For every extra month spent on paper invoices and manual approvals, you are writing a silent cheque to inefficiency.
Automating your P2P process with a platform such as UniFi P2P Enterprise Suite can significantly reduce that cost and shorten processing time from weeks to hours.
Even so, many finance leaders continue to delay action, waiting for what feels like the “right moment” to modernise.
Today, we will turn that hesitation into measurable impact. You will see how each quarter of delay erodes cash, strains resources, and risks competitive standing, and why moving now is the lowest risk option on the table.
Opportunity Cost: The Cash Lost Each Month
Each month spent manually handling invoices increases your operational overhead.
Processing costs add up invoice by invoice, especially for organisations with high transaction volumes.
Procurement automation replaces those recurring manual steps with structured, efficient workflows.
This allows early adopters to avoid unnecessary costs and redirect resources quickly.
For example, one organisation was able to use UniFi to automate 250,000 monthly invoices into NetSuite. On another occasion, Purchase Invoice and PO automation saved one of our customers 1 day per 20 invoices processed across their organisation.
UniFi supports organisations using PEPPOL by providing e-invoicing data in any required format. Thanks to our flexible data connectors, we can send and receive data via any API or protocol. This enables seamless integration with your payment workflows—not only for issuing invoices but also for receiving e-invoices and processing them directly within UniFi P2P Enterprise Suite.
The longer automation is postponed, the more these inefficiencies accumulate.
Over the course of a year, the cumulative loss can be significant.
Hidden Costs of “Do Nothing”
Financial impact is not limited to direct processing costs. Delaying P2P automation exposes your organisation to harder-to-measure but no less real risks. These include:
Missed early-payment discounts due to slow approvals
Increased risk of duplicate payments and invoice fraud
Time spent on rework due to human error
Demoralised teams, as highly skilled staff spend time on low-value tasks
These hidden costs reduce operational efficiency and increase frustration across finance teams.
Each one may seem minor in isolation, but together they can materially affect performance.
Competitive Lag: Falling Behind Faster Movers
Delaying procurement automation not only costs you money internally. It also allows competitors to get ahead.
Those who act now gain faster access to working capital, build better supplier relationships, and reassign staff to more productive work. These benefits support long-term gains in both cost efficiency and strategic execution.
Waiting, by contrast, means falling behind. You continue absorbing costs others have already eliminated and lose ground that becomes harder to recover.
Cost-of-Delay Calculator
To illustrate the impact, we will use three inputs—invoice volume, current cost per invoice, target automated cost—to quantify your burn rate.
Calculate the difference between your current processing cost per invoice and your expected automated cost. Multiply this by your monthly invoice volume.
This will give you a concrete figure: your monthly cost of delay.
For many finance leaders, this exercise uncovers savings that had not previously been quantified. It provides a starting point for building a strong internal business case.
Implementation vs Delay Timeline
Delaying P2P automation not only defers cost savings but extends the timeline for value realisation. Compare the difference between acting now versus waiting:
| Quarter If You Act Now | If You Wait | |
|---|---|---|
| Q0 | Project starts, baseline KPIs established | Existing manual processes continue |
| Q1 | Pilot phase live, automation covers a significant portion of invoices; meaningful savings already realised | Full manual costs continue without any savings |
| Q3 | Full rollout under way; early-payment discounts recovered; ROI achieved | Implementation begins, with continued manual processing costs incurred |
Outcome: A delay of three months postpones your break-even point into the next financial year and significantly increases upfront expenditure. Starting sooner delivers earlier benefits and reduces total cost.
Risk Mitigation Myths—Debunked
Concerns about disruption, capacity, and cost are common. But they are often based on assumptions that no longer apply.
“Implementation will disrupt operations.”
You can continue with your existing processes while UniFi runs in parallel during rollout.
Deployments can be isolated by department or function to minimise impact, allowing teams to adopt at a manageable pace without interrupting business continuity.
“IT cannot take on another project.”
Where internal capacity is limited, UniFi consultants can lead the implementation, reducing reliance on in-house teams and maintaining delivery momentum.
See our Implementation Methodology page to see how each method varies in time and cost based on your needs.
“Budgets are frozen.”
Subscription-based pricing offsets costs with immediate savings, often delivering a budget-neutral result within the first quarter.
Final Thoughts
The impact is clear: Each quarter of delay in automating your P2P process results in lost savings, lower efficiency, and missed opportunities to improve supplier and staff engagement.
Need tailored help? We can run a cost-of-delay analysis using your actual invoice volumes and build a deployment plan tailored to your business.
Speak to us about converting silent losses into measurable results with UniFi or see the full demo now!