Account payable is a process within the accounting department of a company that involves the payment of bills owed by the business to its vendors and suppliers. The term “Account Payable Cycle” refers to the process and the time period in which this process takes place.

The official definition of Account Payable Cycle is:

A term used to designate a predetermined period of time during which actions and events occur in an organization’s accounting processes in order to facilitate timely payment of accounts payable. The term may also be used to designate the cycle itself, or it may be expressed as “the four-week account payable cycle.”