Accounts payable procedures have a reputation for being written once, filed, and never read, and the reputation is usually earned. A twenty-page payables manual in a five-person business is a document produced for an audit rather than for the person doing the work, and it will be out of date before it is needed. The alternative is not having no procedures. It is having four short ones that answer the questions that actually come up, kept where the work happens. This page is which four, why those, and how to keep them true, because the value of a written procedure is entirely in whether a new starter can follow it on their first day.
One: what to do with an invoice that has no order
The commonest question in small-team payables and the one most often answered by folklore. Write down who can approve a no-order invoice, and up to what value. This single paragraph prevents more delay than any software.
Two: the matching rule and its tolerances
Which spend gets a two way match and which gets three way, what the tolerance is, and who clears an exception. Expressed in categories a non-specialist recognises rather than in accounting language. A rule a new starter can apply on their first day is the test, not a rule that is theoretically complete.
Three and four: the approver map, and the payment run
Who approves what, and who covers when they are away. Then how a payment run is prepared, who reviews it, and who releases it. Those two cover the questions that stop invoices moving and the control that stops money leaving incorrectly. Keep all four with the work, not in a policy folder.
Questions people ask about accounts payable procedures
How long should payables procedures be?
Short enough to be read while the question is live. If a procedure is longer than a page, the awkward cases probably belong in an exceptions register instead, recording what was decided and why.
How often should they be reviewed?
When the supplier mix changes, when somebody joins or leaves, and after any exception you had to think hard about. A calendar review of an unchanged process is theatre.
Do we need them for an audit?
An auditor is interested in whether controls operated, not whether they were documented beautifully. Documentation helps you demonstrate consistency, which is why the four above are worth having and a manual is not.