PaymentWorks today announced the release of the 2026 Vendor Onboarding and Master Data Management Study, commissioned by PaymentWorks and conducted by The Hackett Group. The research finds that growing vendor complexity is straining the processes organizations rely on to maintain accurate supplier information, manage vendor changes and mitigate payment risk.

Vendor master data stored in ERP systems contains supplier identity information that drives procure-to-pay processes, from purchase orders to payments. As vendor populations and data changes grow, the study finds that manual processes, fragmented governance and uneven automation can create significant downstream inefficiency, cost and risk.

Key findings include:

Respondents report large and diverse supply chains

  • 58% of organizations manage more than 5,000 active vendors globally, indicating the growing diversity and complexity of corporate supply chains.

  • 49% process more than 5,000 supplier data changes annually, revealing the burden placed on organizations to ensure clean and accurate data.

Organizations lack the necessary automation and governance models to manage the function

  • 66% report onboarding processes that are mostly manual or only partially automated.

  • 53% operate under partially centralized or decentralized governance models, pointing to a lack of oversight and controls.

  • Manual verification remains the dominant model for supplier-submitted updates.

Maintaining vendor master information requires significant operational cost

  • 55% do not track — or are unsure of — vendor onboarding and maintenance costs.

  • Among organizations that track and report these costs, the average annual cost to onboard and maintain a vendor is $182.

  • The cost per vendor suggests that the average organization spends more than $1M annually on FTE costs to manage its vendor master file.

Inaccurate or incomplete vendor master information creates substantial downstream cost and risk

  • 94% are concerned about vendor payment fraud and vendor impersonation.

  • 37% experience vendor data issues frequently or very frequently.

  • Common consequences include failed or delayed payments, manual rework, supplier inquiries, duplicate or conflicting records, and audit and compliance issues.

Organizations increasingly recognize the strategic value of trusted vendor master data

  • 89% rate clean and well-governed vendor data as a high- or very-high-value capability.

  • 88% believe improved vendor data accuracy and consolidation would support supplier consolidation and rationalization.

  • 85% cite benefits in process efficiency and reduced operational complexity.

The findings arrive as businesses and financial institutions grapple with AI-enabled impersonation and agentic commerce, including how identity, authorization and liability are established when software acts on behalf of companies. In that environment, vendor identity and banking information become more than back-office records: they are part of the trust infrastructure required to determine who a business is transacting with, whether information changes are authentic and what humans or agents are authorized to do.

“Vendor master data is the foundation of all downstream procure-to-pay activities,” said Thayer Stewart, CEO of PaymentWorks. “Organizations have either ignored it or decided it’s too hard a problem to solve. However, with the explosion of vendor impersonation scams and the emergence of agentic commerce, it’s the ‘elephant in the room’ that must be addressed.”

“What stood out in the research is the growing gap between supplier ecosystem complexity and operational maturity,” said Annie Cody-Nesser, Senior Manager, Procurement and Purchase-to-Pay Applied Intelligence at The Hackett Group. “Many organizations continue to rely on manual processes, fragmented governance and disconnected technologies to manage thousands of supplier records and changes each year. That reality underscores why vendor data management is increasingly viewed not as an administrative necessity, but as a strategic capability that supports risk management and enterprise performance.”

To learn more, access the full 2026 Vendor Onboarding and Master Data Management Study.

About PaymentWorks

PaymentWorks is the vendor identity platform for B2B payments, serving as the secure digital front door to the ERP. The company helps organizations establish trusted vendor relationships through secure vendor onboarding, authentication, compliance and payment security. Today, PaymentWorks supports more than 300 enterprise customers across every major industry. Its Vendor Identity Network includes more than 1.5 million credentialed businesses and continues to grow by approximately 35% annually. PaymentWorks has stopped more than $325 million in fraudulent payments, helping organizations reduce supplier payment risk while protecting critical financial data. The company is partnered with seven of the largest U.S. financial institutions. For more information, visit www.paymentworks.com.

About The Hackett Group

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) is an ROI-led, AI enterprise transformation firm that helps clients enable AI World Class performance. Its experts and engineers leverage Hackett AI platforms, including XT™, AIXelerator™, Hackett AI XPLR™, ZBrain® and XDA™, to accelerate and enhance the delivery of the company’s solutions and services.

The Hackett AI platforms are powered by the company’s domain-specific Solution Language Model informed by Hackett Process and Performance Intelligence, including Digital World Class® and AI World Class benchmark metrics, industry-specific best-practice process flows and service delivery model frameworks. The Hackett Group’s proprietary insights are based on benchmarking results from leading global organizations, including 98% of Dow Jones Global Titans, 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials and 90% of the Fortune 100. Visit www.thehackettgroup.com.

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