse Cox, AP and T&E Manager at Solis Mammography, managing compliance without SAP Concur would require the team to manually review nearly every document moving through its queues. Solis estimates it would need at least three times the staff to conduct those reviews—not including the additional work required to process invoices. 

“My favorite Concur solution is [Concur] Invoice. It's just so incredibly versatile and useful for exactly what we need to do." 
- Jesse Cox, AP and T&E Manager 

The organization’s experience demonstrates that AP automation isn’t only about completing tasks faster. It can also help healthcare organizations scale financial oversight, maintain rigorous controls, and manage compliance without adding unnecessary complexity. 

See how Solis Mammography supports compliance with connected spend management. 

Redirect More Resources Toward What Matters Most 

Every manual task, delayed approval, and disconnected source of spending data places another demand on healthcare resources. 

By automating invoice processes and connecting AP data with the rest of organizational spending, healthcare finance teams can improve efficiency, strengthen compliance, gain clearer cash flow visibility, and support more informed decisions. 

Most importantly, they can spend less time managing administrative complexity and help redirect more organizational resources toward delivering exceptional patient care. 

Learn how SAP Concur can automate AP processes for healthcare and give your organization greater visibility and control over supplier spending.