Top 7 Accounts Payable Software in 2024

Last day of the fiscal year, and you are closing the books. One of the employees writes a check for 50000 AED to a vendor. The internal records show a payment of 50000 AED, but your balance will not match your bank statement due to the time difference in check clearing. 

Account reconciliation addresses these differences and mismatches of records. It helps you identify any gaps in your accounting statement to make adjustments and ensure accuracy. 

In this post, we will discuss account reconciliation and how you can ensure compliance with proper reporting.

What is Account Reconciliation?

Account reconciliation involves comparing your internal financial statements to external and third-party sources, such as bank statements, to ensure the accuracy of financial records.  

The frequency of account reconciliation will depend upon your company's internal policies and industry practices. Generally, companies conduct account reconciliations every month or quarter. 

You can also automate this process and reconcile accounts in real time. The software integrates with your accounting systems and ERPs and facilitates record-keeping. Employees directly upload receipts on the software, and all the transactions are visible on a centralized platform for real-time tracking. Then, the tool automatically categorizes the expenses into different general ledger (GL) accounts and tax codes, making reconciliation simple. 

Why Invest in Account Reconciliation?

Account reconciliation is a standard accounting process. While it seems reasonable to continue using traditional manual systems for record-keeping and reconciling, having a unified accounting platform enables you to close books 10X faster. 

Imagine a single tool to manage reimbursement, petty cash, corporate cards, and end-to-end procurement. You eliminate the chances of errors and fraud with more visibility over your money. As a result, you get accurate financial statements, creating a transparent environment for stakeholders. 

How is Account Reconciliation Done?

Account reconciliation involves comparing GL account balances to supporting external sources and records. Here is a complete breakdown of the process: 

1. Identify Accounts for Reconciliation

Identify the accounts that need reconciliation. This depends on the nature of the business, industry regulations, and the company's internal processes. Common accounts include:

• Bank accounts
• Accounts payables and receivables
• VAT
• Inventory
• Intercompany transactions
• Revenue
• Expenses

2. Gather Relevant Documents

Collect supporting documents for the identified accounts, such as bank statements, invoices, receipts, and other relevant financial records.

3. Verify Opening Balances

Compare the opening balances in the company's records with the corresponding balances in external statements or supporting documentation. This ensures that the starting point for reconciliation is accurate.

4. Adjust Differences

Identify discrepancies and make adjustments as needed. Based on the types of accounts chosen, you are likely to have the following discrepancies:

1. Bank: Outstanding checks, deposits in transit, or bank fees
2. Accounts payable and receivable: For accounts payable, mismatch between the company's records and vendor invoices. On the accounts receivable side, payments not being accurately reflected in the company's records.
3. Value Added Tax (VAT): Errors in calculating input and output VAT, misclassification of transactions, or discrepancies between recorded and actual tax amounts
4. Inventory: Errors in recording stock levels, theft, obsolescence, or misclassification of inventory items
5. Intercompany: Errors in eliminating intercompany transactions, misallocating expenses, or differences in intercompany balances
6. Revenue: Unrecorded sales, errors in invoicing, or misapplication of revenue recognition principles
7. Expenses: Unrecorded expenses, duplicate payments, or errors in expense categorization

5. Review and Finalize

Review the reconciled accounts for accuracy and completeness. Obtain necessary approvals from management or relevant stakeholders before making adjustments and finalizing financial decisions.

Finalize the reconciliation process and document the adjustments made. Retain all relevant records for auditing purposes and future reference.

Top 5 Account Reconciliation Errors

Here are the top 5 most common errors that lead to discrepancies in account reconciliation: 

1. Omission

Omission includes missing certain transactions from the accounting records due to oversight. For instance, forgetting to record a payment received results in understating cash and accounts receivable.

Solution: Review transaction documentation, bank statements, and other supporting records to identify and record any omitted transactions.

2. Duplication

Duplication involves recording the same transaction more than once, leading to an overstatement of figures. For instance, recording a sales invoice twice causes excessive revenue figures.

Solution: Review transactions and eliminate any duplicate entries.

3. Timing Difference

Timing differences refer to situations where a transaction is recorded in the books at a different time than when it clears the bank or is recognized for accounting purposes. For instance, writing a check at the end of the month that doesn't clear the bank until the beginning of the following month.

Solution: Regularly compare bank statements with the company's records, adjusting for timing differences.

4. Fraud

Fraudulent activities involve intentionally manipulating financial records to deceive stakeholders and make personal gains. For instance, employees falsify expense receipts to inflate reimbursement claims.

Solution: Implement strong internal controls, conduct regular audits, and promote a culture of ethical behavior.

5. Misclassification

Misclassification occurs when transactions are recorded in the wrong accounts. For instance, adding a purchase of office supplies to the wrong expense account or labeling an incorrect GL code.

Solution: Review transactions to ensure proper coding and provide training to prevent misclassification errors.

Risk of Overlooking Account Reconciliation 

While account reconciliation seems a redundant task of matching accounts’ balances, small defaults can lead to operational, financial, and legal challenges.

You can face hefty fines or penalties imposed by regulatory authorities. You may also encounter disruptions due to legal investigations, audits, or even suspension of business activities. Moreover, failure to adhere to regulations can harm a company's reputation. 

In some cases, it leads to the revocation of licenses or permits, jeopardizing the company's ability to operate within the UAE. 

Here are some challenges you face when you do not pay due attention to account reconciliation: 

1. Manual Errors

The chances of errors are high if you rely on manual processes for account reconciliation. It can distort financial records, impacting decision-making and financial analysis.

Example: An employee records a sales transaction twice, leading to an inaccurate representation of the company's revenue.

2. Fraud

Detecting fraud becomes difficult when you lack real-time visibility or the accounts are not being cross-verified. As a result, fraudulent activities go undetected, causing financial losses and damaging trust.

Example: An employee manipulates expense reports to divert company funds for personal use.

3. Overdrafts

You lose sight of the funds available, leading to bounced checks or potential bank charges. This harms the company's financial stability and relationships with vendors.

Example: The employee wrote a check with insufficient funds, resulting in a bounced check and delayed vendor payment.

4. Inaccurate Reporting

You increase the chances of discrepancies in financial reports, providing stakeholders with misleading information. This undermines the confidence in the company's financial health and performance.

Example: An employee overlooking the balance between revenue and expenses leads to inaccurate profitability figures in financial statements.

5. Tax Issues

You can encounter inaccurate tax calculations or omissions, leading to tax filing errors. This leads to penalties, fines, and increased scrutiny from tax authorities.

Example: An employee's oversight of business expenses, like travel and meals, results in underreported deductions, leading to tax filing inaccuracies.

6. Affect Credit Score

You increase the chances of missed payments or errors that negatively impact the company's credit score. This further affects the ability to secure loans or favorable credit terms.

Example: An employee's oversight in paying a critical supplier invoice on time leads to late fees, strains supplier relations, and affects the company's credit score.

7. Audit Challenges

With incomplete or inaccurate reconciliations, you risk challenges during audits, demanding additional time and resources. This results in increased audit costs and potential legal implications.

Example: An employee fails to reconcile monthly bank statements, leading to missing documentation. The subsequent need for extensive audit adjustments increases audit costs and poses legal risks.

Automate For Ease 

Managing 1000s of expenses and individually categorizing and coding them is a big headache for finance teams. Leaving this to your accounting software will further require oversight during audit season, adding to the workload. Moreover, these software don’t help with record-keeping or real-time visibility, causing you to spend more on account reconciliation. 

Pluto makes this easier by bringing it all to a centralized platform. By shifting to the Pluto ecosystem, you close books 10x faster and simplify spend management. It is as simple as integrating your accounting software and ERPs and getting visibility over your money from Day one. 

Streamline your financial management with our all-in-one platform, integrating accounts payable software for comprehensive control. Manage categorization, reimbursements, corporate cards, and all aspects of accounts payable seamlessly from a unified dashboard.

The best part is that you can bulk export and import logs and even lock the transactions to avoid changes once approved. Further, with view-only access to external bookkeepers, you ensure transparency and security with no chaos during audit season. 

Reconciliation in Accounting Made Simple

Meeting compliance standards should not be an afterthought during the audit season. 

You must adopt the right processes, standards, and tools to get complete control over your accounts. This will ensure accurate records and build trust amongst stakeholders. Moreover, the teams will have a proper systems to reconcile without rushing at the end time. 

With automation, you make the process easier and more efficient. Pluto assists you with a centralized platform to automate your accounts payables and simplify account reconciliation without having to juggle multiple accounting software

Collecting, storing, and otherwise managing receipts is essential to a well-oiled expense reporting machine. 

Each receipt serves as confirmation of payment processing between yourself and the customer or vendor. You also need expense and sales receipts to file taxes and maintain your peace of mind.

Unfortunately, while saying receipt management is easy, the whole process itself is daunting. Tracking hundreds, thousands, even millions of employee and customer receipts leaves loopholes for fraud and misreporting. 

Physical expense receipts are especially susceptible to being lost, damaged, or fading with time.

Fortunately, there’s a better way to do it: digital receipt management with Pluto.

• Automate more of the expense management process
• Reduce the risk of fraud and inaccuracies
• Create more efficient workflows and financial departments
• And overall streamline modern business operations

While you probably can’t eliminate 100% of paper receipts from your workday, you can still improve your process with an increasingly-digital footprint!

What is Receipt Management?

Receipt management is the process of collecting, tracking, and storing business receipts. This task is usually handled by internal finance teams. Their role involves collecting various receipts, tracking costs in accounting software, and storing these receipts for future reference. Additionally, they may need to manually sort each expense, depending on the system in place.

Why Do You Need It?

• A well-run receipt management protocol is crucial for businesses for several reasons:

1. Simplify Employee Reimbursement Programs: It aids in the smooth operation of reimbursement programs for employees.

2. Track and Report Tax Deductions: It's essential for accurately tracking and reporting tax deductions.

3. Provide Proof during Tax Audits: It serves as necessary documentation during tax audits.

4. Streamline Expense Reports and Budgets: Helps in making expense reports and budgeting more efficient.

5. Combat Internal Fraud and Inauthentic Chargebacks: Plays a key role in preventing fraud and false chargebacks within the company.

6. Avoid Repair or Replacement Costs for Items Under Warranty: Keeps track of receipts necessary for warranty claims, saving costs on repairs or replacements.

7. Calculate and Improve Long-Term Profitability: Receipt management is vital in calculating and enhancing the long-term profitability of a business.

Different types of receipt management systems are in use today, including those for printed receipts, e-receipts, and even handwritten receipts. This diversity can be challenging for businesses, as they need to follow multiple procedures to reconcile their books effectively.

Types of receipt management

Today, there are three basic ways to handle receipts directly:

• Manual receipt management involves handling, tracking, and storing paper receipts
• Digitization receipt management scans physical receipts to digitize the tracking process
• Digital-only receipt management is used for online or digitally generated receipts

While many businesses are moving toward digitization and digital-only receipts, some businesses are stuck in the dark ages. (The kind that involves typing physical receipt information into a digital spreadsheet.)  

And as we’ll see below, manual entry strategies come with some…problems.  

Difficulties of Manual Receipt Management

1. Easily Lost or Damaged Receipts

Perhaps the most obvious problem with physically tracking expense receipts is that there’s so much that can go wrong. Lost, damaged, or faded receipts make the business expense tracking process that much harder.

Even if the employee who spent the money doesn’t drop their receipt, it’s possible for paperwork to get lost on a desk somewhere. And if you need to find a receipt two years later? Better hope it was filed properly and hasn’t faded completely.  

2. Consumes Human Resources

Manual receipt management is an extremely hours-intensive process.

Your financial team has to collect invoices, type their data into your accounting software, and double-check their work. Then, they have to reconcile business expenses against company credit card statements and track down potential instances of fraud or misreporting.

Not only does this require a lot of time, but it also impacts employee productivity. Every hour an accountant spends tracking receipts is an hour of productivity lost elsewhere.

3. Leaves Room for Human Error

Aside from the time and human resource cost, manual receipt management presents the potential for human error. And unlike on the product line or in customer service, every reporting mistake risks an unfavorable tax audit.

Even the simplest receipt management and tracking process involves several steps from collection to reconciliation. Every stage is an opportunity for an employee to get distracted, mistype a name or number, or duplicate entries. In bigger cases, they might even duplicate a payment, costing you more money.

And even if you catch the mistakes before they’re submitted, that’s more human hours wasted double-checking and correcting completed work.

4. Increases Fraud and Misreporting Risk

The risk of fraud is higher in manual receipt management programs, and instances of fraud may be harder to detect. Types of fraud that commonly crop up in expense reporting include:

• Inflated claim amounts
• Claiming personal costs on the business’ dime
• Submitting expense reports twice
• Falsifying “proof” to claim for money that wasn’t spent

Unfortunately, manual receipt management makes these kinds of fraud more likely and difficult to catch. For example, if the employee who authenticates receipts is committing or permitting the fraud, it’s harder to detect until after you’ve lost money.

Over time, even small acts of fraud can have massive financial consequences.

5. Contributes to Employee Dissatisfaction

For many companies, employee reimbursement programs contribute both to the need for manual receipt management – and to employee dissatisfaction.

Think about it. In a modern, tech-savvy business world, why should employees have to pay out of pocket, ever? 

Virtual cards and online-based businesses have all but eliminated the need for an employee to front your expenses.

But if you’re still stuck doing manual receipt management, chances are, your employees are still submitting reimbursement tickets. (And grumbling about the time it takes to get paid back.)

And that’s not even touching on the frustration, tedium, and headaches manual receipt management programs cause your high-paid finance teams.  

6. Jacks Up Business Costs

Together, all these factors paint a picture of increased business costs.

The time and human resource cost to track, reconcile, and store receipts.

The human and financial cost of detecting and counteracting fraud.

Even the maintenance costs for your printer and filing cabinets.

Every dollar spent on manual receipt management is a dollar sucked from office parties, growth, or your bottom line.

Benefits of Digital Receipt Management

It’s easy to see the costs that manual receipt management impose. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution: digital receipt management.

In short, digital receipt management involves using digital copies of receipts in your expense reporting strategy. Digital smart receipts are easy – simply integrate them into your accounting software and let automation take you away.

But even physical sales receipts can be digitized, Pluto allows you to digitize your receipt very simply - through your phone. 

Incorporating such technology means that even paper receipts fold neatly into your overarching digital strategy.

And as you’ll see, the process comes with tons of benefits.

1. Increases Integration Potential

A massive benefit of digital tracking is the sheer integration potential. Most receipt management tools, from receipt scanning devices to receipt tracking software, easily mesh with your existing expense reports system.

From there, you can automate mindless tasks and set up occasional human checks to ensure the system works as intended.

2. Fewer Costly Errors

Another way that a digital receipt management program saves costs is by reducing employee errors. Digital receipts should meld seamlessly into your tracking system – no surprises there.

But even processing physical receipts is cheaper and easier.

With their mobile phones, employees can scan receipts and upload them instantly. From there, Pluto categorizes the information and adds it to the overall report.

While employees may spend a second filling in any blanks, increased automation greatly reduces the risk of input errors.

3. Reduces Risk of Fraud

Less human interference means your financial system is more resilient to fraudulent activities. Pluto improves speed and accuracy while digitizing the receipts.

That leaves fewer opportunities for fraudulent claims.

4. Reduces Clutter

Uploading physical receipts means less physical space is needed for storage. That can save you on storage costs and reduce desktop and file cabinet clutter.

And because everything’s digitally maintained, you’ll still meet or exceed your tax authority’s required financial record storage period. 

Not to mention, just finding your records will be easier than ever!

5. Easier Audits

No person or business enjoys tax season. But digital management makes the process at least a little easier. 

Because all of your information is stored online, it’s easier to access and export receipts as needed. 

When tax time or the dreaded audit comes around, your data will be well-organized and easily accessible.  

6. More Efficient Expense Reporting

Traditional receipt management is a costly, time-intensive, error-prone manual process that used to be necessary. With modern tools, businesses can streamline the entire financial structure of their organization.

No more lost receipts or worrying about fraud.

Less time spent inputting and double-checking data, and more time helping your business grow.

All these positive benefits will improve efficiency – and even bring smiles to your accountants’ faces.

7. Faster Reimbursements

Like using a virtual corporate card, digital receipt management speeds up the reimbursement process. 

Since everything is tracked and verified electronically, it’s easy to set up an automatic or streamlined reimbursement protocol.

8. Putting Your Eco-Friendly Foot Forward

Lastly, any step your business can take toward going paperless is good news for the environment. 

Cutting down fewer trees and reducing printer ink usage are laudable goals that can decrease your environmental footprint. 

Not only will you enjoy cost savings, but you’ll feel better about doing business in an increasingly eco-conscious world.

8 Tips for Efficient Receipt Management

Digitizing your receipt management strategy is just the first step toward expense report success. To ensure you’re operating at maximum efficiency, consider the following tips.

1. Use Pluto App

The first step is to get Pluto and start managing your spending digitally. 

While you’re moving toward digital efficiency, your vendors aren’t required to follow. Keeping the proper tech on hand ensures you can digitize any paper receipts that come your way.

Pluto allows you to take a picture of the receipt, upload it to your expense and just like that the reconciliation process is done!

2. Save Your Receipts

While you can set up secure digital folders to store all your digital originals and copies - Pluto does that for you! 

Just take a picture of the receipt, upload it to the app and that is it.  

3. Ensure High-Quality Digital Format Uploads

There’s no point in uploading and saving documents if you can’t read them. 

Before tossing your physical copies, make sure you can clearly read the essential information on each receipt. (Such as the company name, date, purchased item(s), and amount.)

4. Categorize Submitted Expenses

Take some time to categorize your expenses (most businesses do this in chronological order). Pluto helps you with that, but just make sure to check the right category so the reporting stays in top notch condition. 

5. Set Up a Simple Expense Report Strategy

Expense reporting is the backbone of any business’ financials. For prompt, complete reporting and tracking, ensure that you design a straightforward strategy. 

Same-day submissions, fewer Excel sheets, and faster reimbursement protocols will improve efficiency and attitudes. Better yet, invest in a quality expense and receipt management software.

Or even better - start with Pluto, we have a free package. It will allow you to completely digitize and control your spending, while keeping your reporting in the best possible shape. 

6. Establish Accountability

A top-notch expense reporting strategy only works if people use it.

To ensure your protocols are followed, emphasize and encourage accountability. Keep all managers and supervisors up-to-date with company spending and card policies and remind them to disseminate that information appropriately. Follow up with employee expenditures as needed.

7. Run Regular Internal Audits

Regular expense report audits help businesses track receipts fraud, clear up discrepancies, and streamline inefficiencies. 

Take time each month or quarter to check for fictitious or overblown expenses or troubles with your expense reporting strategy. 

Pluto allows you to run real-time reports at any given moment for any period of time.

8. Switch to Virtual Corporate Cards

Virtual corporate cards make managing receipt tracking even easier. Not only can you digitize the entire process end-to-end, but corporate p cards give you greater control over your expenditures and tracking.

Sure, you can’t prevent vendors from handing you physical receipts. But you can greatly minimize instances of employees walking in with a big stack of thermal paper to scan in.

Pluto offers unlimited virtual cards which will book all your expenses right into the dashboard!

Key Takeaways

• Proper receipt management is key to running a financially successful business.
• While manual receipt management reconciles physical copies, it’s increasingly unnecessary in an increasingly digital world.
• Digital receipt management simplifies the collection, reconciliation, and storage process.
• Digital tracking also reduces fraud potential, time and financial waste, and increases employee satisfaction.
• Digitizing your expense reports pairs nicely with digitizing your own payments with virtual corporate cards.

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You want a procure-to-pay (P2P) software that automates your procurement process and addresses issues like lack of visibility, double payments, and delayed approvals. However, since such a tool has multiple users at different hierarchies and a complex workflow, you often end up with a more complex process if you don’t choose the right software. 

With ad-hoc processes, many issues pop-up: employees wait weeks for approvals, procurement teams have no real-time visibility over purchase requests and don’t know how to prioritize, finance teams get minimal control over expenses, and the entire process is chaotic. Hence, choosing the right procure-to-pay solution requires a focus on ease of use and flexibility. 

In this post, we will share the best procure-to-pay software for businesses in the UAE. We will discuss how P2P software helps with procurement management and which tools are worth considering. 

What is Procure-to-Pay Software?

Procure-to-pay software is a tool to automate the complete procurement process, which combines accounts payable (AP) software and procurement software.

Instead of having your procurement processes and data scattered across emails, Jira, different task management tools, and custom ERPs, you bring it onto a single platform. 

By moving from your legacy tools to an automated P2P software, you can:

• automate approval workflows, making the purchase request (PR) process easier and faster. Flexible approval workflows enable all stakeholders to approve requests with a trigger-based flow. 
• integrate with ERPs to maintain a preferred vendor list and manage order items. While most P2P software supports record-keeping only, some allow the conversion of PRs to purchase orders (PO) automatically after approval.
• match the goods received note (GRN) to enable two-way or three-way matching and ensure proper inventory and timely vendor payments. 
• process payments with multiple payment options to avoid delays and foster vendor relationships. It also helps avoid double payments, underpayment, or overpayment. 
• reconcile data faster via integrations with accounting software, enabling more visibility and control. Accounting teams get the right documents, and finance teams get visibility over expenses.

Since legacy ERPs aren’t enough to manage your entire procurement process, adding P2P software makes purchasing and payments easier. 

Top 9 Procure-to-Pay Software

Here is a procure-to-pay software list for companies in the UAE: 

1. Pluto

Pluto is an all-in-one procure-to-pay solution to transform your procurement and AP processes. It sits on top of your ERP as a layer to manage the multiple stages of the procurement process. From automating PRs to setting multi-layer approval workflows and managing vendors, it is the ultimate solution to transform a chaotic procurement process into a faster and more efficient one. 

Key Features:

• Features fully customizable workflows for raising PR and POs, requiring no technical expertise
• Offers a flexible approval engine capable of managing intricate hierarchies
• Enables multi-layer invoice approvals with policies to align with your company's structure
• Ability to upload invoices easily via WhatsApp images, eliminating the need to search for invoice details. Also facilitates invoice capture via emails directly to speed up the receipt capture process
• A centralized dashboard to gather bills in one place and track the status to avoid double payments
• Vendor-specific corporate cards to control budgets and detect irrelevant expenses
• Supports local and international wire transfers to make payments 
• OCR technology minimizes manual data entry by creating and populating bills from invoices
• Supports ERP integration to synchronize your vendors, POs, and bills and integrates with accounting software, such as Oracle, NetSuite, Zoho, Quickbooks, Wafeq, Xero, etc.
• Integrates with payment gateways and accounting software for seamless payments and reconciliation (a feature not available in other solutions)
• Raises alerts for upcoming payments and enables scheduling payments in advance and automate invoices 
• Provides a complete audit trail of the process to ensure visibility at each step
• Shows real-time analytics to facilitate deep insights for supporting budget control

Pricing: 

Request the sales team for a custom quote

Pros:

• More financial control with vendor-specific corporate cards 
• Better Forex rates than most local banks 
• Multiple integration options including Netsuite, Dynamics and more

Cons:

• Slightly longer on-boarding due to unlimited corporate purchasing card offering 
• Directly integrates with all other major ERPs except Tally

2. Order.co

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Order.co is a procure-to-pay platform that provides you access to over 15,000+ vendors in addition to your preferred vendors. It acts as an online marketplace like Amazon or eBay to help you procure items for your business. You add items to the cart, and it enables a rule-based approval system for POs with complete control and visibility. 

Key Features:

• Provides a custom, pre-approved Order.co catalog, including your current vendors and a vast network of 15,000+ vendors
• Supports purchases from multiple vendors regardless of their ordering methods (API, website, email)
• Sources the best prices for your needs to automatically generate POs and set up recurring orders to save time and reduce manual errors
• Offers real-time budgeting and reporting insights by the user, location, cost center, or vendor
• Simplifies payment processing by consolidating all orders from multiple vendors into one monthly invoice

Pricing:

Dependent upon locations and usage; contact hello@order.co for pricing information

Pros:

• Customizable product lists for ordering 
• Easy-to-create customizable workflows
• Ability to categorize purchases and run reports

Cons:

• Set up is confusing and requires customer support help
• Can not order from multiple vendors at the same time

3. Yooz

Yooz optimizes the procurement process by focusing on invoice management.  It is suitable for mid-size companies of all sectors wanting to automate procurement with a cloud-based procure-to-pay solution. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to enhance security and control in their account payable automation software.

Key Features:

• Enables online, real-time management of supplier relationships, improving communication and collaboration
• Provides mobile access for invoice approval and communication
• Maintains regulation-compliant traceability, ensuring adherence to relevant laws and standards
• Automates real-time general ledger (GL) coding and PO matching
• Captures all types of documents through various channels, such as email, drag and drop, mobile, scan, and secure file transfer protocol (SFTP)
• Integrates with accounting software and ERPs
• Allows users to approve and pay invoices in batches, offering multiple payment options, such as virtual credit card, ACH, e-check, and paper check
• Offers a range of services, including consulting, configuration, training, and user support

Pricing: 

Free trial for up to 15 days followed by a "pay-as-you-use" model. Also offers “gold edition” subscription pricing (based on the volume of documents) for an unlimited number of users and 4 hours of complimentary service

Pros:

• Integrates with Sage Intacct
• Ability to tag people in the comments and email them directly from the invoice
• Numerous criteria available for setting up the approval workflows

Cons: 

• Doesn’t offer payment services in the UAE, so you need to carry out payments on a different platform
• Doesn't have integrations with major vendors as a form of punchout
• Time-consuming to download and export files
• Hard for vendors to send the invoices through Yooz

4. Kissflow

Kissflow simplifies and enhances procurement processes while ensuring transparency and compliance. It helps users automate the entire process without requiring technical expertise or coding experience. It comes with 50+ ready-to-use applications, enabling unlimited automation applications.  

Key Features:

• Offers fluid forms to enable easy capturing, approval, and tracking of PRs
• Allows users to register and maintain vendors with access to multilingual catalogs
• Integration with accounting systems, ERPs, and finance systems like Quickbooks, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics 
• Accelerates the invoice approval process with timely alerts and automated checks. Connect invoices to contracts, POs, and service entry sheets in a single dashboard
• Customizable reports to visualize data using charts, filters, and heatmaps
• Ability to define and manage budget restrictions with dynamic rules throughout the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle
• Customized approval workflows to ensure transparency with rule-based approval processes
• Smart alerts that provide real-time updates on the status of POs and invoices to keep stakeholders informed 

Pricing: 

Starts at $2499/month (billed annually). Pricing varies based on transaction volume and number of users

Pros: 

• Intuitive interface with a relatively short learning curve

Cons:

• Does not support payment flows in the UAE
• Cost of its license is high (particularly for SMBs)
• Can not handle intricate processes that require a high degree of customization or involve multiple conditional branches
• Customization options are limited, including specific integrations, advanced business rules, or more sophisticated automation capabilities

5. Coupa

Coupa is a cloud-based automation platform to manage procurement processes. It facilitates supply chain optimization by providing visibility and control. It brings consumer shopping ease to the procurement process. With a focus on user adoption, it provides an intuitive shopping experience for employees, making it easier to adhere to pre-approved spending guidelines.

Key Features:

• Simplifies procurement by allowing organizations to track pre-approved spending and get real-time visibility into POs and order lifecycle
• Maximizes pre-approved spend to offer complete visibility over the purchase-to-pay processes
• Promotes user adoption at all levels with an easy-to-use interface, creating value for both employees and vendors
• Provides a centralized platform within Coupa Procure, allowing easy comparison of items across multiple vendors
• Offers real-time budget management with budget meters, allowing organizations to assess budget sufficiency before committing to spending
• Employs AI and machine learning to detect errors and fraud across business spend
• Enables quick notifications of disruptions and allows vendors to confirm availability, minimizing unplanned downtime
• Provides real-time visibility into inventory availability, helping organizations reduce redundant and wasteful spending

Pricing: 

Request the sales team for a custom quote

Pros:

• Several categories and filters in the analytics section to streamline data
• Chat option enables approver and claimant to discuss issues with receipts
• Enables setting up of customized approval chains and including additional new approvers  

Cons:

• Lots of unnecessary notifications, making it difficult to select the ones that need action or comment
• Low receipt searchability, making retrieval time-consuming
• Inconsistent syncing of remit-to address from NetSuite
• Complex to implement and not intuitive, forcing admins to spend more time resolving employees' queries
• Slow customer service 

6. Esker

Esker is a cloud-based automation procurement software. It helps you optimize procurement processes and collaborate strategically with your vendors. With the ability to integrate across various company departments, it simplifies user adoption while facilitating visibility and control.

Key Features:

• Facilitates approval mechanism and GRN matching for each PR and invoice 
• Offers real-time analytics, enabling you to maintain tighter budget controls
• Gives access to products from preferred vendors, aligning purchases with company procurement policies
• Provides a self-service portal, facilitating supplier onboarding, catalog management, and invoice status access
• Customizable dashboards to manage daily tasks, monitor productivity, and identify issues and opportunities as they arise
• Enables you to customize the interface with your company's corporate identity, enhancing the supplier's ability to identify and engage with your organization seamlessly

Pricing: 

Contact sales for pricing

Pros:

• Contains filtered views to allow for focused priorities 
• Auto-sends payment reminders

Cons:

• Gets expensive with each customization implemented
• Doesn’t allow unused/old customer accounts to be deleted
• Integration with accounting software isn't seamless 
• Approval workflow requires a manual trigger to start

7. PayEm

PayEm offers a procure-to-pay solution, covering everything in one place to replace your traditional procurement process. With a core focus on processing PR, it simplifies the creation of POs with custom forms and approval workflows. It facilitates collaboration between procurement and finance teams to enhance visibility and control. 

Key Features:

• Offers custom request forms equipped with conditional logic to ensure a user-friendly experience
• Provides fully customizable automated approval workflows based on factors like amounts, subsidiaries, and stakeholders
• Integrates with communication platforms like Slack and email, allowing request tracking and approvals
• Consolidates all the requests and approvals, simplifying discussions, document sharing, and creating an audit log
• Enables real-time updates and clear overviews of request statuses, minimizing the need for follow-up inquiries
• Offers OCR technology for invoice processing
• Syncs with your ERP and enables exporting reconciled transactions and uploading them to your ERP 
• Automates vendor management with payment scheduling, funds transferring, and limits setting for each vendor

Pricing: 

Request a custom quote

Pros:

• Multiple virtual credit cards for different vendors
• Supports global transactions 

Cons:

• Some vendors don't accept PayEm cards
• High transaction clearing time 
• Limits the user to either a virtual or physical card at one time 

8. Pipefy

Pipefy is an automation procure-to-pay tool to manage end-to-end procurement processes, from PR to paying vendors, to create a frictionless experience. It aims to break silos between teams to simplify purchase and AP. 

Key Features:

• Allows you to create and customize workflows, from purchase requisition to supplier management
• Provides secure portals where records and documents can be organized, ensuring that all information is easily accessible, especially during audits
• Ensures compliance with custom forms that include required fields to accelerate POs
• Enables access to real-time insights to help you forecast ideal quantities and vendors for requisitions
• Evaluates your processes, delivering reliable data to enable strategic and data-driven decisions
• Integrates with your existing ERPs and accounting systems, such as NetSuite, Oracle E-business Suite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, etc.  
• Enables deadline alerts, approval flows, and information exchange to prevent late fees and cashing in on early payment discounts
• Offers a customizable dashboard to streamline vendor registration, updates, onboarding, and contract management

Pricing:

Offers three packages starting with a free option for smaller teams, and a subsequent model that costs $20 per month per user and $34 per month per user. Also, offers an enterprise plan with custom pricing

Pros: 

• Offers templates for organizing processes

Cons:

• Complex sign-up process
• Workflows aren’t flexible with difficulty with respect to adding new users and making changes 
• Difficult to import data and search in the database for information

9. Procurify

Procurify speeds up the procurement process, enhances internal communication, and reduces financial risks. It is an easy-to-implement tool that saves time for finance and operations teams. From catalog management to custom user controls, it helps to track the procurement process in real time. 

Key Features:

• Tailors POs to match your internal processes and vendor expectations
• Creates, tracks, and maintains an audit trail of all procurement transactions for transparency and compliance
• Enhances financial controls by enabling PO-based purchasing
• Ensures that requested items are approved against budgets before procurement
• Syncs PO with your accounting system or ERP, whether via API, CSV, flat file, or direct integration
• Integrates with trusted vendors through punchout catalogs to streamline the ordering process
• Enables blanket PO, which involve making multiple purchases against a single PO, even when details of future purchases may be unknown
• Provides PO workflows to save on shipping costs, unlock vendor discounts, and reduce paperwork 

Pricing: 

Starts at $2000/month with a custom pricing tier

Pros:

• Easy-to-make amendments in the original PO
• Enables ordering from multiple websites for resources, including Amazon
• Makes it easy to upload documents to support expense and order reports

Cons:

• Doesn’t offer payment services in UAE, so you will need to carry out payments on a different platform
• Doesn’t cater to the UAE market, and does not support UAE-specific workflows such as VAT management
• Cannot edit orders once they are approved
• Cannot see the order history for a catalog item without running a report
• Physical inventory has to be tracked outside Procurify

Which Procure-to-Pay Software Should You Pick?

Don’t choose a platform that offers the maximum functionality. Instead, choose the one that is user-friendly and flexible. 

Procurement is already a complex process that requires visibility by different stakeholders. Choosing a tool that offers visibility and accommodates complex business needs will help you transform your chaotic procure-to-pay process. 

If you want to get started, book a demo, and our team will help you identify the bottlenecks and make the entire process simpler and manageable.