3 Competitors and Alternatives To Spendesk
With a need to make more informed decisions, control spend, and simplify employee expenses, businesses are turning to spend management software like Spendesk. But if you’re considering Spendesk, don’t overlook these top Spendesk alternatives.
- Payhawk
- Pleo
- Tipalti
- How does Spendesk compare to Tipalti?
- Which solution is best for your business?
- Conclusion
Payhawk
Payhawk is primarily an expense management platform that combines employee expenses with credit cards, spend management, and some accounts payable functionality.
Top Features
- Expense management: expense reports and employee reimbursement
- Instant issue virtual and physical cards (powered by Visa), earn 3% cashback on every payment
- Card features: set spend limits, issue team cards, set control by spending category, and utilize Apple and Google Pay
- ERP integrations include NetSuite, Datev, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Exact
Serviceable Market
Scale-up businesses of 60+ employees throughout the UK and EU, with card spend at the center of their spend management requirements.
Strengths
- Extensive physical and virtual card capabilities
- Unlimited number of cards (fair usage policy applies)
- Strong expense management functionality, integrated with their card offering
Pricing
- Card solution starts at £199 per month
- Additional charges for increased functionality, including invoice scanning, bill payments, and multi-entity management
Pleo
Pleo categorise themselves as a “business spend solution”. Beginning life as a cards and expense management product, Pleo now also includes limited invoice management capabilities.
Top Features
- Physical and virtual expense cards (powered by Mastercard), with individual spend limits and up to 1% cashback
- Employee expense mobile app streamlines receipt capture and provides real-time spend tracking
- Reimbursement solution to streamline out-of-pocket employee expenses
- Scan and approve supplier invoices, with the option to pay via SEPA transfer
Serviceable Market
Pleo is best suited to startups and small businesses looking to move away from manual expense reporting. Manual CSV integrations to reconcile payments and limited payment methods will be restrictive for fast-scaling and more complex businesses.
Strengths
- Intuitive mobile app for expenses and reimbursements encourages employee adoption
- Tiered pricing model offers low barrier for small, low-complexity businesses looking to automate
Pricing
- Free starter package for entrepreneurs and micro companies
- £39 per month for the ‘Essential’ package, including 3 users, with up to an additional £11.50 per month per user for additional users.
- £79 per month for the ‘Advanced’ package, which includes phone support, open API access, and 1% cashback on card spend. Also includes 3 users, with up to an additional £13.50 per month per user for additional users.
Tipalti
With a solution spanning procurement, accounts payable, global payments, and employee expenses, Tipalti offers a finance automation solution to bring all business spend under control from a single system.
Top Features
- Intuitive employee expenses mobile app with receipt scanning
- Extensive payout solution covers invoice payments, mass payouts, and employee reimbursements, via 6+ payment methods and 120 currencies
- Both header and line level invoice scanning, with 2&3 way PO matching, machine learning, and managed services
- Flexible multi-entity structures enable custom workflows and branding for unlimited business units
- Real-time API integrations with NetSuite, Xero, and many other accounting and ERP systems, plus REST API for custom integrations
Serviceable Market
A leader in the mid-market, Tipalti primarily serves the UK, EU, US and is a licensed e-money provider in all 3 regions. Particularly well suited to fast-growing businesses seeking efficiencies as they scale, and those with global entities, or complex international payment needs.
Strengths
- An end-to-end finance automation tool, bringing all business spend under control from a single system
- Extensive multi-entity and global functionality
- A licensed E-Money provider, Tipalti automates payment and reimbursement, eliminating manual bank runs
Pricing
- Express pricing starts at £129 per month for the platform fee.
- Advanced features such as multiple entities, additional currencies, or international tax IDs are priced on a bespoke basis and can be added at any time.
Spendesk vs Tipalti
What does Tipalti do?
An end-to-end finance automation solution, Tipalti addresses everything from procurement and PO management to supplier onboarding, invoice processing, employee expenses, and global payments.
Tipalti also offers tax and regulatory compliance, self-billing, supplier payment status communications, fraud detection, payment reconciliation, and reporting capabilities.
Tipalti’s advanced global capabilities include multi-entity AP, multi-FX (intercompany bank transfers), and FX-hedging.
The Tipalti platform integrates with all major ERPs and accounting systems (including NetSuite, Xero, Sage, and Quickbooks). Syncing with subsidiary GLs and ensuring payables information is up to date and accelerating financial close by more than 25%.
What does Spendesk do?
Spendesk is a company card and spend management solution for small to medium sized businesses.
As of November 2022, Spendesk has been adding PO and invoice management functionality, however, a lack of supplier onboarding and limited payment capabilities fall short of the full procure-to-pay process.
Features of Spendesk vs Tipalti
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| *Limited functionality | ||
| Employee Expenses | • Employee expenses integrated with all payments for a single view on spend
• Intuitive mobile app
• Photograph receipts for mobile data extraction
• Reimbursements available in 12 payment methods
• Extensive ERP integrations enable real-time reconciliation | • Comparable expense solution
• Reimbursements paid via wire transfer only
• Includes mobile app with ability to extract data from receipt photos |
| Invoice Management | • OCR invoice scanning with header & line level capture
• Machine learning applies continuously improves scan performance
• Smart invoice approval routing
• Unlimited number of approvers – approve via Tipalti, Slack, or email | • Header level OCR capture only
• No machine learning
• Invoice approval utilizes same workflows as expenses
• Number of approvers determined by level of plan |
| Multi-Entity Management | One consolidated view to manage multiple entities and units;
Custom workflows and branding for each entity;
Instant reconciliation across entities, geos, currencies, & payables workflows | Multiple “wallets” required to support multiple entities
No consolidated view
Customize workflows, policies and users per entity
Cannot customize branding per entity |
| Supplier Management | • Suppliers onboard themselves via an online portal, customized to your brand
• Suppliers manage their preferred payment method and currency
• Online access to real-time payment statuses
• Incentivize specific payment methods with fee-splitting
• Reduce payment errors with 26k automated validation rules | None – no supplier management capabilities |
| Purchase Order Management | Simplified currency solutions – intercompany bank transfers, FX hedging, and payee FX. Support for over 30+ funding currencies. |
Includes payee FX, but does not support intercompany bank transfers, FX hedging or non-USD denominated accounts without NetSuite. |
Spendesk vs Tipalti: Which solution is best for your business?
When to choose Tipalti?
You are running a hyper-growth business, looking to eliminate manual processes and scale efficiently
Tipalti’s unique solution spans the end-to-end payables process; supplier onboarding, PO, invoice, payment, expenses, and reconciliation. By automating inefficient steps throughout the entire payables and expenses workflow, Tipalti delivers an 80% reduction in manual workload.
Removing these manual processes, makes the entire payables process easily scalable without adding headcount, preventing bottlenecks as you grow.
Today, some of the fastest growing companies run on Tipalti, including Discord, Cazoo, Hopin and Therabody.
You are a global business needing to manage multiple entities and/or pay suppliers, or employee reimbursements in multiple countries and currencies
Tipalti’s global capabilities are where the solution particularly shines. The wide range of payment currencies and countries available make it the ideal choice for global businesses, whether paying suppliers, freelancers, contractors, creators, or reimbursing international employees. The ability to hold funds in a range of currencies and manage foreign exchange volatility offers further opportunities for cost saving and cost control, particularly for those dealing with large volumes of foreign currency.
With the supplier portal available in a wide range of languages, Tipalti is an ideal choice for those onboarding and paying overseas suppliers and payees. The ability for payees to manage their own onboarding and access real-time visibility into payment statuses via the portal, reduces inquiries to the finance team. Particularly those in a foreign language or out of time zone.
Furthermore, the extent to which branding, workflows, and approvals can be customized for individual entities and business units, while maintaining powerful consolidated controls and reporting makes it the ideal solution for multi-entity businesses.
You want a real-time API integration into your existing systems, simplifying payment reconciliation and accelerating financial close
Tipalti offers a wide range of pre-built connections to almost all ERP and accounting systems, including NetSuite, NetSuite OneWorld, Xero, Quickbooks, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, and more.
The integration enables you to automate many of the functions of your existing ERP, extending its suitability as your business grows. Instant, automated payment reconciliation, further eliminates cumbersome manual processes and ensures you always have an up-to-date picture of performance, while accelerating financial close by up to 25%.
In addition to the extensive range of pre-built connections, Tipalti’s open REST API enables bespoke integrations no matter what your tech stack looks like. Commonly used to integrate Tipalti with performance marketing systems, enabling digital businesses to automate performance-based payments on mass, to publishers, affiliates creators, and contractors.
When to choose Spendesk?
Cards and expenses are the core of your requirements and you only have a small number of suppliers and invoices to manage
Adding invoice management functionality in 2022, Spendesk’s AP capabilities remain comparatively immature and don’t offer the depth and flexibility of Tipalti. However extensive expenses capabilities alongside both virtual and corporate cards make it an ideal choice if these features are at the center of your requirements.
The accounts payable functionality Spendesk does offer may suffice for low-complexity, low-growth businesses, but is likely to struggle as you scale.
All of your payments are in GBP or Euros and you don’t require an extensive choice of payment methods
While many of Tipalti’s strengths lie in its international capabilities and flexible range of payment options, Spendesk can provide a simpler solution for businesses with less global needs.
GBP and Euro payments can be made directly from your Spendesk wallet, whereas additional currency payments require a CSV or XML SEPA file export uploaded to your bank portal. This adds manual steps to the payment process and ultimately creates a bottleneck for those with large volumes of non GBP or Euro payments.
A lack of PayPal payments may be limiting for those working within digital economies, where PayPal is commonly preferred, however, it’s unlikely to cause problems for those paying more traditional suppliers.
Conclusion
All of the solutions listed in this article can offer huge efficiencies and greater control for businesses currently relying on immature, or manual financial processes.
However, it’s clear that these solutions vary greatly in what they can offer and where their strengths lie. Therefore the first step towards implementing a spend management solution must be to clearly identify the specific requirements for your business and where the current pain points lie for all stakeholders, in order to find the best solution for your needs.
We needed to improve controls and efficiency, allowing the team to move away from manual work and email communication and focus on reviewing and approving spending.
Charlotte Harris | Finance Systems Manager, Cazoo
Before Tipalti, the process was painful—it took up to 15 days to close the books. Now, processes that used to take our team one to two weeks are being completed in one to two days.
Toni Tornell | Controller, United Language Group
