The Accounts Payable (AP) job function has spent more than two decades defined as a cost center and a back-office function designed to validate invoices, release funds, and maintain operational continuity. That framing influenced software architecture, budgets, team structures, and the expectations placed on AP across every industry.
What this framing never accounted for is the true nature of payments themselves.
A payment is not an administrative task. A payment is an asset with recurring economic value every time the money moves.
For years, that idea was dismissed in the spirit of "efficiency and risk reduction." The technology simply didn't exist to interpret payment behavior, quantify economic signals, or convert those signals into measurable financial return. AP could only be optimized for efficiency because efficiency was the only available lever. Payments were executed, reconciled, and archived. They were never fully activated… until now.
That constraint no longer exists.
Modern payment infrastructure has fundamentally changed economics. Payments can now generate recurring financial returns every time they are made. Real financial contribution created by the behavior, timing, and structure of the payment itself.
This capability transforms AP from a cost-center function into a financial engine capable of real revenue growth. One that influences margins, strengthens suppliers, enhances liquidity planning, and produces insights that reach far beyond the basic expected core functions of invoice processing, fraud prevention, and GL reconciliation.
Industry research confirms that AP departments are transforming from back-office functions to strategic engines driving organizational success. Economic pressures are reshaping the role of AP teams, elevating them from administrative overhead to value-driving entities.
Most organizations have not updated their mental model quickly enough to match this shift. AP is still viewed through an operational lens, even as its underlying asset class has become one of the most dynamic sources of financial leverage inside the enterprise. The economics changed quietly, and the category hasn't kept up.
This framing created what may be the most expensive misconception in modern finance: that payments are costs to minimize rather than assets to optimize.
This Journal exists to redefine enterprise AP as a function focused on asset management, return generation, and the intelligence embedded in the movement of money.
The Untapped Value Inside Payment Flows
Every payment a company makes carries multiple forms of economic value, all operating simultaneously:
Timing value: the margin impact created by when cash moves
Liquidity value: insights into supplier health and dependency
Negotiation value: leverage that shapes pricing and contract outcomes
Relationship value: trust signals that influence prioritization and stability
Market value: patterns that reveal early industry movement
Financial value: the direct return generated by the payment method itself
These values have always been present. Nothing about the underlying economics is new.
What's new is the ability to measure these values strategically to form a payment portfolio.
Modern technology infrastructure now reveals the full economic profile of every outgoing payment: making them measurable, interpretable, and financially productive.
Treating payments as just transactions obscures their value. This results in expensive losses. Treating payments as assets unlocks the value and influence each payment carries.
The Limits of Efficiency
AP's modernization journey began with automation, which involved digitizing invoices, standardizing workflows, and eliminating friction. These innovations were necessary and valuable. They reduced manual labor costs and increased efficiency.
But efficiency has a natural ceiling.
Once the workflow is fully automated, the savings plateau. Companies discovered that "faster" and "cheaper" eventually converged across the market. AP technology became feature-equal. Improvements flattened.
The industry continued to search for incremental efficiency gains because that was the only playbook available.
The turning point came when technology made it possible to shift the focus from efficiency to return on investment, encompassing factors such as timing, risk, negotiation, intelligence, relationships, and ultimately financial return.
Research shows that optimizing for productivity alone allows different types of inefficiency to proliferate. When everything is about speed and processing costs, companies get stuck with ever-decreasing returns and no real tie back to strategic objectives. Modern technology now enables multi-dimensional optimization: the ability to be fast and smart, productive and strategic.
The companies leading this shift aren't abandoning workflow excellence; they are expanding beyond it. Automation solved the operational problem. Return captures the economic opportunity.
The Six Core Returns Payments Generate
1. Timing Return
The ability to shape working capital by choosing when cash moves. Not just early-pay discounts, the deliberate use of timing as a financial lever that optimizes liquidity without sacrificing supplier relationships.
A manufacturing company with $120 million in annual supplier payments analyzed its payment timing patterns and discovered that it was leaving $280,000 in working capital value on the table through suboptimal timing decisions. By strategically adjusting payment schedules based on their own cash position and supplier acceptance patterns, they captured that value without changing a single supplier relationship.
2. Risk Return
Supplier acceptance patterns reveal liquidity pressure months before credit reports do. Acting early prevents losses, disruptions, and margin erosion.
A Fortune 500 manufacturer began tracking the timing of payment acceptance across its supplier base. Within three months, they identified 12 suppliers showing sudden acceleration in payment acceptance, a sign of acute liquidity pressure. Seven were later confirmed to be experiencing significant cash flow stress. Two entered bankruptcy proceedings within six months.
The payment data flagged the risk 90-120 days before credit bureaus or financial statements reflected any deterioration. That advance notice allowed the company to secure alternative suppliers and avoid production disruptions that would have cost millions.
3. Negotiation Return
Payment behavior exposes power dynamics and dependency. When companies use these signals, they negotiate with certainty rather than guesswork.
A mid-market manufacturer noticed one of their key suppliers beginning to request earlier payment terms, a shift from their historical pattern. Three weeks later, the supplier proposed a 7% price increase, citing "market conditions."
Armed with payment behavior data showing the supplier's growing liquidity need, the finance team proposed a structured arrangement: they would accelerate payment by 15 days in exchange for holding pricing flat for 18 months. The supplier accepted immediately.
The arrangement saved the company $340,000 annually while strengthening the relationship. The negotiation return came directly from recognizing payment behavior as a signal rather than an administrative detail.
4. Intelligence Return
Payment flows provide the earliest view of stress, inflation, and volatility within supply networks. This intelligence sharpens procurement and treasury decisions.
When multiple suppliers in the same category shift payment patterns simultaneously, the movement reflects broader market conditions such as commodity pressure, credit tightening, or greater industry distress. AP sees these signals before they appear in analyst reports or earnings calls, creating returns by informing strategy quarters ahead of public information.
5. Relationship Return
Payment reliability has a significant influence on supplier loyalty, prioritization, and continuity, particularly during periods of scarcity or disruption. Strong payment behavior often becomes the difference between being served and being delayed.
During the 2021-2022 supply chain crisis, companies that had maintained consistent, reliable payment practices with strategic suppliers received preferential treatment when shortages emerged. Relationship capital built through payment discipline was converted directly into operational continuity, while competitors faced delays.
6. Financial Return (The New Reality)
Modern payment infrastructure now allows companies to earn direct, recurring financial return from the payments they make the moment they make them.
This return comes from maximizing supplier acceptance through intelligent payment assistance. When suppliers who historically rejected card payments begin accepting them, enabled by technology that makes acceptance frictionless, every transaction generates a financial return. This combination of capital return rate and supplier acceptance determines a company's payment yield as a new measurable metric.
Industry analysis shows that firms are achieving 60%+ virtual card acceptance among suppliers, unlocking new revenue streams through rebates from payments. This transformation is redefining AP from a cost center to a cornerstone of financial resilience.
A mid-market company with $50 million in annual supplier payments implemented a modern payment infrastructure, achieving a 10x improvement in card acceptance rates. Within the first quarter, they captured $127,000 in direct financial return, a recurring revenue stream that required no change to their supplier relationships, no extended payment terms, and no disruption to cash flow timing. Achieving a Payment Yield of 1.02%.
This is not theoretical savings. This is measurable profit generated by the payment layer itself. Payment yield is not typically measured by most CFOs today, despite its clear value.
Recurring return does more than strengthen margins:
It creates opportunities for professional growth in finance
It supports supplier stability through flexible payment options
It reduces dependency on cost cuts and elevates the role of AP
It channels a portion of the return into environmental (ESG) initiatives
The financial return on payments is in their yield, and this represents the fundamental shift that changes everything else about how AP should be viewed and managed.
The Payment Portfolio: A New Financial Asset Class
When payments generate financial and broader economic return, AP starts to resemble something finance loves to see: a strong portfolio ready to be managed intelligently.
B2B payments are an asset with their own behavior, timing, and financial output.
Not all positions require active management. But a subset produces disproportionate value:
Top 50-100 suppliers by spend (representing 70-80% of cash outflow)
Strategically important vendors regardless of spend size
Suppliers showing behavioral changes worth monitoring
This is manageable, measurable finance combined with modern payment economics.
The Payment Portfolio contains:
Strategic positions: Suppliers whose relationship quality affects operational outcomes
Economic positions: High-spend vendors material value related to timing and terms
Risk positions: Suppliers showing behavioral signals that warrant monitoring
Optimization positions: Payments where different methods could produce return
Portfolio performance isn't measured in "invoices processed" or "exceptions resolved." It's measured in risk mitigated, leverage captured, intelligence surfaced, and return generated.
This asset class doesn't manage itself.
It requires dedicated oversight, which leads naturally to a new discipline inside finance.
The Payment Portfolio Manager: A New Role in Modern Finance
This creates space for an entirely new role inside finance: The Payment Portfolio Manager.
Someone who manages payment assets with the same discipline that treasury applies to cash and FP&A applies to forecasts.
This role does not yet exist in most organizations, not because the work isn't valuable, but because AP has been viewed as structurally separated from asset management functions.
What the Payment Portfolio Manager does:
Maps payment assets to their highest return potential
Monitors supplier behavior patterns for risk signals and negotiation opportunities
Optimizes payment timing and method based on working capital and strategic priorities
Coordinates with treasury on liquidity forecasting using supplier acceptance data
Partners with procurement on contract negotiations using payment leverage insights
Tracks portfolio using return-based metrics rather than workflow efficiency
Maximizes card acceptance rates to generate financial return
Why hasn't this role emerged yet?
Legacy software focused on compliance and workflow.
Organizational design placed AP apart from treasury and FP&A.
Category tradition treated payments as obligations instead of assets.
What success looks like:
The Payment Portfolio Manager identifies $2-5M in annual return through better timing decisions, early risk detection, strategic supplier management, and payment yield generation, a return that was always present but never captured because no one was looking for it.
Neither AP nor treasury disappears. They complete each other. The Payment Portfolio Manager is the connective tissue that activates the asset.
A Modern Partnership: Treasury + AP
Treasury sees internal liquidity. AP sees external liquidity. Combining these viewpoints yields a comprehensive financial picture.
Treasury manages your cash position. AP manages your suppliers' cash position. Together, they form the foundation of a new financial infrastructure where payments generate return and intelligence simultaneously.
It is the difference between managing cash and managing the flow of economic value.
Payment Yield: A New Metric for Modern Finance
When a payment generates a recurring financial return, it ceases to be a cost and becomes a contributor. A brand new metric measures this return across enterprise finance:
Payment Yield = Measured Financial Return ÷ Total Payment Volume
This is a new economic category metric made possible by modern payment infrastructure that transforms supplier acceptance behavior and unlocks the potential of every transaction.
Research confirms that automation is turning AP into a profit-generating function. Organizations that have embraced modern AP solutions are experiencing significant reductions in processing costs while improving financial visibility and reducing inefficiencies. AP automation is shifting the department from a cost center to a strategic contributor to profitability and working capital optimization.
Payment Yield marks the end of AP as a cost center.
The function didn't change.
Economics did.
What You Can Do This Week
You don't need a transformation to begin. You need clarity.
1. Track the metric: Calculate average acceptance timing for your top 20 suppliers by spend. Look for outliers and quarter-over-quarter changes of 30% or more.
2. Surface the insight: Share the data with treasury and ask: "Which of these suppliers do we consider financially stable?" Then overlay the payment behavior patterns. Discrepancies are worth investigating.
3. Ask the question: In your next supplier review, ask your team: "What have we observed in payment interactions with this vendor over the past quarter?" If no one has an answer, you've found the exact starting point.
4. Measure payment yield: What percentage of your supplier payments currently go through card rails? If it's under 10%, and modern infrastructure can achieve 50%+, calculate the difference at your average cashback rate. That's your unrealized payment yield.
Why This Journal Exists
The Payment Economics Journal was created to help finance leaders understand and harness the new economic model emerging within payment flows.
The goal is straightforward: Outline the economics of payments so they can finally be comprehended as strategic and intelligently managed assets in the modern enterprise.
We exist to expose:
How Payment Yield transforms AP from a cost center to a profit center
How the Payment Portfolio Manager role will reshape finance teams
How payment timing creates measurable financial value
How supplier behavior reveals risks and opportunities
How certain payment methods generate recurring return
AP is a financial intelligence system with the power to generate recurring return.
The misconception that AP is a cost center has cost companies more than they've calculated. The most expensive loss is not what you spend on your AP process.
The most expensive loss is the return that's never been measured because of the misconception that payments are not assets, and that AP is simply a cost center.
Platforms Applying Payment Economics
AP Copilot: Virtual card platform maximizing supplier acceptance and cashback.
Learn more: apcopilot.com
About The Payment Economics Journal
The Payment Economics Journal is published by Clear Paths Growth to formalize the discipline of treating payments as economic assets rather than administrative overhead.
The frameworks and metrics presented in this journal emerged from observing leading practitioners who were generating measurable financial performance from payment operations before the discipline existed to explain it.
Media inquiries: advisory@clearpathsgrowth.com
Suggested Citation
Jasinski, D. (2025). The Most Expensive Misconception in Modern Finance. The Payment Economics Journal, Issue 1. Clear Paths Growth.
Authorship & Intellectual Property
Payment Yield and the Payment Yield Model were originally defined by Daniel Jasinski and published by Clear Paths Growth in The Payment Economics Journal (November 2025).
All models, frameworks, and definitions presented herein are the intellectual property of Clear Paths Growth LLC. Brief quotations are permitted with proper attribution. Commercial reuse or derivative implementation requires written permission.
© 2025 Clear Paths Growth LLC. All rights reserved.
References
Celonis. (n.d.). The Transformation of Accounts Payable. Retrieved from https://www.celonis.com/blog/transforming-accounts-payable-from-cost-center-to-strategic-lever
Planergy. (2025, April). Accounts Payable in 2025: A Year of Transformation Through Automation and AI. Retrieved from https://planergy.com/blog/accounts-payable-in-2025/
PYMNTS. (2025, January). From Back Office to Strategic Powerhouse: AP's Transformation in 2025. Retrieved from https://www.pymnts.com/tracker_posts/from-back-office-to-strategic-powerhouse-aps-transformation-in-2025
PYMNTS. (2025, September). From Bottleneck to Breakthrough: AP Transformation in 2025. Retrieved from https://www.pymnts.com/tracker_posts/cfos-turn-accounts-payable-into-the-next-growth-engine
Next Issue: Why Payment Economics Is the Missing Discipline in Enterprise Finance