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ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AUTOMATION

Move from manual to modern efficiency with AP automation

Tipalti uses automation to make your AP workflow seamless and simple. Say goodbye to wasted time managing invoices and payments, or hiring outside help to support your AP needs.

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Let one of our AP automation specialists show you how Tipalti can streamline your accounts payable workflows.

Trusted by over 4,000 customers globally

spotify
distrokid
nationalgeographic
godaddy
roblox
wpengine
g2
skillshare
tunein
typeform
therabody
noom
pubmatic
jumio
lucidworks
achievingthedream
createmusicgroup
cazoo
spotify
distrokid
nationalgeographic
godaddy
roblox
wpengine
g2
skillshare
tunein
typeform
therabody
noom
pubmatic
jumio
lucidworks
achievingthedream
createmusicgroup
cazoo

Touchless invoicing process

Never key in another invoice with advanced OCR

Let machine learning help scan, capture, match, and process invoice data at header and line level. Plus, built-in approvals and payment scheduling make the process touchless to automate your AP workflow.

Learn more about our invoicing process.

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Streamlined supplier management

Shift data entry to your suppliers

Reduce workload and eliminate inaccuracies with a multi-language supplier portal with supplier self-service. In addition, provide complete supplier visibility and reduce status inquiries.

Learn more about supplier management.

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Tax compliance

Take the work out of tax risk

Eliminate time and energy spent manually collecting tax information—ensure IRS tax compliance and reduce risk with a KPMG approved tax engine.

Learn more about tax compliance.

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2- & 3-way PO matching

Make overpayments a thing of the past

Automated 2- & 3-way PO matching means reducing waste, eliminating fraud, ensuring audit preparedness, and saving time.

Learn more about PO matching.

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Simple global payments

Send payments in just a few clicks

Ensure fast, accurate mass payments across 196 countries in 120 currencies and 6 different payment methods. 26,000+ built-in rules proactively eliminate errors for peace of mind.

Offer early payments to improve supply chain health by allowing suppliers easy access to working capital sooner.

Learn more about global payments.

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Payment reconciliation

Never stitch together statements and spreadsheets again

Seamlessly integrate detailed, accurate transaction and reconciliation reports with your ERP system ensuring faster financial close.

Learn more about payment reconciliation.

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Expenses & reimbursements

Take control of employee spend & reimbursements

Efficiently manage employee expenses with our finance automation tool. Enhance visibility, scale quickly, and reduce risk. Our mobile app allows rapid reporting, review, and approval of expenses.

Learn more about expenses.

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Technology

World-class
performance, reliability, and security

The Tipalti platform is powered by a multi-entity cloud infrastructure and built for mass scale. Put simply, it was developed to future-proof your accounts payable and supplier payments operations as your company grows.

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Tipalti AI

Artificial intelligence and machine learning power make your payables smarter.

EXPLORE TIPALTI AI

Tipalti Detect ℠

Proactively prevent fraud with detailed payee monitoring.

EXPLORE FRAUD DETECTION

Multi-Entity

Manage unique payables workflow and centralise payables for subsidiaries and entities within a single instance.

eXPLORE MULTI-ENTITY

ERP Integrations

Automate your accounts payable without changing your existing ERP system.

EXPLORE ERP INTEGRATIONS

See how automating payables can
create a new era of team productivity.

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Tipalti Integrates With Your ERP and more

A diagram showing ERP and accounting software integrations with the Tepalti finance automation platform.
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Kevin Crowley | Accounting Manager, Therabody

“I can’t imagine what our AP process would look like without Tipalti. We don’t want our team to enter data—we want them to analyze data.”

Read transformation story
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98%

customer satisfaction

5M+

suppliers

€47B+

annual remittance

4,000+

customers

40%

year-over-year growth

99%

customer retention

See How We Stack Up Against Our Competitors

TipaltiSpendeskMediusKefronEsker
*Limited functionality 
Touchless invoicing
OCR invoice scanning
Automated 2-way & 3-way PO matching
One model for all payment operations
Works with any ERP you use
26,000+ payment validation rules
Automated FX conversions, Multi-FX, FX Hedging
6+ payment methods in 196 countries & 120 currencies
24/7 self-service supplier portal
Payment status verifications
Automatically collect & validate tax forms
KPMG approved, 3,000+ tax validation rules

RESOURCES

Top accounts payable
automation resources

See how automation can transform your business with these industry-leading tools and resources.

Invoice process savings calculator

The IPS calculator helps you understand “cost per invoice” in terms of invoice processing and payment.

calculate your savings

Signs you are ready for AP transformation

Learn how demand, financial controls, and supplier management play into the need for AP automation.

see how ap transformations work

Demystify the invoice approval process

Accounts payable approvals have never been clearer.

optimise your invoice approval process

Explore the purchase order workflow

See how Tipalti makes the PO process beyond simple and efficient.

explore purchase order workflows

Payment error cost calculator

Understand the real costs behind resolving invoice errors.

explore our payment error cost calculator

W-9 form automation

Cut down on misinformation and speed up the onboarding process by submitting electronic W-9s.

read more about w-9 form automation

Helping businesses grow at scale

See how payment automation is helping businesses scale their AP process.

explore payment automation

Insights from our experts

Keep your payables knowledge sharp with frequently updated insights and strategies.

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ERP Implementation

Proper ERP implementation is critical to the success of unifying…

Accounts Payable Software FAQs

Accounts payable automation (AP automation) is when you use software to automate common vendor invoice tasks, resulting in more secure, efficient, and budget-friendly AP processes. AP automation is most commonly used for paperless document management, invoice processing, PO matching, and payment reconciliation.

While traditional accounts payable teams are burdened by overhead, manual data entry, and inefficiencies, AP automation software streamlines the full cycle of accounts payable. This allows teams to scale without adding more staff, gain better visibility into their financial data, and achieve financial close up to 25% faster.

Accounts payable software is a more affordable, flexible, and easier solution than accounts payable outsourcing.

AP software works by optimizing the accounts payable process in key areas where manual labor is causing inefficiencies like invoice processing, mass payments, data entry, price matching, and more.

Upon receiving an invoice, the AP software platform extracts all invoice data. It automatically compares the line items with the purchase order information that is synced in your system. This is called PO matching.

It then routes the invoice to the correct approvers. Once approved, the software sends invoice data to an integrated ERP system, while archiving invoices and audit trails. 

Advanced AP automation solutions are also capable of improving vendor management processes, managing tax forms, generating reports, and automating payments to suppliers around the globe.

There are many benefits of AP automation. When automation software is used, accounts payable teams are able to reduce costs, eliminate routine tasks, and provide better visibility and control over financial data. It also facilitates cash flow and leads to early payment discounts.

If you seek to scale your AP team, automation is the next step. AP software helps teams grow through touchless invoice processing, cost savings, stronger vendor relationships, reduced risk, and complete integration. 

Automation means you are always paying on time, at the right time, every time. It solidifies supplier relationships and keeps partnerships intact. This type of system will also help avoid any fees incurred for late payment.

There are a lot of factors that go into pricing AP automation software. It simply depends on the tasks your business needs to perform. The best AP automation software will allow you to:

Scan and Archive

This is the most basic form of AP automation. If you are looking at integrating a document management system, it could cost anywhere from $10,000-$100,000 depending on how complex you need it. This also includes annual license fees and any technical support required.

Archival and Auto-Matching

This type of software includes internal controls for AP like front-end processing and approval workflows. This is a tried and true approach but in a deployed setting, costs can run high because of what is needed to power this approach. This includes features such as:

Deployments like this are typically taken on by a business running upwards of 10,000 invoice transactions a month. For this type of system, associated spend can easily range from $100,000-$500,000 plus the annual license fee and related support costs.

Cloud-based AP Automation

In cloud-based AP automation all infrastructure investments are in the cloud. This means services are generally deployed across multiple tenants and the cost is shared. Usually providers of this approach charge on a transactional basis instead of the license model. The fees for implementation are proportional to the number of invoices processed per month. 

If you consider the scenario above, 10,000 invoice transactions per month can run your implementation fees anywhere from $20,000-$35,000. Transactional costs range from $.65-$.95 depending on the scope of services and/or automation performed. 

AP Automation and Payments

The costs for these systems vary. However, through this one payment type alone, companies can generate a 1-1.5% tap on eligible spend.

Processing will save you an average of $14.93 per invoice over companies who manually process theirs. The more you move, the more you save.

To calculate your cost savings, Tipalti has created an Invoice Processing & Payment Cost Calculator. 

Additionally, to help calculate costs due to errors, try our Payment Error Cost Calculator.

Electronic invoicing (e-Invoicing) is the exchange of an invoice between a supplier and a buyer in an integrated digital format. Many companies are unaware they are already sending/receiving EDI invoices. 

The distinguishing factor of electronic invoices is strategic centrality. All the key information around invoicing and the supplier relations process is uploaded into a universally accessible cloud database. 

Electronic invoices also typically rely on an electronic purchase order to process. A digital purchase order is the only means to substantiate ordering by an authorized company or employee in an automated system.

Tipalti’s tax solution helps your company comply with IRS tax provisions and simplifies the AP process. Our guided tax form wizard assists suppliers in choosing the correct form based on the country and business structure. 

For non-US payers, local and VAT tax ID collection is available. If the foreign entity comes from a country with a U.S. tax treaty, they can fill out and submit a W-8BEN-E form. All data collection is done through digital capture during the onboarding flow, which ensures information is validated before payment is ever processed. 

Tipalti facilitates IRS AP tax compliance with KPMG-approved tax form data validation and withholding calculations.

ERP system integrations are largely built around identifying back-end processes that can be streamlined with AP automation. Tipalti has integrations that are pre-built to connect to popular ERP and accounting systems, which include Sage Intacct, NetSuite, and QuickBooks Online. 

We sync bill and payment data from the Tipalti platform to the accounting system in real time. Reconciliation is accelerated through the automatic sync of payment details. The level of integration is always dependent on your needs and workflow.

Automation helps to reduce the AP portion of procure-to-pay cycle time. It’s one of the best practices for improving the AP workflow. It skips the endless approver follow-up that happens with manual invoice processing and eases the labor workload. This means you can close the books sooner. 

The system automatically verifies vendors and validates invoices. It then forwards the approval request to the right person in the organisation. In essence, it completely automates the AP invoice approval process.

In a two-way approval, the invoice is automatically matched to the electronic purchase order. Three-way approval requires those documents, plus a receiving report as the third item.

AP automation improves global supplier management in a variety of ways. 

This type of platform immediately alerts merchants when invoices have been paid. When something is not paid, real-time status updates can be sent via email to keep people in the loop. 

These types of notifications can also be used for simple vendor management. It can alert vendors when they need to update payment information. This includes data like:

AP automation software forges better vendor partnerships. A strong supplier relationship means you have a competitive advantage. It should be based on transparency and respect. This means, that if a situation demands increased support or supply, vendors will be willing to go above and beyond to meet your needs.

Accounts payable automation software improves the structure of an AP department by separating duties both inside and outside of the team. 

Proper segregation of AP duties is a requirement for solid internal controls. Other objectives include preventing fraud, matching responsibilities, and redefining roles to accommodate automation. All of these will save a company time and money while improving the accounts payable process workflow.

Automatic payment reconciliation (also called bank reconciliation) enables a business to upload an electronic version of a bank statement and automatically reconcile it. The e-version is provided by the bank using “matching rules” that are designated in the system. 

A business can easily speed up its financial close with features like:

  • Drill down filters
  • Transaction level details
  • ERP synchronization
  • Real-time integrated reports

Remittance results across all payment methods, entities, and geographies are instantly normalized and built into deep reporting. This leads to faster and more accurate reconciliation and general ledger reporting.

The accounts payable process serves as a guardian of the funds. Oversight is improved with a full view of B2B payment cycles and the analysis of accounts payable metrics. This is what makes AP software for a small business especially critical for operations.

When it comes to B2B payments, the trend points in the direction of ACH transfers as the leading form of payment. Every year, check remittances are steadily decreasing while wire transfers are on the rise. It’s evident that an increasing number of companies are realizing the benefits of AP automation software.

When selecting the best accounts payable software, look for a system that finds duplicate payments.

Tipalti has built-in financial controls and artificial intelligence to identify duplicate invoices in your accounts payable workflow. Our system checks from the time the invoice is uploaded, to when it’s approved, even communicating with integrated systems. When a potential duplicate has been found, the system will warn the user with an urgent notification. 

Let’s get more productive

Book a demo today and see how Tipalti can help you automate your accounts payables.

Book a demo today