Invoice Error Statistics
Last updated: June 2026 · 5 sourced statistics
Errors are where invoice processing costs hide. An invoice that fails matching — wrong PO number, price mismatch, missing data — costs multiples of a clean one to resolve and stalls payment for days. Sources below include Ardent Partners, GBTA, and IOFM.
Key takeaways
- Roughly a quarter of invoices trigger processing exceptions (Ardent Partners).
- Exception handling is a key driver of the $12.88 average per-invoice cost.
- 19% of expense reports contain errors, each costing about $52 to correct (GBTA).
The statistics
Roughly one in four invoices triggers an exception requiring manual intervention, per Ardent Partners' AP benchmarking.
Source:Ardent Partners, State of ePayables2025
The $12.88 average cost per invoice is driven largely by exception handling — best-in-class teams with low exception rates pay 79% less (Ardent Partners).
Source:Ardent Partners, AP Metrics that Matter2025
19% of expense reports contain errors, and correcting one takes 18 minutes and costs $52 on average, per GBTA Foundation research.
Source:GBTA Foundation2015
Duplicate payments typically run at a fraction of a percent of AP spend — which still means real losses at scale, per IOFM analyses (0.1% of $100M is $100K).
Source:Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM)2023
Exception invoices take days longer to process — contributing to the 17.4-day average cycle time vs 3.1 days for best-in-class teams (Ardent Partners).
Source:Ardent Partners2025
Methodology & sources
Compiled June 2026 from Ardent Partners' AP research, GBTA Foundation studies, and IOFM benchmarking. The GBTA expense-report study is older but remains the standard citation; consult linked sources for updates.
Frequently asked questions
What share of invoices contain errors?
Roughly a quarter of invoices trigger exceptions in typical AP operations (Ardent Partners) — from missing PO references to price and quantity mismatches.
What do invoice errors cost?
Exception invoices cost multiples of clean ones to process and are the main reason average per-invoice cost sits near $13 while automated best-in-class operations run closer to $3.
How do I reduce invoice errors?
Require PO numbers on every B2B invoice, use structured e-invoicing instead of PDFs, validate supplier master data, and automate three-way matching with sensible tolerances.
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