Tipalti vs Ramp: Choosing the Best Finance Automation Solution

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Financial agility and efficiency are paramount to running a successful organization, and time is money. Yet, 32% of companies (38% of large companies) still manage accounting with some combination of spreadsheets, paper, and manual processes.

Organizations must seek ways to reduce costs, streamline operations, and develop greater spend visibility to gain a competitive edge.This guide compares Tipalti vs. Ramp, focusing on AP automation, procurement, corporate credit cards, and expense management.

What Does Tipalti Do?

Tipalti is an award-winning finance automation solution that provides tools for AP automation, spend management, and corporate cards across your entire enterprise. The platform gives a business granular control over spend and the payables process to automate workflows and drive growth.

The Tipalti system enables businesses to streamline tax compliance, manage risks, and detect fraud. It fully automates the reconciliation process and provides in-depth reporting, giving a company greater insight into payment operations.

The employee-friendly solution offers physical (debit and credit cards) and virtual credit cards that simplify the issuance, control, visibility, and reconciliation of card expenditures. You can also streamline supplier management, invoice processing, and global payments.

Finance teams can manage spend, expenses, and more from a single, centralized location in your AP automation workspace. Plus, earn cashback on every Tipalti Card transaction with robust financial controls, workflows, and security.

Tipalti Product Capabilities Overview

Tipalti improves efficiency and offers scalability while minimizing extra headcount and manual data entry. The system offers complete control over card spend, with the ability to consolidate transactions and enhance payment processing visibility.

Tipalti also provides an automatic reconciliation of epayables and a total sync with ERPs.

Key features include:

Procurement and purchase order management
Tax and regulatory compliance
Tipalti Detect to prevent fraud
AP automation and invoice management
Custom approval workflows with predictive AI
A self-service supplier portal for easy onboarding

The entire Tipalti system will save your company money, processing transactions with six different payment methods, across 196 countries, in 120 currencies.

The platform also offers advanced FX solutions and easily integrates with ERPs and accounting systems like Oracle NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, SAP ERPs, and Sage Intacct.

Tipalti requires a simple setup, and implementation can be completed in a few weeks.

Tipalti Pricing

Tipalti uses a SaaS provider subscription pricing model. To upgrade from the basic plan, you can add advanced functionality, like FX solutions, as your business grows.

What Does Ramp Do?

Ramp offers finance automation, procurement, spend management, and corporate cards, with a full-control platform designed to help you scale. Manage spend and save time with unparalleled insight and customer support.

The Ramp platform has a variety of solutions for your AP processes, including invoice and supplier management, procurement, and a mobile app. The system also offers working capital and in-depth reporting.

Ramp can issue a card on-demand, giving a business control of expenses in one click. The spend management platform also offers unlimited 1.5% cashback and serves a business of any size, whether you have 5 or 5,000 employees.

Using Ramp, customers save an average of 5%. The brand offers live support with experts to troubleshoot or offer actionable guidance whenever needed. It’s easy to apply, and customers can get the whole Ramp experience for free. There are no personal credit checks or personal guarantees required.

Key features include:

Reimburse employees in more than 70 countries and 40 currencies
Payment methods include physical and virtual cards, checks, ACH, and wire
Multi-entity capabilities (Netsuite and Sage Intacct ) and custom fields in the GL
Integrations with NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QBO, Xero, and other ERPs
Slack integration to manage card issue requests and expense approval

Ramp Product Capabilities Overview

Using Ramp, a business can find and collect all vendors and contract owners in a single spot and sync transitions to brands like Xero with a one-click process.

Ramp Pricing

Ramp offers three plans:

Ramp – FREE – Control spend, automate payments, and close faster
Ramp PLUS – $12/user/month – Scale globally and manage end-to-end operations
Ramp Enterprise – Quote – Maintain compliance and security on a global scale

Ready to optimize your corporate credit card strategy?

Explore the unique strengths of Tipalti and Ramp to find the perfect fit. Get started today and make the right choice for your long-term success!

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Features of Tipalti vs. Ramp

Functionality
*Limited functionality
Supplier Management	Client-branded portal with supplier choice of preferred payment method, currency, etc., 26K+ rules validate payments, payment status updates, fee splitting.	Generic vendor portal for payment status, payer chooses payment method (not payee). Vendors can update contact info, SSN/EIN, bank account details. Payment sent, delivered, failed, returned, changed notifications.
Tax Compliance	KPMG approved tax engine collect and validate IRS, VAT tax IDs, W-9, W-8BEN against +3,000 rules. 1099 and 1042-S prep reports, auto-calculated withholdings, eFiling services.	Admins can add and store vendors’ W9 information directly in Ramp and export that information for 1099 processing.
Procurement	Integrated procurement to improve spend controls and reduce AP processing time. PO creation and real-time budget visibility. Fast implementation, integrates with Slack, Jira, and 30 other ticketing systems like Asana and Zendesk, contract interface to add and search contracts.	New and developing feature with current limitations. Does not block matching bills to fully filled POs. No Amazon punchouts.
Invoice Management	AI Smart Scan eliminates data entry with advanced data extraction on header and line level detail, AI-powered auto-coding of custom fields and expense accounts, plus managed services backup for accuracy. 2- and 3-way PO matching at header- and line-levels. Pre-defined approval rules or custom approval flows.	Supports PDF invoices only. Payers can upload directly or via email. Assign GL categories to vendors. Email, and Slack DM notifications. Unlimited approvers. 2-way PO matching only – no tolerance thresholds or prepayments.
Cards	Manage and reconcile card spend, gain visibility, and receive cash-back. Integrates with global payables automation, Tipalti Expenses feature, with automatic reconciliation.	Corporate cards and expense management/reimbursements are the core competency. International reimbursements in foreign currency. Cards can be used internationally.
Expense Management	Automated expense policies minimize fraud and ensure compliance, and a mobile and desktop experience for easy expense filing. Expense transactions and global reimbursements are automatically captured, categorized, and processed.	AI-powered receipt collection/matching, flags non-compliant expenses, and notifies employees of out-of-policy spend. Automate expense categorization with smart rules for any field.
Global Remittance	Regulated MSB with MTLs across US. E-Money license in UK with FCA. Pay to 196 countries in 120 currencies, 12 payment methods (ACH, global ACH / eCheck, check, wire transfer, PayPal, prepaid debit).	Card, check, ACH & USD wire for international bill payment to 195 countries. FX local currency rails to 59 countries in 30 currencies. Partnering with Wise on foreign currency payments. Limited payment visibility. No payment approval workflows. No OFAC screening.
FX Solutions	Save time and money on currency conversions. Advanced FX solutions including intercompany bank transfers, FX hedging, payer FX, and payee FX.	None
Reconciliation and Reporting	API integrations with major ERPs NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QBO, Xero, and Microsoft Dynamics BC. PO and GRN reconciliation.Integration with other ERPs via pre-built connectors using no-code, drag-and-drop Interface.	API integrations with Netsuite, Sage Intacct, QBO, Xero. NO PO, GRN, or instant payables reconciliation. File-based integrations with Quickbooks Desktop and other ERPs.
Multi-Entity	Manage multiple entities with different AP processes and workflows, gain a consolidated view. Instant reconciliation across methods, entities, geos, currencies, and payable workflows.	Generate payments for each entity, track card transactions, payout reimbursements, and bill payments for each entity from different bank accounts. Sync to multiple entities within one batch.
Corporate Metrics	Over 3.5k customers, $60B annual remittance, +$700M funding, $8.3B valuation. Deloitte 500 & Inc 5000 Winners 5-years Running (1 of 15 companies to be named to Deloitte’s Fast 500 five years in a row). World-renowned customer brands like Amazon, Twitch, Twitter, Roblox, GoDaddy, and Applovin. 99% customer retention (10 years), 98% customer satisfaction.	Over 10k customers, $1.4B funding, $8.1B valuation. G2 Small Business Leader Winter 2022, G2 Best Results 2022, and G2 Best ROI Winter 2022. World-renowned customer brands like Quora, Barry’s, Webflow, ClickUp, and Betterment.

Which Solution Works Best for Your Business (and Why)

When to Choose Tipalti

In addition to Tipalti Card and expense management features, the system also functions as advanced AP automation and accounting software. Ramp, on the other hand, lacks the depth of AP automation that Tipalti offers with disjointed supplier management, zero tax compliance, and no FX solutions.

Tipalti has the following features for AP automation:

Self-service supplier portal with tax form collection
OCR, ML, and AI-related invoice management
2-way and 3-way PO matching
Accelerated approval workflows
6 different payment methods to 196 countries in 120 currencies

While Ramp has header and line-level data capture, there is no machine learning to improve OCR models. OCR claims of 99% accuracy fall apart with any invoice complexity.

If you need a centralized way to manage suppliers, Tipalti takes the cake over Ramp. While the Tipalti brand offers suppliers an empowering, self-service portal they can customize, the Ramp experience is less personal.

Tipalti automatically collects vendor data via the portal and proactively reduces errors with over 26,000 validation rules. It has KPMG-approved guided digital capture, TIN matching, and global tax compliance.

Tipalti supplier management offers features like:

Onboard suppliers with a brandable portal
Collect contact details
Verify bank account information
Collect and validate IRS and VAT tax IDs
Promote supplier self-service

The Ramp supplier management process is disconnected. Vendor creation happens during bill creation, and vendors are invited to register along with the first incoming payment.

The payer chooses the payment method (not the payee), and there are limited tax services. On the other hand, Tipalti has tax compliance features like e-filing, tax prep reports, W-8 collection, 1099 processing, and more.

Tipalti is a regulated MSB with MTLs across the United States. They possess an e-money license in the UK and EU and partner with blue chip banks including JP Morgan, Citi, Chase, and Wells Fargo.

In other words, the company is designed to help you scale at every step of the journey. A business can pay to 196 countries in 120 currencies via six payment methods. They can also proactively prevent fraud with payee monitoring and screening against OFAC/SDN lists.

The Tipalti system has multi-entity features that will future-proof your global AP operations. A company can confidently send fast and secure mass payments anywhere in the world using the Tipalti platform and API. Additionally, the Tipalti system simplifies multi-FX and currency management for global payables.

Ramp, on the other hand, partners with Wise on foreign currency payments. This creates a slower global payment experience with less accurate reconciliation and delayed visibility. There are no payment approval workflows, no OFAC and sanction list screening, and limited FX capabilities.

When to Choose Ramp

The primary focus and core competency of Ramp is corporate credit cards for business spending. This is how they started so, naturally, this will be their strongest asset.

The all-in-one corporate card enables a business to save more while managing expenses and spending within its limits. The card is designed for teams of any size with unlimited cards and 10-20 times higher credit limits to meet all of your business needs. Control every dollar spent with the ability to lock any card and restrict spend.

Tipalti also has a card solution called Tipalti Card. It offers 1.25% cash back for every dollar you spend and is a free add-on for customers. The Tipalti Card, (available in physical and virtual cards) paired with the expense management and AP automation features, makes for a holistic, 360-degree approach to financial management.

The first-tier plan for Ramp is free, and the company claims, it always will be. This is good news for a startup and smaller businesses that don’t plan on much growth. User reviews have stated that Ramp saves them time and money. However, if there is any chance you want to scale or do business on a global basis, you may find the platform limiting.

Ramp’s primary source of revenue is interchange fees on card transactions. This means, the more the customer spends, the more revenue they make. This is in direct contrast to customer needs, which is to spend less. Tipalti customers rarely pay variable fees (FX is mostly paid by the payee) but rather, they pay fixed fees per transaction, so there are no competing interests.

Ramp has started to shift more towards a SaaS use license fee revenue model with the introduction of Ramp Plus which costs $15/ user per month for a monthly subscription and $12 /user per month for an annual subscription.

Ramp helps a business eliminate expense management headaches and save hours every month with effortless, error-free expense automation. Staff can submit expenses on the go via SMS and the Ramp mobile app (available on iOS or Android). Eliminate submission errors and grab details for every swipe with AI-generated categories and memos. The system will even detect duplicate receipts.

A company can use Ramp to enable zero-touch expenses, auto-match receipts, and reconcile expenses. Reimburse employees in 40+ currencies and repay them in two days or less. Ramp will also integrate with platforms like Gmail, Amazon Business, Lyft, Uber, and more.

Tipalti now offers expense management too. Their automated expense policies ensure compliance and minimize fraud. They also offer a mobile app for quick and easy expense filing, as well as facilitated approvals.

Use Tipalti’s payment infrastructure to leverage global reimbursements, with automatic reconciliation. All expense transactions and reimbursements are automatically captured, categorized, and processed.

What Our Customers Say

“Our vendors like Tipalti because they get paid on time, and they can track when their payments are coming in.”
– Shawna Stewart, Staff Accountant Brooklinen

“We can shift our focus to more meaningful activities, such as fundraising and elevating our accounting staff. I don’t have to spend as much time on financials—except reviewing them once a month. Automation gets us there.”
– Jill Durkin, Controller ImaginAb

“Tipalti provides one central hub—suppliers can provide W-8s and W-9s and their preferred payment. I no longer have to chase down documents.”
– Andrew Jenks, Senior Accounting Manager Lucidworks

Summing It Up

Many organizations still don’t know how much it costs to process an expense report. Many still rely on manual methods to manage and approve expenses. This opens the door to a high rate of out-of-policy submissions, misuse, and even fraud.

In Tipalti’s global accounts payable teams survey based on IFOL research, it was discovered that nearly 50% of participants spend over five days each month manually processing invoices. A lot of time and money is spent on tasks that can be streamlined.

These figures demonstrate a greater need for automation in the modern financial landscape.

Although Tipalti and Ramp offer user-friendly credit card functions, AP automation and global payment solutions are Tipalti’s core competencies.

By using a card that integrates with an expense management platform, combined with accounts payable automation technology, you’ll shift a significant amount of time from data entry to strategic finance, contributing value, business growth, and cost reduction. This also helps a business generate a more precise audit trail.

Tipalti vs Ramp: Choosing the Best Finance Automation Solution