How much value does an expense automation programme actually deliver in 2026? We pulled together the numbers from Moontrize Digital deployments across SaaS, e-commerce and services.
Headline numbers
- Average vendor savings in year one: 5–9% of addressable spend.
- Average reduction in manual coding time: 10–15 hours / analyst / month.
- Average payback period: under 90 days.
Where the savings come from
Roughly 60% of the recovered value comes from vendor consolidation and renegotiation. About 25% comes from catching duplicate invoices and overlapping subscriptions across teams. The remaining 15% comes from compliance fixes — late-fee avoidance, FX losses and policy enforcement.
Where teams over-promise
Beware proposals that promise 25%+ vendor savings without scope. They usually count savings already locked in by procurement, or assume aggressive renegotiation that does not survive the renewal cycle.
How to set realistic targets
Start by benchmarking your top 50 vendors against peer data, identify the 10 worst offenders, and target them in the first 90 days. The Moontrize Digital AI Finance Manager runs that benchmarking automatically.