Accounts payable best practices are written, almost universally, for businesses with a payables department, and a team of two reading them finds a list they cannot follow. That produces either an expensive attempt to follow it or a quiet decision that best practice is for other people, and both are worse than a shorter list that fits. This page filters the standard list for a business closing one set of books: six practices that apply at any size and genuinely return more than they cost, and four commonly listed ones that do not travel down, with the reason each is excluded rather than a silent omission.
The six that apply at any size
One arrival address. A duplicate check at entry. Coding at entry rather than later. A written rule for invoices with no order. A published approver map with alternates. And a visible unapproved list before the cut-off. All six are free and address the causes of delay directly.
The four that do not travel down
A tiered approval hierarchy, a dedicated exceptions team, a supplier portal and formal supplier scorecards. Each assumes headcount or leverage a small business does not have, and each adds handovers to a process whose problem is waiting rather than throughput.
The one that is conditional
Three-way matching, which is excellent where orders and receipts exist and impossible where they do not. Adopt it for the spend that supports it and use a recorded delivery confirmation for the rest. Adopting it selectively and saying so is stronger than adopting it universally and failing on a third of your invoices.
Questions people ask about accounts payable best practices
Why exclude a supplier portal?
At thirty suppliers it creates an intake channel nobody watches while most invoices still arrive by email. With hundreds of suppliers and some leverage the calculation changes.
Is early payment discount capture a best practice?
Capturing the terms is. Taking the discount is a treasury decision that depends on your cost of cash, and it should be decided rather than defaulted.
Where should we start?
The single arrival address, in an afternoon. Everything else depends on invoices being in one place.