I'm doing research on automation software for enterprise size companies. Anyone here have experience either looking at multiple vendors or ideal companies to look at for a large organization?
Automating AP
Answers
Could you be more specific, what type of automation software...
I'm trying to compare software solutions like Aptricity, Certify or Concur Invoice, Bill.com, or Expensify. (or others).
For some of the companies listed, you need to see if there is an API or EASY way to move the data collected by these [semi-] automated systems and your accounting system.
When there is an API, there is tremendous time savings. I happen to use Xero for my business and also use Harvest (T&B), Hubdoc (bill and statement collection) and Expensify. Harvest works great for the most part, Hubdoc will take in a/p invoices and push them to Xero and Expensify also pushes to Xero once you go through the approval process.
Each saves a tremendous amount of time and can be configured so that users can be limited in their error rates.
Nothing is perfect and the packages mentioned may not meet your needs because they have limited ACL.
I've looked at Bill.com, which isn't cheap, but seems to speed up the payment process tremendously (especially if you ACH everything).
Kara
A comparison of software solutions really needs to come from a definition of what your requirements are:
-functional (what one company rates as key may not apply to another)
-technical (cloud/onprem? scalability? configurabiity? integratability?)
-financial (what can you afford? what is the business case/ROI?)
-organizational (vendor strengths/product roadmap, etc.)
Once you have the requirements defined, you can then
-evaluate vendors against those requirements one vendor at a time
-compare vendor scores (above) to evaluate pros and cons.
Regards
Len
PS - a useful source of software information is at G2Crowd.com
Thanks. I'll start with G2Crowd and then turn to industry experts when I'm better versed in requirements!
Kara,
Most of these solutions are in Travel and Expense management categories. You can read the Gartner MQ report which compares these solutions. Here is a brief overview on concur, there is a link to download the report.
https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-gartner-report-helps-you-shortlist-potential-tem-vendors
Sachin