The Best Accounts Payable Software

What Is Accounts Payable Software?

Accounts payable software provides the ledger and related software functionality for managing money owed by an organization to creditors. These solutions provide a coordinated system for ensuring AP automation for tasks such as invoice processing, payables approvals, and executing payments. Software allows you to completely streamline accounting business processes, bypassing manual data entry which can take hours or days to complete.

Key financial benefits from using an AP management solution include the ability to:

• Decrease labor costs related to manual processes by switching to automation
• Avoid late payment penalties and take advantage of early payment discounts through intuitive invoice management
• Free up cash for interest earning positions or other business uses of capital by better timing of payments by routing through approval workflows
• Identify cost-cutting opportunities in corporate spending through better categorization of expenses

Accounts payable can also be used as a subset of a larger accounting software solutions for managing financial data. The available features tie in closely with other core accounting modules, such as accounts receivable and a general ledger.

Managing expenses is a task that every business, government agency, church, non-profit, or school faces. Accounts payable is the best way for every type of organization to control expenses and, if applicable, increase sales. This guide provides a practical how-to for selecting the right AP software to cut unnecessary costs and create efficiency in payables processing.

Key Features of Accounts Payable Software

• AP record creation
• Bookkeeping
• Check-writing
• Vendor/supplier database management
• Document management
• Records/account lookup (search) and filtering
• 1099 tax form processing
• Electronic payments
• Optical character recognition (OCR) from machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI)
• Recurring payments**
• Purchase order reconciliation
• Payment approval authorization management
• Due date alerting

Best Accounts Payable Software Benefits

Automated accounting solutions provide many useful benefits to businesses of all types, from new startups to midsize companies to global enterprises:

Automated Business Processes

The traditional approval process takes time, requiring checking and double-checking all along the way. Complete AP automation helps save time while increasing accuracy due to reduced human error. Fortunately, software offers real-time monitoring for greater control over AP processes, streamlining workflow to let you focus on having better record keeping.

Electronic payments made through AP software are just a few examples of how accounts payable software can reduce your operating costs. For instance, many accounts payable solutions now include support for Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments for more direct transactions between financial institutions. ACH payment processing reduces the time and costs of physically printing and mailing checks. Companies may also rely on ACH and other forms of electronic payment to reduce instances of human error and fraud.

Faster Report Capabilities for Greater Efficiency

Reporting features in account payables programs can dramatically improve your cash management capabilities by analyzing historic and real-time key performance indicators (KPIs). Track invoice approval rates, changes in bank accounts, or other performance factors based specifically on your business needs.

The right reporting tools can improve your payables efficiency. For example, aging reports can allow users to report on past due payment records by the number of days they are outstanding, allowing the team to prioritize payments. Strong automation software improves the efficiency of your AP teams by reducing the time needed to issue checks and prepare month/year-end reports. AP automation eliminates vendor late fees and reduces common errors such as duplicate payments. Fewer opportunities for human errors upfront means less time spent making corrections as AP teams process invoices or balance the books.

Better Customer, Vendor, and Supplier Relationships

Customer relationship management (CRM) is another element AP departments need to consider when handling payments between vendors, suppliers, and clients. Keep records of various vendors and suppliers, from basic contact information to payment history. Improved vendor relations are a frequent outcome of better accounts payable software capabilities.

AP reports provide information on how much your firm is buying and from whom, helping you decide whether to consolidate purchases to fewer vendors and gain price breaks or move purchases to alternate vendors if better pricing or terms are available. This up-to-date information forms the starting point to negotiate with vendors for better payment terms and purchase price. Some vendors even offer discounts for early payment, and accounts payable software lets you arrange automatic payments to meet these deadlines.

Finally, accounts payable software helps to determine the legitimacy of vendor invoices to avoid common payment scams. This starts with AP positive pay support tools which prevent financial institutions from paying fraudulent checks by uploading records of authorized payments for cross-verification against known bank accounts or financial records.

What AP Solution Does Your Business Need?

Accounts payable software provides the tools necessary to drive down costs, increase productivity, improve cash management and improve vendor relations. Understanding the software options is critical to finding the best software program for your business.

The size of your organization, your existing information system environment and your particular functional requirements will determine which AP software option is right for you. In fact, accounts payable functionality is often part of a larger accounting or ERP system. Understanding all your options can help you make the right call on a new software integration.

• New startups and small businesses: SMBs can save thousands annually on accounts payable by taking advantage of early discounts and interest-earning opportunities via timing payments while avoiding late payments, paying vendors by their preferred method, and eliminate unnecessary administrative and processing costs.
• Upgrading existing AP software with additional functionalities: The biggest decision a midsize company in a position to upgrade will need to make (in regards to accounts payable) is, how in-depth do you need the software to go? Will an AP module in a larger accounting package do the trick? Or are the AP processes so involved that a standalone should be considered?
• Large enterprises: Companies with a high level of accounts payable (or a large amount of money owed to suppliers) will want to ensure they have a high level of reporting that can be provided from their AP solution. This is because investors in a company will look at AP figures to calculate insightful financial ratios. This debt-ratio will help you understand a company’s strengths and weaknesses and any strategies they may have. Usually, big companies will use AP automation to manage debt, and see how this debt will affect the future business life cycle.

Is Using Quickbooks an Option?

Accounts Payable is one of the core functionalities included with any version of QuickBooks. QuickBooks allows AP workflows to be input through two workflows:

1. Purchase order > Receive inventory > Enter bills against inventory > Bill payment
2. Enter bills > Pay bills

What to Consider When Selecting AP Software

Before selecting an AP software to integrate into your business process, consider what sort of modules you need most:

Entering records and check printing

The most fundamental part of the payables process is recording the entry and cutting of the check. The level of automation at this stage will reduce the time you spend managing your accounts payable. When considering different accounts payable options, you’ll want to evaluate whether each has the ability to populate check fields, schedule batch check prints, and prepare the actual mailing of these payments.

Reporting

There are many important reports in accounts payable. The ability to report on your accounts payable entries can have a significant impact on helping you to tighten your cash flow. Perhaps most importantly, your accounts payable module needs to clearly show you which payments have been made, which have been made but have not yet cleared, and which have been processed.

Master vendor list

Your AP module won’t only track individual payments - it can manage an ongoing vendor database. The precise way each software package handles the vendor list will vary. You’ll want to make sure that the software supports all the vendor information you need to keep on hand, such as contact info, addresses, vendor terms, payment details, and other data

Purchase order and invoice reconciliation

No one likes to think they’ve lost money through errors or fraud, yet audits often turn up evidence that this has happened. Your accounts payable software should include controls to identify the authenticity of each payment by associating each payment record with the original purchase order and/or the vendor bill helps reduce errors and fraud.

1099 reporting (US)

Whenever you make non-payroll payments to non-corporate entities at some point. As the payee, your AP module should allow you to flag these payments and create the necessary paperwork for 1099 tax forms.

Other accounts payable software modules to consider:

• Alternate payment methods
• Payment planning
• Advanced reporting
• Rebates and vouchers

Additional integration

Accounts payable transactions don’t occur in a vacuum; they’re part of larger business processes. Most importantly, your Accounts Payable module should efficiently deliver the payables ledger information regarding current liabilities to the balance sheet located in the general ledger. In many integrated accounting systems, this happens in real time. If integration isn’t possible, make sure the Accounts Payable module exports data to the general ledger in a format that it can interpret.

Another key integration point is with the purchase order module. Integration with the Purchase Order module is important as both Accounts Payable and Purchase Order processes benefit from mutual access to the master vendor list. Bank reconciliation functionality may also be contained in its own application. If this is the case, integration is critical to identify which payments have been made and to reconcile the Accounts Payable and bank records.

Common AP Pain Points

While accounts payable software provides many benefits to businesses, there are still a few specific pain points to address when seeking AP software.

• Too much or little coverage: Not every company needs an all-encompassing AP solution. Every organization should make sure their software can handle the volume of invoices they deal with each month, as well as save the necessary data on the vendors they have a relationship with. Starting out, small businesses in particular may have only a few invoices here and there . An expensive, full service AP software won’t be a good fit for them. In contrast, a growing business will need an AP system which can scale as they grow.

• Converting to automatic digital systems from manual paper methods: A HelpSystems report found that companies process an average of 290,667 invoices each year, with 58% of these invoices arriving by U.S. mail. Manual AP processes can cost $35 more than the same work done through automated processes.

• Human error and fraud: The Association for Financial Professionals found in 2016 that 74% of surveyed organizations were victims of payments fraud, which has grown from 61% back in 2013. This makes it more important than ever to spot fraudulent activity before it spirals out of control. Preventative measures to reduce your chance of fraud include switching to electronic payments, reconciling checking accounts promptly, storing paper blank check stock under lock and key, and using a centralized check writing review process.

AP Software Market Trends

As one of the fundamental parts of business, accounts payable solutions have seen a lot of growth over the years. Some recent trends include:

• The increase of cloud technology. Progressive IT teams are much more in favor of self-monitoring cloud systems over physical hardware. Software as a service (SaaS) deployments become far simpler, and automatic updates allow you to have the most up to date solution possible.
• Integrated AP automation solutions vs stand-alone products. Software integrations are incredibly convenient for companies with multiple, interrelated departments. Typically the AP module is included with most core accounting packages and will sync in with any accounts receivable or general ledger tools in use by the program itself, to perform necessary checks and balances. However, stand-alone AP solutions have become a much easier solution to implement. Stand-alone solutions typically offer more in-depth functionality, such as reports and dashboards created within the AP automation program itself.
• The demand to become a profit center. Many AP departments will be urged to take a proactive role in adding more value to their organization, which means finding ways to reduce invoice processing costs, earn rebates, take advantage of early payment discounts, and achieve a reduction in invoice processing time. All of these goals can be set by AP departments which will make you more efficient. AP automation software is the leading driver in allowing a business to achieve these goals.