A high-quality vendor invoice management system streamlines your processes by allowing you to:

• Centralize all invoices in one dashboard — whether digital or physical — so you don’t have to store invoices in different folders and filing cabinets. 

• Receive invoices through a variety of methods: Create vendor portals, integrate email addresses, use e-invoicing, or even upload paper invoices. Then you can ask vendors to send invoices through your preferred method. 

• Store invoices with corresponding POs and receipts to automate reconciliation and payment processes; this saves time tracking down and matching invoices, and reduces human errors in the process.  

But there are two categories of accounting software that fulfill these criteria: traditional AP software and more comprehensive procure-to-pay software. 

1. AP automation software has tools to support accounts payable workflows, exclusively, like invoice receipt and reconciliation, payment facilitation, and expense tracking. They let you integrate with credit card accounts and vendor management tools to facilitate AP workflows and report on monthly expenses. 
   
   However, these may lack tools to manage purchasing and control spending. These are common and useful for organizations that don’t have to manage widespread spending (and have less of an interest in cost control) and primarily want to automate invoice reconciliation and payment workflows. 
   
   
2. Procure-to-pay (P2P) software has tools to manage both purchasing and AP workflows. It’s better for companies that purchase or have contracts with various vendors, have to manage spending across multiple departments, locations, or individuals, and need to create controlled purchasing flows to control spending. 

Being able to place orders and process invoices in one place makes it easier for AP and procurement teams to collaborate, reduce expenses, control spend, and save time. 

So we put together this guide reviewing the best invoice management systems across both categories — we start with an explainer of our P2P solution, ProcureDesk, and include seven other popular software options, so you can compare.

ProcureDesk: Full P2P Software with Effective Invoice Management Features

We designed ProcureDesk to help small and growing companies optimize the entire P2P process. 

• Procurement teams can choose vendors, design automated order approval trees, allow employees to shop independently, and track orders. 

• AP teams can receive, store, organize, and match invoices, facilitate payment through integrated ERP systems, and gain real-time spending visibility in our central reporting dashboard. 

Our dedicated team of experts works to onboard new businesses (we offer complimentary white-glove onboarding through set-up) and provide ongoing support, creating a seamless transition for you and your team.

Vendor Invoice Management Process Tools

One key task that AP teams get bogged down with as their company grows is efficiently receiving, storing, and organizing vendor invoices. 

Many teams start with manual AP processes. These include receiving invoices via mail or email, physically storing and organizing invoices, using spreadsheets to track invoice status, and manually matching invoices, POs, and order receipts. With manual processes, invoices can easily get lost or misplaced, making it hard for team members to find them when they need them. 

This issue is exacerbated as invoice volume increases or AP processes become more complex. To solve this, ProcureDesk provides a central place to manage the entire invoice lifecycle, including receiving and storing vendor invoices for easy accessibility. 

With ProcureDesk, you can receive vendor invoices with a variety of methods, including:

• Vendor portals — Vendors can log in to ProcureDesk and drop invoices directly. This streamlines the process and reduces potential errors associated with paper invoices. 

• E-invoicing — Similar to vendor portals, e-invoicing allows vendors to push a digitized invoice directly into ProcureDesk.

• Email integrations — ProcureDesk integrates with your email, allowing you to receive invoices in an AP-specific inbox. ProcureDesk can then read the invoice using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology and import it into the system. 

If you are still receiving paper invoices, you can scan and upload the invoice into the ProcureDesk dashboard. 

Features to Help AP Teams Match Invoices, Receipts & POs

ProcureDesk simplifies the invoice approval workflow and eliminates manual data entry by automatically analyzing invoices and matching them with the corresponding receipt and PO stored in the system (we will explore POs and receipts later). This removes bottlenecks and saves significant time for AP teams compared to manual processes.

With paper and email invoices, ProcureDesk reads invoice data and matches the invoice with the correct PO and receipt. These invoices are then routed to the appropriate person for final review before payment. 

This matching process is automatically completed (without the need for review) when vendors send invoices through e-invoicing or vendor portals. 

Our system checks invoices for errors or discrepancies during the matching process. If errors are detected, the system sends the invoice to the right person for further review. 

Once matched and approved, ProcureDesk automatically adds accounting codes and routes these invoices to your ERP or accounting software, ready for payment. 

Note: ProcureDesk integrates with popular ERPs and accounting systems — including QuickBooks, Sage, Xero, Bill.com, and even some AP systems below, like AvidXchange, to prepare and process vendor payments. 

After ProcureDesk pushes the matched invoice to the ERP system, you can approve the payment and hit send. Once you issue payment, the invoice status updates in ProcureDesk, allowing you to mark it as paid to avoid confusion or duplicate payments. 

All team members can view invoice statuses to stay informed about which are waiting for review and which have been paid. 

Tools to Support Procurement & Connect Purchasing and AP Teams

Now that we’ve covered the tools for receiving, organizing, and reconciling invoices, let’s discuss ProcureDesk’s tools for connecting AP and procurement teams and controlling purchasing workflows. 

How to Set Controlled Purchasing Flows 

ProcureDesk has comprehensive purchasing features, allowing AP and procurement teams to collaborate to manage the full P2P cycle. Being able to work together to handle purchases, POs, order tracking, receipts, and invoices makes the invoice management and reconciliation processes much easier, saving both AP and procurement teams huge amounts of time. 

On the procurement side, ProcureDesk allows team leads to proactively control employee spending and manage costs while still allowing employees to shop independently. 

To facilitate this, procurement managers can:

• Add approved vendors to the dashboard.

• Set procurement budgets by person, department, spending category, and more.

• Create and add purchasing rules.

• Build custom purchase request forms, allowing managers to collect key order information during the purchasing process.

• Set approval workflows — orders are either automatically approved, automatically denied, or routed to the correct person for review before approval.

Budgets, purchasing rules, custom PR forms, and approval processes create a controlled setting, allowing employees to shop independently with vendors. As a result, managers have full confidence that orders will not go over budget or break purchasing rules. 

Tracking Order Status & Receipts 

ProcureDesk provides full visibility into the purchasing process — managers and employees can see order status easily within the ProcureDesk dashboard. After an order is approved (either by the system or upon review), ProcureDesk automatically generates and sends a PO to the vendor, saving time ordinarily spent manually filling out a PO form. 

Once the vendor receives the PO, they can acknowledge the order and log status updates in the ProcureDesk system. After the vendor sends the order, procurement team members can add the tracking number to ProcureDesk. 

Upon arrival, the person receiving the order checks its condition and logs receipt details within ProcureDesk. If they forget to log the receipt details, ProcureDesk automatically sends them an email reminding them to do so. 

Order receipt details are always easily available to procurement and AP teams — if order issues arise, managers can easily reference the receipt to troubleshoot problems with the vendor. 

Then, the AP team takes over to manage invoices and support the accounts payable process.

Reporting Dashboard for Better Cash Flow Visibility & Spend Controls  

ProcureDesk’s main dashboard allows procurement and AP teams to see purchases as they happen. This creates an up-to-date picture of current spending levels, making it easy for team leads to anticipate costs before they happen and monitor budgets in real-time.

ProcureDesk’s central reporting dashboard shows spending by person, department, category, vendor, and more, providing a detailed analysis of spending patterns. This data can be used to identify individual spending behavior, reallocate budgets more efficiently, identify preferred vendors, tighten cost controls, and facilitate collaboration between AP and procurement teams.

Spending data also helps AP and procurement team leads improve vendor relationships and negotiate better rates and terms with preferred vendors. For example, if you see that you order the majority of your supplies from one vendor, you can approach the vendor and establish a purchasing contract. Or, you could potentially negotiate early payment discounts or guaranteed access to inventory. 

ProcureDesk has an added expense management feature to connect with corporate card accounts — teams can generate expense reports each night and consolidate spending data into a reporting dashboard to stay on top of spending.

Pricing 

Our full P2P software solution, which allows you to automate procurement and AP processes, costs $600 per month. 

We offer custom packages for larger teams with specific requirements. (Reach out to our team to discuss your processes and workflow, and we’ll design something specifically for your needs.)

We also have a package for procurement teams (including just the tools to support purchasing) for $380 monthly. In addition, we offer add-on modules like contract management, expense report management, and inventory management tools. 

Note: Both of our P2P and procurement packages come with 10 user seats; you can add more users to either plan. 

Alternative P2P Software to Manage Vendor Invoices 

The following software options provide full functionality to handle all stages of the procurement and payment processes, including managing vendor invoices. 

Procurify

Procurify offers full procurement and AP tools for small, mid-sized, and large businesses. When it comes to managing vendor invoices, Procurify provides a central place to receive, store, and organize invoices. 

They also offer two- and three-way automatic matching to reconcile invoices and the ability to build automated bill approval workflows. Their OCR technology helps populate bills based on invoice details, creating a smoother payment process. 

In addition, Procurify is well known for its modern user interface and advanced feature sets, such as virtual spend cards. While it offers options for businesses of varying sizes, its base price of $1000/month may make it more suitable for mid-sized and larger teams. 

Notable Features 

• Purchase order management
• Vendor & contract management
• Approval workflows
• Purchase request management
• Virtual spend cards
• Bill management
• Invoice processing
• Payments
• Budget control & tracking
• Mobile apps
• Integrations with ERPs
• Reporting

Pricing 

Procurify offers their software starting at $1000/month for small businesses and $2000/month for medium-sized businesses. Large and enterprise teams must contact Procurify for a custom quote. 

Kissflow

Kissflow is a workflow automation tool with solutions for a number of different business use cases. Amongst their lineup, they offer procurement management tools with templates to support various procurement and AP processes, including purchase request management, purchase order tools, and invoice verification and routing rules. 

Teams with unique workflows like the fact that Kissflow is highly customizable. However, the platform still requires some coding knowledge and expertise to set up and maintain, so teams without experience may find it overwhelming. Nonetheless, Kissflow does provide support to help teams deploy their software quickly. 

Notable Features 

• Hosted & punchout catalogs
• Purchase order management
• e-Procurement tools, including assisted buying
• Strategic sourcing
• Vendor & contract management
• AP automation, including three-way matching
• Mobile apps
• Reporting & spend analytics
• Inventory management
• Webhooks and API
• Integrations with Xero & QuickBooks

Pricing 

Kissflow’s Basic plan with limited features starts at $1500/month, but the exact pricing depends on the specific features you need. If you want to learn more, you must reach out to Kissflow to get a more accurate quote. 

Airbase

Airbase is a popular P2P software primarily serving medium-sized businesses. Its extensive feature set includes tools to manage vendor invoices, such as invoice capture via email or vendor portals, AI-driven OCR technology to scan and analyze invoices for automatic bill creation, automated invoice approval workflows, mobile approval, and automated three-way matching.

Customers generally report that Airbase is easy to use. However, some customers report encountering approval issues. 

Notable Features

• Corporate cards
• Receipt management
• AP automation
• Expense management
• Security & fraud detection
• Automatic audit trail
• Mobile app
• Advanced approvals & workflows
• Real-time reporting
• Accounting automation
• Three-way invoice matching
• Integrations with project management software to support workflows
• Spend controls
• Integrations with ERPs & accounting systems

Pricing 

Airbase breaks its pricing down by business size but does not provide pricing information for each category. 

• The Standard plan is for businesses with up to 200 employees and offers limited access to their features. 
• The Premium plan is for businesses with up to 500 employees and offers all modules, but limits certain functionality designed for larger teams. 
• The Enterprise plan is for companies with up to 5000 employees and includes all modules and features. 

Tipalti

Tipalti advertises themselves as a P2P software for growing and enterprise teams. While it does have procurement tools like PO approval workflows, supplier management, and more, Tipalti is more well-known for its strong AP features. 

When it comes to managing vendor invoices, Tipalti allows teams to capture, match, and process invoices using its machine learning and OCR technologies. In addition, Tipalti helps international businesses by offering global payment options in 120 currencies, as well as tax and VAT compliance. 

Notable Features 

• PO approval workflows
• Supplier matching
• Supplier management
• Two- & and three-way invoice matching
• Invoice management
• PO matching
• Tax and VAT compliance
• Corporate cards
• Global payments
• Currency management
• FX hedging

Pricing 

Tipalti does not provide exact pricing information on its website. Pricing starts at $129/month, but the website only says this covers the platform fee. Customers have to get in touch for custom quotes.

AP-Focused Vendor Invoice Management Systems 

The following software solutions focus their services on the AP side. 

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText is an invoice management software option. Used in conjunction with SAP ERP 6.0 and SAP S/4HANA, SAP Invoice Management by OpenText automates the process of receiving invoices into SAP systems. 

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText allows users to receive and store invoices, order confirmations, and receipts in one dashboard — team members can easily access all supporting transaction documents within the dashboard. The system also automatically classifies invoices and routes them to the correct person for review, resolution, or payment. 

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText also features country-specific business rules, helping multinational companies remain in compliance with national, regional, or international laws and regulations. 

Notable Features 

• Receipt and storage of invoices, receipts & order notes
• Automatic invoice routing
• Invoice approvals 
• Management reports
• AI and OCR tools
• Supplier collaboration
• Mobile approval tools
• SAP ERP integrations

Pricing 

Pricing information is not available online, so teams interested in this product must contact SAP for a custom quote. 

Stampli

Stampli is a popular AP automation tool with over 70+ ERP integrations, allowing you to automate your AP processes without reworking your established ERP system. 

Stampli has invoice automation tools to facilitate the invoice capture and reconciliation processes, with automated two- and three-way invoice matching. Team members can collaborate on invoices from within the dashboard, improving communication on financial processes and making audits easier. 

Like other AP-specific solutions on this list, teams also needing procurement workflows will need to integrate Stampli with procurement software or select full P2P software.

Notable Features 

• Advanced vendor management
• Spending cards for employees
• Centralized collaboration
• AI-powered AP automation
• Purchase orders
• Invoice processing
• Analytics and reporting
• International payments
• Flexible payment options
• AI-powered assistant, Billy the Bot 

Pricing 

Pricing is not available on Stampli’s website. If you would like to learn more about Stampli and its different pricing options, you must reach out to them for a custom quote. 

AvidXchange

AvidXchange is an AP automation software solution for teams of all sizes with extensive features and tools. While it does have PO management tools, we included AvidXchange in the AP-specific category because it is designed primarily for AP teams.

AvidInvoice, AvidXchange’s product for managing invoices, allows users to receive and scan paper invoices or accept electronic invoices directly into the system. From there, AvidXchange supports two and three-way matching, automated invoice approval workflows, and easy integration with accounting or ERP systems. 

Notable Features 

• Batch invoice processing
• Collaborative dashboard
• Invoice generation & management
• Two and three-way invoice matching
• Automated purchase order creation
• Customizable workflows
• Real-time payment visibility
• Reporting dashboards

Pricing 

AvidXchange does not list its prices on its website. If you would like to learn more about its pricing options, you must contact them for a custom price quote.