With automation taking over the world by storm, financial processes constantly change and evolve. With the changing landscape in mind, choosing the correct accounts payable automation software for your business is essential to enable your business to scale processes efficiently. Here are some of the best accounts payable software available in the market for your organization.
Accounts payable automation software enables users to automate their end-to-end AP processes. Adopting an AP automation solution helps companies free up their accountants’ bandwidth and save money, thereby providing a solid return on investment.
Here are some general functions you can find in an accounts payable automation software:
The ability to upload invoices and extract data in a digitized format are important functions of any AP automation software. The software allows you to upload invoices directly onto the software or can be integrated with your email inbox to fetch incoming documents. Invoices are then digitized, and details such as amount, invoice date, invoice number, due dates are captured with the help of optical character recognition (OCR) technology and machine learning.
Once the invoice has been digitized, the right GL codes and cost centers need to be allocated before recording the accounts payable entry in the accounting systems. AP automation software automatically allocates expenses to the right codes based on the historical transactions.
Invoice approvals
AP automation solutions need to allow businesses to set up custom approval policies to enable automated assignment and routing. These approval policies can be based on invoice value, vendor, cost center, etc or a combination of these parameters
Many AP automation software also provide vendor facing platforms to enable easy onboarding and interactions to simplify vendor management. A few solutions also run fraud and compliance checks like vendor KYB and OFAC checks while onboarding new vendors enabling businesses to ensure they only work with trusted partners.
Many AP automation solutions provide comprehensive AP dashboards, highlighting essential metrics such as AP aging, approval TATs, percentage of bills paid on time and portion of early payment discounts captured. Selected few solution providers also have near-real time spend dashboards to provide visibility into the purchases made by the business.
With 4k+ customers spread across countries, ClearTech is a Y-Combinator and Stripe-backed global Saas company providing services for the CFO office centered around accounts payable, vendor management, e-invoicing and more.
ClearTech’s AP automation software helps customers automate their end-to-end AP process from invoice data capture to payment processing. ClearTech provides a complete straight through invoice process with the added layer of managed services along with OCR, reducing 80% of accountants’ bandwidth. The smart AP and spend dashboards also promise to unlock 5% savings for their users by identifying opportunities to optimize spend, making it one of the most economical AP automation software.
ClearTech seamlessly integrates with the most popular accounting solutions, including QuickBooks, SAP, Sage, NetSuite, Oracle and many more, and provides a solid ROI within the first year itself with no hidden costs. The plug and play integrations allow you to go live faster and realize value in little to no time.
Bill (Formerly Bill.com) is a US-based company focusing on accounting automation solutions such as accounts payable automation, accounts receivable and expense management.
Bill is a smart solution that lets you create and pay invoices, manage employee spends, simplify approvals and send payments all on a single platform. It also seamlessly integrates with multiple accounting systems, allowing users to store invoices on a cloud-based platform, ensuring compliance and audit-ready processes.
Tipalti delivers solutions catering to accounts payable, procurement and mass payments. Tipalti aims to expedite book closing by 25% by simplifying vendor onboarding, invoice processing, global payables and tax compliance.
Tipalti seamlessly integrates with NetSuite ERP. It also gives users good visibility into their spending and exceptionally captures necessary information from vendor documents. Best known for its global partner payments, Tipalti is preferred by companies with a large volume of cross-border payments.
Starting their journey as an AP-first software, Stampli has worked with over 70,000 AP users to automate their accounts payable processes. Stampli integrates payments and corporate cards with their accounts payable solutions.
Stampli AP automation software allows users to automate their accounts payable processes end-to-end without disrupting their accounting processes. It quickly integrates with 70+ ERPs and gets deployed in days.
MineralTree has worked with more than 2,000 clients to help their customers streamline their accounts payable processes on a consolidated platform. MineralTree aims to reduce its user’s processing costs by 80% by capturing early-pay discounts and virtual card cashback. It also integrates with 100+ ERPs and accounting systems, allowing ease of data reconciliation.
MineralTree quickly catches duplicate invoices and payments, and their added layer of human review to OCR guarantees 99.5% data extraction accuracy.
Airbase provides its customers with a complete spend management solution, including offerings such as guided procurement, AP automation, expense management and corporate cards.
Airbase lets its users save time and money on their entire procure-to-pay processes while automatically syncing all data to the GL. It also simplifies global payments by allowing users to pay vendors across 200+ countries in 145+ currencies.
Ramp is a consolidated financial platform providing corporate cards, procurement, accounts payable, vendor management and expense management services. Ramp’s accounts payable software provides its users complete control over their spend with its real-time expense tracking function and strict spend control.
Ramp has also helped users save up to 3.5% in their vendor spend and an 8x faster book close. Its card also offers a fixed 1.5% cashback with every spend.
Beanworks’ Quadient accounts payable automation software automates invoice and purchase order processing with payment automation and expense management. Quadient is an easy-to-use software that aims to eliminate manual data entry by 83%, allowing a 9x faster invoice processing experience.
Beanworks facilitates easy lookup of any vendor document in the cloud, providing complete visibility and security for AP data.
Kofax provides users with intelligent platforms aimed at automating information-heavy business workflows. Kofax’s AP automation solution seeks to streamline invoice processing on the cloud, allowing users to process, approve and analyze invoices from anywhere in the world.
Kofax also provides ERP and enterprise centric AP automation solutions for SAP and Oracle E-business suite with Kofax Process Director and Kofax MarkView.
Kofax also provides 24x7 cloud support to its users, helping them manage AP processes with ease.
Coupa provides a cloud-based platform for business spend management. Coupa’s multiple product offerings include AP automation, ESG, compliance, spend management and strategic sourcing.
Coupa’s AP automation software aims to promote touchless invoice processing with 87.9% first-time invoice processing accuracy. It also decreases its users’ cost-per-invoice through its built-in approval workflows. Coupa provides user’s suppliers with easy-to-use e-invoicing software at no additional cost.
Nanonets provides users with intelligent AI-based solutions for AP automation, payment automation, invoice processing and vendor management. Flow, Nanonet’s end-to-end AP automation software, increases the financial team’s efficiency by 10x by integrating with multiple accounting systems and useful tools like cloud storage platforms, databases and Zapier.
Nanonets also lets users set up invoice controls and pay vendors for free worldwide.
Software | Key Features | Suited for | Pricing |
ClearTech |
| Small, midsize and rapidly scaling companies | Free trial version available (invoice to approval workflow) Custom pricing (invoice to payment workflow) |
BILL |
| Small and mid-sized companies
| Essentials: $45/user/month Team: $55/user/month |
Tipalti |
| Mid-market companies | Starts at $129 per month |
Stampli |
| Small, midsize and enterprise companies | Usage based pricing, no free trial |
MineralTree |
| Midsize companies and financial institutions | Quote based pricing |
Airbase |
| Small, midsize and enterprises using NetSuite | Quote based pricing: Standard - up to 200 employees Premium - up to 500 employees Enterprise - up to 5000 employees |
Ramp |
| Small and midsize companies looking for a consolidated financial platform
| Ramp: $0 Ramp plus: $15/month (free trial available) Enterprise: Custom
|
Beanworks |
| Small and midsized companies | Quote based pricing |
Kofax |
| Small, midsize and large companies using SAP or Oracle suite | Quote based pricing, no free trial |
Coupa |
| Large and enterprise companies | Quote based pricing |
Nanonets |
| Small, midsize companies and accounting firms | Starter: $45/user/month (7 day free trial) Pro: $69/user/month Plus: $99/user/month |
Selecting the right AP automation software for your business can be challenging, mainly when you don’t know which features to look for. Here are some common considerations to keep in mind before selecting the right software:
ClearTech’s AP automation software is an excellent option for picking your AP automation software. ClearTech accurately extracts data from invoices using OCR and managed services. Automated approval routing and 1-click approvals provide a seamless, straight-through invoice processing experience.
With real-time saving insights and economical payment options, ClearTech gives a great return on your investment. Use our AP automation ROI calculator to learn how ClearTech can help your business.