How Many Invoices Get Disputed? [2026 Data Report]

18.4% of all invoices get flagged as an exception before they can be paid, according to Ardent Partners’ State of ePayables 2025 report, a survey of 204 accounts payable professionals. That single figure sets the baseline for a much bigger question: which invoices actually get disputed, what separates a well-run AP department from one drowning in back-and-forth, and what a disputed invoice costs once someone has to chase it down.

How many invoices actually get flagged as a dispute?

Nearly 1 in 5, on average. Ardent Partners’ 2025 survey found the average invoice exception rate across AP departments sits at 18.4%, and the metric has been trending downward year over year as more teams adopt purchase-order matching and electronic invoice submission. An “exception” in this context is not always a formal dispute in the sense of a customer calling to argue about a bill: it also covers pricing that does not match the agreed rate, a quantity billed that does not match what was received, or an invoice with no purchase order reference to check it against. But every one of those triggers the same outcome, the invoice stalls in a queue until someone on the buyer’s side resolves the mismatch with the supplier, which is functionally a dispute even when nobody uses that word for it.

Figure 1: 18.4% of invoices get flagged as an exception before payment, on average. Source: Ardent Partners, State of ePayables 2025.

Which invoices are least likely to end up disputed?

The ones tied to a purchase order and submitted electronically. Ardent Partners’ 2025 data splits AP departments into a top-performing “Best-in-Class” tier (the 20% with the lowest processing costs and fastest cycle times) and “All Others,” and the gap in exception rates between the two groups is stark: 11.1% for Best-in-Class teams versus 20.9% for everyone else, a rate that is 47% lower. The underlying reason tracks closely with two other metrics in the same survey. Best-in-Class teams link 84.0% of invoices to a purchase order before it ever arrives, compared with 47.3% at other organizations, and 67.2% of their suppliers submit invoices electronically versus 47.3% elsewhere. A PO on file before the invoice shows up gives both sides a shared reference point to check pricing and quantity against, which is exactly the gap that produces most exceptions in the first place.

Figure 2: Best-in-Class AP teams run an exception rate roughly half the industry average. Source: Ardent Partners, State of ePayables 2025.

How often is a dispute the reason an invoice goes unpaid?

It is a meaningful factor everywhere, though rarely the leading one. Atradius’s 2025 Payment Practices Barometer asks B2B suppliers in each country to name their top four reasons customers pay invoices late, and “invoice disputes” (worded as “disputes or issues with invoices” in the Australian edition) makes that list in all three markets covered here: cited by 23% of US suppliers, 27% of UK suppliers, and 27% of Australian suppliers. The ranking within each country’s top four varies. In the UK, invoice disputes place third, behind liquidity issues and delays inside the customer’s own payment process but ahead of supply chain disruptions. In the US, disputes rank fourth of four, trailing liquidity issues, payment-process delays, and supply chain disruptions alike. Australia’s top four does not include supply chain disruptions at all, so the two markets are not directly comparable on that point. The same three surveys show just how much of each country’s invoice value is affected overall: 43% of US B2B invoice value was overdue in 2025, versus 51% in the UK and 52% in Australia.

Figure 3: Invoice disputes rank as a top-4 reason for late payment in the US, UK, and Australia alike. Source: Atradius Payment Practices Barometer, US/UK/Australia 2025.

What does a disputed invoice cost in staff time?

A meaningful share of the AP department’s week. Chasing down a mismatch, tracking down the right person on the supplier’s side, and re-approving a corrected invoice all fall to the same team, and Ardent Partners’ 2025 survey puts the average AP department’s time spent managing supplier inquiries at 21.9%, rising to 24.0% at organizations in the “All Others” tier. Best-in-Class teams, with their lower exception rate, spend roughly half as much of their time on the same task, 12.8%. None of this is abstract: an AP staffer fielding a supplier call about a disputed invoice is not processing the next one in the queue, which is part of why a high exception rate and a slow processing cycle tend to move together rather than independently.

Figure 4: AP staff spend more than a fifth of their time on supplier inquiries, on average. Source: Ardent Partners, State of ePayables 2025.

What does a disputed invoice cost in dollars and days?

Roughly four times as much, and four times as long, as it should. Ardent Partners’ 2025 survey found the average invoice costs $9.84 and takes 8.2 days to process from receipt to payment. Exceptions are the single biggest reason that number is not lower: Best-in-Class AP teams, whose exception rate runs roughly half the industry average, process the same invoice for $2.65 in 2.9 days, while All Others average $12.42 and 13.5 days. The gap between $2.65 and $12.42 is not a rounding difference; it is close to a 5x cost swing driven almost entirely by how much manual back-and-forth an invoice generates before someone signs off on it.

Figure 5: Best-in-Class AP teams process an invoice for a fraction of the industry average cost. Source: Ardent Partners, State of ePayables 2025.

Metric (2025)	Best-in-Class AP teams	All other AP teams
Invoice exception rate	11.1%	20.9%
Cost to process one invoice	$2.65	$12.42
Time to process one invoice	2.9 days	13.5 days
Invoices linked to a purchase order	84.0%	47.3%
Staff time on supplier inquiries	12.8%	24.0%

Table 1: The gap between Best-in-Class and average AP teams widens across every metric tied to invoice exceptions and disputes. Source: Ardent Partners, State of ePayables 2025.

The Bottom Line

The data points to the same conclusion from two different directions: roughly 1 in 5 invoices gets flagged for something, whether that is a genuine billing dispute or a mismatch that never should have made it that far, and the businesses that avoid it are the ones that give both sides less to disagree about in the first place. That means a purchase order on file before the invoice arrives, pricing and quantities that match what was actually agreed, and a paper trail that does not require a phone call to reconstruct. It also means following up before an unresolved question turns into a 30-day-plus standoff. A BillyPaid payment reminder keeps that follow-up automatic and on record, so a genuine question about an invoice gets surfaced and resolved early instead of sitting quietly until it shows up in next quarter’s overdue report, a pattern BillyPaid’s Late Payment Statistics 2026 roundup covers from the collections side.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many invoices actually get disputed? 18.4% of invoices get flagged as an exception before they can be paid, on average, according to Ardent Partners’ State of ePayables 2025 report, based on a survey of 204 accounts payable professionals. Not every exception is a full-blown dispute, but pricing mismatches, quantity discrepancies, and missing purchase order references are the most common triggers, and all of them stop an invoice from being approved until someone resolves the gap.

What percentage of invoices get flagged for exceptions at the best-run companies? 11.1%, compared with 20.9% at all other organizations, per Ardent Partners’ 2025 survey. Best-in-Class AP teams also link 84% of invoices to a purchase order before it arrives, versus 47.3% elsewhere, which is one of the biggest reasons their exception rate runs roughly half the industry average.

How often are invoice disputes the reason customers pay late? Invoice disputes are cited as one of the top four reasons B2B customers pay late by 23% of US suppliers, 27% of UK suppliers, and 27% of Australian suppliers, according to Atradius’s 2025 Payment Practices Barometer for each country. The ranking varies by market: in the UK, invoice disputes rank third of the four reasons, behind liquidity issues and payment-process delays but ahead of supply chain disruptions. In the US, disputes rank last, behind supply chain disruptions as well. Australia’s own top-4 list does not include supply chain disruptions at all, so no direct comparison applies there.

How much does a disputed invoice cost to resolve? The average invoice costs $9.84 and takes 8.2 days to process from receipt to payment, according to Ardent Partners’ 2025 survey. Exceptions and disputes are the single biggest driver of that cost and cycle time: Best-in-Class AP teams, whose 11.1% exception rate is roughly half the industry average, process the same invoice for $2.65 in 2.9 days.

Sources and References

1. Ardent Partners: The State of ePayables 2025, AP’s Unfinished Journey (survey of 204 AP professionals), invoice exception rate, Best-in-Class vs. All Others AP maturity framework, invoice processing cost and time, purchase order linkage, and staff time on supplier inquiries.
2. Atradius: Payment Practices Barometer, US 2025, US overdue-invoice rate and top reasons for late payment, including invoice disputes.
3. Atradius: Payment Practices Barometer, United Kingdom 2025, UK overdue-invoice rate and top reasons for late payment, including invoice disputes.
4. Atradius: Payment Practices Barometer, Australia 2025, Australian overdue-invoice rate and top reasons for late payment, including disputes or issues with invoices.

Note: All figures verified as of August 2026.