What is Accounts payable?
Finance & accounting. A plain-English definition for Australian business owners.
Accounts payable (AP) refers to amounts a business owes to suppliers and other creditors.
The AP function includes receiving bills, obtaining approvals, scheduling payments, and reconciling supplier statements. For SMEs, modern AP processes use document extraction tools (Dext, Hubdoc) to automate bill capture and approval workflow tools (ApprovalMax, Lightyear) to manage authorisation.
In a connected back office this sits with the Finance hub, where Valont runs bookkeeping, managed payroll and bas & tax compliance for Australian SMEs as one team. The full definition set is on the glossary.
Talk to an Advisor
General information, not advice. For how this applies to your business, talk it through with a Trusted Advisor or start with the Business Health Check.