Accounts payable refers to the money a business owes its vendor or suppliers. In this piece, we’ll look at some intuitive accounts payable software available to manage large numbers of financial transactions and those with unique perks.
It’s a good idea to consider various factors to determine how to automate accounts payable software for your business. We’ll look at seven options for the best accounts payable automation software to get you started in the right direction.
- Lightyear: Best for Consolidating Tasks
- Bill.com: Best for Flexibility
- Tipalti: Best for Integration Options
- AvidXchange: Best for Speedy Invoice Approvals
- DocuWare: Best for Customization
- Airbase: Best for Those on a Budget
- Stampli: Best for Automation
| Cost | Plans | Free trial | |
| Lightyear | $125 per month (Starter), from $199 per month (Business), from $1,199 per month (Enterprise) | Starter, Business, and Enterprise plans, which include 24/5 chat, phone, and email; ERP and accounting integrations, online document storage, advanced reporting insights, line-item data extraction, automated line-item coding, approvals workflow, accounting integrations, mobile upload and approvals and more | 30 days |
| Bill.com | The software costs $79 per user, per month (Corporate). Enterprise pricing requires you to contact the company. To simply pay bills or get paid separately, $45 per user, per month for the Essentials pricing and $55 per user, per month for Team pricing. Accounting teams can pay $49 a month. | Corporate, Enterprise, Essentials, and Team plus features for accounting teams | 30 days |
| Tipalti | Platform fee starts at $149 per month | As you add more complex tax forms, you can upgrade to more advanced capabilities. | None |
| AvidXchange | No pricing published on website | No plans published on website | None |
| DocuWare | Four pricing options that range from $300 to $1,500. The base cost is $300 per month and the Enterprise costs $1,500 per month. For Pro and larger Enterprise plans, you must get a custom quote | DocuWare Cloud 4 for four users at 20 GB, DocuWare Cloud 15 for 15 users at 50 GB, DocuWare Cloud 40 for 40 users at 500 GB, and DocuWare Cloud 100 for 100 users for 1,000 GB | 30 days |
| Airbase | Must request a custom quote | Free basic plan, Standard plan covers up to 200 employees, the Premium plan covers up to 500 employees, and the Enterprise plan covers up to 5,000 employees | Free basic plan |
| Stampli | You must contact Stampli for month-to-month pricing | You must contact Stampli for information about specific costs and plans | None |
7 Best Accounts Payable Automation Software
A little more about the accounts payable definition, abbreviated to “AP” or “A/P.” It’s short-term debt that companies owe its suppliers. As a current liability in the business’ general ledger and balance sheet, they can be discharged without interest within 30 days, but after that, the accounts usually charge interest.
You want the best AP automation software possible for your business (and the right option for your particular situation), just like you do with other important business areas, such as online bookkeeping services.
Based on our research, we’ll look at the benefits, pros, cons, price, and plans for the six best software options available.
Lightyear: Best for Consolidating Tasks
Your research for the best accounts payable automation software research may win the day by including Lightyear. You can consolidate purchasing, bookkeeping, and bill approval with Lightyear’s automated accounts payable software. Look at the pros, cons, pricing, and plans of Lightyear below.
Pros
- Free trial: You can try Lightyear free for 30 days, with access to data extraction, approvals workflow, inventory sync, price checker, statement reconciliation, and more.
- Statement reconciliation: You can get touchless supplier statement reconciliation, automatically reconciling your supplier statements and flagging variances for review.
- Multi-tiered approvals process: A multi-tiered approvals process can approve your supplier invoices for payment and purchase orders on up to five levels of approval.
Cons
- Approval workflow: The invoice approval workflow is at the individual supplier level so you can’t create an approval chain for a department and attach a group of suppliers to that department, meaning that each supplier is configured individually.
- Notes not an option: You cannot add a note to the receipt/invoice, and there’s no feature for multiple pages or long receipts or invoices.
Price
The Starter package starts at $125 per month, the Business package costs from $199, and the Enterprise package starts from $1,199 per month, depending on your monthly credit allowance and price per credit.
Plans
The Starter, Business and Enterprise plans include 24/5 chat, phone, and email; ERP and accounting integrations, online document storage for seven years, advanced reporting insights, line-item data extraction, automated line-item coding, approvals workflow, accounting integrations, mobile upload and approvals, supplier statement reconciliation, and multi-factor authentication.
Bill.com: Best for Flexibility
Like analyzing the best accounting software for Mac, Bill.com automates accounts payable processes, integrating with Xero to make bill payments and approvals quick and simple. Bill.com can handle invoices for businesses of all sizes.
Pros
- Multiple ways to import: You can quickly import invoices into Bill.com, with little to no manual entry.
- Routing handled: You can tailor your approval workflows to your business so Bill.com will handle the routing for you.
- Flexibility and control: You have access to thousands of vendors through the network and more payment options (ACH to credit card, check, and international wire transfer).
Cons
- Slow payment processing: Bill.com often takes a long time — more than a week in some cases — for international vendors.
- Canned responses: Customer service at Bill.com generally offers fairly general responses, and instead, sends you links to articles.
- Manual invite process: You cannot send a bulk invite — you must send them to invitees one-by-one, which can be time consuming if you have more than a handful of people to add.
Price
The software costs $79 per user, per month for Corporate pricing. Enterprise pricing requires you to contact the company. To simply pay bills or get paid separately, you pay $45 per user, per month for the Essentials pricing and $55 per user, per month for Team pricing. Accounting teams can pay $49 a month.
Plans
The company offers plans for businesses and for accounting firms and offers several types of pricing options for each.
Tipalti: Best for Integration Options
Searching for software for accounts payable may include researching Tipalti. Tipalti allows you to free up your finance teams from manual accounts payable tasks. Tipalti delivers solutions to handle the evolving needs of your business with a focus on scale and efficiency.
Pros
- Integrates with several enterprise resource planners (ERPs): Tipalti can integrate with several accounting systems and other ERPs, including NetSuite, Intacct, QuickBooks, Sage, Microsoft Solutions, Xero, and more.
- Suppliers paid in minutes: You can put many methods and currencies to work around the globe by managing payment approvals and instant payments.
- Ensure tax compliance: Eliminate time and energy spent manually collecting tax information but also reduce risk of tax compliance issues.
Cons
- Reconciliation report difficulties: It can be a bit difficult to work with in terms of bank reconciliations, etc.
Price
Tipalti’s platform fee starts at $149 per month, and Tipalti’s pricing model is designed to grow with your company. As you add more complex tax forms, you can upgrade to more advanced capabilities.
Plans
The Tipalti Express platform fee costs $149 per month.
AvidXchange: Best for Speedy Invoice Approvals
AvidXchange offers invoice and payment automation. You make 100% of bill payments electronically, spend 65% to 70% less time managing accounts payable, speed up invoice approvals to just three days, and save on payments. Your business can save up to 90% on payment processing.
Pros
- Reduce costs: Reduces costs of dealing with paper invoices and payments.
- Approve quickly: It’s simple to review and approve payments. You can do so with just a few clicks.
- Advance scale: AvidXchange also lets your company keep up with a growing workload.
Cons
The downside includes:
- No pricing: AvidXchange doesn’t publish pricing on its site, which makes it difficult to shop for all clients.
Price
Though AvidXchange doesn’t publish pricing on its site, some third-party user review sites suggest planning for a cost of $5,000 for a 45-day implementation.
Plans
AvidXchange doesn’t list specific plans on its website.
DocuWare: Best for Customization
DocuWare captures paper and electronic invoices and matches them to purchase orders, customizable workflow, and posts approved amounts back to a general ledger. The software helps you avoid clerical errors, and streamlines approval, and eliminates manual entry.
Pros
- Intelligent indexing: DocuWare allows you to validate invoices for accuracy using an intelligent indexing process to match invoices with purchase orders.
- Routing invoices: You can import and route invoices by split code billing and through specific file structures.
- Automatic invoice amounts: You can automatically post approved amounts directly back to the ERP system.
Cons
- Few tutorials: There are few tutorials for new users.
- Integrations: Users have reported integration issues and challenges with some integrations, like mobile.
Price
DocuWare has four pricing options that range from $300 to $1,500. The base cost is $300 per month and the Enterprise costs $1,500 per month. You’ll need a custom quote for Pro and large Enterprise plans.
Plans
Plans include DocuWare Cloud 4 for four users at 20 GB, DocuWare Cloud 15 for 15 users at 50 GB, DocuWare Cloud 40 for 40 users at 500 GB, and DocuWare Cloud 100 for 100 users for 1,000 GB.
Airbase: Best for Those on a Budget
Whether you adopt one Airbase module or go whole hog into the full platform, Airbase saves you time and money. Airbase allows you to pay bills (including simple bill pay to complex purchase orders), process invoices, match purchase orders, amortize bills, handle foreign exchange payments, get international and multi-subsidiary support, sync vendor and payment details to your general ledger, and tap into a user-friendly vendor portal.
Pros
- Reporting and tracking features: Reporting and tracking features give you an in-depth view of your business, both in a general or microscopic view.
- Great customer service: Airbase offers excellent customer service as well as secure software for a positive accounts payable experience.
Cons
- Takes some getting used to: Some customers have reported that the user interface isn’t completely intuitive. It may require you to navigate a few more locations to get to where you need to go.
- Mobile application lags: Although it has a mobile application, reports abound that it isn’t as good as the web application, something to consider when analyzing the best accounts payable automation software.
Price
You must request a quote to get pricing for each plan, but you can access a free basic plan.
Plans
The Standard plan covers approximately up to 200 employees, the Premium plan covers up to 500 employees, and the Enterprise plan covers up to 5,000 employees.
Stampli: Best for Automation
Stampli brings everything into one place, including information, communication, documentation, and workflows. The company supports native functionality and integration for more than 70 ERPs. Its bot, called Billy, automates various tasks, including capture, coding, routing, fraud detection, and other tasks.
Pros
- Ease of use: Stampli is easy to use and doesn’t disrupt your ERP and existing accounts payable process.
- Can double-check: When an invoice is processed and goes to approvers, you can still recheck the information to avoid errors.
- Automated: Stampli offers automated accounts payable processes and vendor management.
Cons
- No free trial: Stampli doesn’t offer a free trial, which can be a downside if you’re shopping around.
Price
You must contact the company for month-to-month pricing.
Plans
You must contact Stampli for information about your specific costs and plans.
Methodology
We compiled our list of the best accounts payable AP automation software based on key factors, including price, ease of use for data entry and reconciliation, financial reporting, and forecasting. Our research focused on the learning curve users will experience. We considered the cost of each monthly plan, as well as efficiency and integrations, and looked at user reviews and ratings.
We also considered which options offer free trials, though note that some of the options we reviewed do not offer free trials.
FAQs
How do you automate AP payments?
Automating accounts payable means minimizing human handling of accounts and eliminating human error in the accounts payable process. You can use accounts payable AP automation software to digitally handle your accounts payable processes so you can accomplish other tasks in your business.
