Where does Source-to-Pay effort actually go?
This model breaks coordination effort down across six procurement categories so you can see where the volume sits rather than arguing about a single headline number. Nothing here is a benchmark: every volume, effort figure and addressable share is a value you enter and can change.
Six categories, your own numbers
Contract leakage and savings coverage are deliberately excluded, because credible figures for those require your own contract utilisation data.
| Category | Volume / year | Effort per item (h) | Addressable (%) | Addressable effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sourcing eventsEvent setup, supplier invitation, follow-up and response consolidation. Exclude evaluation and negotiation. | —— | |||
| Requisitions and purchase ordersCompleting, checking, chasing approval and entering into ERP. Effort in hours (0.25 = 15 minutes). | —— | |||
| ContractsDrafting, transcription, routing and approval chasing. Exclude legal judgement. | —— | |||
| Supplier onboardingCollecting documents, chasing evidence and coordinating finance, risk and quality review. | —— | |||
| Invoice and receipt exceptionsInvestigation and cross-team coordination before resolution. | —— | |||
| Status and reporting requestsAnswering “where is my order” and assembling status for stakeholders. | —— |
Illustrative addressable total
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Assumptions and limitations
- Every figure above is your input. No benchmark or industry average is embedded in this model.
- Effort should exclude decision time. Approvals and commercial judgement are work the organisation wants people to do.
- Addressable share is a conservative planning assumption, not a committed reduction.
A planning model built from your inputs, not a forecast or a quotation. Change any assumption and the arithmetic follows.
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Email yourself this effort model
Nothing is stored until you ask for it. We will send your figures over — useful when you are writing the board paper a fortnight later.
Questions people ask. While the numbers are on screen.
Start with the three that consume the most buyer attention rather than the three with the most spend. Coordination effort correlates with transaction count and exception rate, not with value.
Total person-hours across everyone involved, from the need being raised to the outcome being recorded — including the time spent chasing and rebuilding, which is usually the part people forget to count.
Because it differs sharply. A well-catalogued MRO category may be largely addressable; a complex direct sourcing event involving technical evaluation is much less so, because more of the work is genuine judgement.
It is built for that. The formula is on the page and every input is yours, so the figure can be defended line by line rather than cited.
See the largest category running under governance.
Pick the category with the highest addressable effort and we will demonstrate that workflow end to end.
Someone from client success replies, not a sales sequence. If we are not a fit we will say so on the first call.
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