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What is an Expense Report? How to Create One?
One crucial aspect of business finance management is knowing how the money of your organization is being spent. You can’t paint a complete picture of your organization’s financial health without understanding how the money is flowing first. This clarity is precisely what effective expense reports provide. When properly maintained, expense reports give you a clear perspective over your organization's finances.
In this comprehensive guide, we delve into:
- The Definition of Expense Reports: What are they and why are they crucial?
- The Importance of Accurate Expense Reporting: How does it affect your organization's financial health?
- Creating Effective Expense Reports: We'll explore two practical methods to craft accurate and insightful expense reports, empowering you to make informed financial decisions.
What is an expense report?
An expense report is a crucial tool in business finance management. It is a categorized and itemized list of expenses made on behalf of the organization. These reports assist employers or finance teams in determining what money was spent, what was purchased, and how much of the expenditure is eligible for reimbursement.
The purpose of an expense report is to track the expenditures of a business and expense forms should include all purchases necessary to operate a business, such as food, gas, or parking.
It is most commonly used by employees when requesting reimbursement for expenditures.
When expenditure amounts exceed a certain threshold, receipts are usually attached to the form.
Employees are paid the requested amounts after the employer examines their submissions for accuracy and validity.
In this case, the employer will be able to recognize accounting profit and taxable profit based on the reimbursements.
Business expense reports are usually generated on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis to track business spending:
- It is important for a company to maintain monthly and quarterly expense reports to track all of its purchases during that period. The reports are used to determine whether spending within the organization's budget is within its limits and to identify areas for cost reductions.
- Yearly expense reports are in turn used for tax purposes. A company's tax returns are prepared using its annual expense reports.
It is also possible to use expense reports to detail expenditures made against an initial employee advance.
Employers still record employee expenses as business expenses, but they do not reimburse employees; instead, they deduct the expenditures from employee advances.
Why use an expense report?
Expense reports are essential for small businesses, enabling a clear tracking of business expenses often paid out-of-pocket by employees. These reports detail all reimbursable expenses and require attaching receipts for accurate verification. Once reviewed for accuracy, employees are reimbursed accordingly. Additionally, small business owners and accountants use these reports to analyze total expenses over specific periods, employing accounting tools to assess whether costs align with budget expectations
The following are some benefits of generating a expense report:
1. Facilitates efficient expense tracking and cost control
Analyzing expense report data is the ideal starting point for cost control. This allows you to track your firm's spending over time by giving you a clearer picture of what your money is being spent on.
Additionally, you can analyze how much your employees are spending on different expense categories, determine which categories are driving up costs, and implement strategies to reduce or eliminate them. In addition to identifying loopholes in expense policies, these reports can help you decide which vendors to prioritize and which ones to let go by identifying loopholes in expense policies.
Tracking expenses over time allows you to identify whether a particular expense category (such as transportation or hotels) is increasing costs excessively. As a result, you can strategize on how to reduce or eliminate these costs.
2. Helps with budgeting
A business's budget is essential to its smooth operation. A detailed and accurate expense report can help your organization develop a strong and informed financial plan. As a result, various departments and projects can be allocated more appropriate budgets. You can maintain your business's financial security long-term by consistently tracking expenses in order to ensure that different departments and projects adhere to their budgets.
3. Makes for accurate reimbursements
In the event that an employee paid for business expenses out of pocket, they would expect a fair and accurate reimbursement.
Also, you want to make sure that the request is fair so that you don't pay more than you are owed.
It allows organizations to determine if a claim is legitimate faster by providing employees with a standardized process to learn what can and cannot be expensed.
In addition to providing solid evidence of when, where, and how expenses were incurred, itemized expense reports with receipts do the same for proving compliance with your organization's expense policy.
4. Simplifies tax deductions
Tax deductions are available for many business expenses incurred by employees at work. In order to claim expenses as deductions, you must properly record them and provide proof that they were actually incurred.
Business owners sometimes use their bank account or corporate card statements to keep track of their deductible expenses. It's important to keep in mind that these statements may not include all expenses.
In contrast, expense reports simplify the process of keeping track and deducting deductible expenses during tax season. The finance team simply needs to add up all the expenses that can be deducted and enter them into the appropriate tax forms.
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What should be in the expense report?
By creating an expense report, you (or your accountant) can easily add up all expenses so that they can be entered into your tax return.
Some crucial elements to include in an expense report include:
- The name, department, designation, and contact information of the employee who submitted the report.
- The date and amount of each expense (corresponding to the date and amount on the receipt)
- What type of expense is being incurred (meals, mileage, internet, etc.)?
- Vendor or merchant who sold the item
- If applicable, the client or project for which it was purchased
- From your accounting chart, determine the account where the expense should be charged
- A description of each expense in more detail
- Expense subtotals and total costs, including taxes, for each type of expense
- (If applicable) a deduction for prior advances made to the employee
How to create expense reports
Companies most often generate and track expense reports using spreadsheets, templates, or expense reporting software.
You can generate expense reports in two different ways: manually through templates, or through Pluto.
Manual expense reporting with custom templates
To make the task of preparing expense reports easier for employees, some organizations provide customizable, ready-made templates to download and use. To report expenses in this way, follow these steps:
- The employee outlines their name, contact information, designation, the dates covered, and the purpose of the report in the appropriate fields.
- Following that, they determine how many rows and columns the expense report should contain. For example, some firms have mandatory columns and categories that correspond to the expense categories and columns in tax returns.
- In the report, expenses should be listed chronologically with brief descriptions, with the most recent expense appearing at the end.
- In order to calculate the grand total, the employee must first calculate the subtotals for each expense category followed by the total for all expenses. Subtotals assist the finance department in analyzing expenses.
- Finally, all expenses mentioned above must be accompanied by receipts. The receipts can either be scanned or photocopied depending on whether the report is being submitted digitally.
- Reports are submitted to the line manager or department manager for validation and fraud detection.
- As soon as they approve the report, it is forwarded to the finance department for reimbursement.
Automated expense reporting
The use of expense report templates is a quick way to keep track of expenses for small businesses.
The problem arises when your business grows, at which point the process of filling out a report, even if using a template, can become a time-consuming task.
When multiple departments process several expense reports a day, it is important to switch to an automated expense reporting solution like Pluto, so that these reports can be tracked and managed more efficiently.
- Pluto enables employees to create expense reports on the fly. Their receipts need to be captured digitally or filled out in the mandatory fields within the application.
- By grouping all the expense claims together, a report can be created and submitted effortlessly.
- Pluto also provides virtual and physical cards, so the expense data are booked straight into the platform for later use.
- Line managers and department managers review reports to identify policy violations, fraud, duplicate expenses, or warnings about them.
How to simplify the expense reporting process
While expense reports are important when it comes to gaining an overall view of the way money is moving, creating them can be a hassle when your organization incurs too many expenses to keep track of manually.
However, there are a few ways that you can simplify your expense reporting. These include:
Switching to expense reporting software
The first step in expense management is to file expense reports. You must also maintain policy compliance, reimburse expenses on time, and conduct successful expense audits to stay on top of your business expenses.
This is where Pluto can help. By providing multiple ways to record expenses on the go, we eliminate the need for manual data entry and paperwork. You can benefit from an expense management solution by:
- Generating and submitting reports automatically;
- The ability to support multiple expense policies and spend limits;
- Eliminates policy violations and fraudulent expenditures
- Analytical reports and intuitive dashboards increase spend visibility
With all of these features, you can save time and money while keeping your employees productive.
Make expenses easy to report and track
Provide your employees with Pluto real-time reporting system where they can track expenses, submit receipts, and report business expenses.
Business expense reports can be updated in real-time using online or smartphone apps, and receipt images can be added for total transparency, if you use digital technology.
Time-stamping and expense classification make it easy to catch fraud, which is beneficial to both you and your employees.
Embrace mobile devices
By scanning receipts and automatically extracting and reporting the key data, Pluto saves your employees' time and improves their expense reporting accuracy.
It makes perfect sense for you to use an app that allows your employees to track expenses easily from their phones since most (if not all) of your employees spend a lot of time on their smartphones.
Set up a routine audit
Ensure that you also incorporate a routine audit process into your business expense report policies. Your expense report should be audited quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending on the number of expenditures your employees incur.
You can catch fraud cases through audits, but you can also understand where the biggest expenditures are and reduce them.
Routine audits can also help you improve management and tracking of your business expenses by letting you know how to refine your reporting process.
Automated expense reporting with Pluto
Pluto allows you to issue virtual cards and physical cards and that immediately solves two things:
- No need for petty cash or out of pocket expenses;
- Real-time reporting of all the incurred expenses;
The spend management system allows you to issues cards for a particular employee, vendor, or even expense type.
It also allows you to set the limits on the go, and see all the expenses in the real-time report. All that, while your employees can easily categorize the expenses and upload the physical receipts just by taking a photo on their mobile device.
Reporting expenses manually is very time consuming, but having them all digitally stored and automatically reported solves the problem.
Key takeaways
Expense reports are a crucial aspect of the financial bookkeeping of any business organization. Not only are they important for knowing how much money is being spent by the company, whether as a whole or for a specific project, but also for the purpose of reimbursing employees for business-related expenses.
Plus, they also help you with budgeting, tax reporting, and cost control measures.
You can easily create an expense report using a premade or personalized template, but you’ll have a much easier time in the long run if you start using Pluto.
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Vlad Falin
The Role of Accounts Payable Automation in Modern Accounting Practices
From receiving goods to clearing payments, it is not a single-click process. Multiple steps in between make the accounts payable process tedious and time-consuming.
You receive goods, match them with purchase orders and invoices, send the invoices for approval, make the payment, and finally, maintain records for bookkeeping. This process alone takes weeks and creates confusion when multiple stakeholders are involved.
Think about purchases above $50,000. There are multiple approvals, and each purchase triggers a unique workflow. Documents are not consolidated, and no one has a clear idea of the payment status.
Thus, accounts payable become chaotic.
Can You Automate Accounts Payable?
To streamline your accounts payable process, you can use tools to automate it. This will simplify bill payments and give you more visibility and control over money.
While it will take time for stakeholders and employees to embrace automation, you can consolidate your scattered pieces on a centralized platform. If you are looking for suitable AP automation tools for your company, check out our list of the top accounts payable automation software.
This post will delve deeper into how you can automate the accounts payable process and how it will help your business.
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What is the Accounts Payable Automation Process?
Accounts payable automation uses tools to automate invoice verification, approval workflow, payment processing, and bookkeeping.
Instead of manually organizing, matching, approving, and clearing invoices, the entire process goes on a digital platform to provide visibility and control at each step. So, earlier, employees would spend hours getting approvals and days clearing payments, but now, an automation tool reduces the invoice processing time.
The platform captures and extracts the invoice from emails via optical character recognition (OCR). The invoice goes to the platform with all the critical information, such as purchase order and simplifies three-way matching. A trigger-based approval workflow notifies the stakeholders to approve invoices. The admin gets complete visibility of each step and clears the payment without going through a variety of software.
How to Automate Accounts Payable
Automating accounts payable is as simple as choosing and integrating the right automation software with your existing accounting and procurement software.
The automation software offers visibility into where the money is going and control over the entire process. You can customize the approval workflows and payment gateways and create an ecosystem that supports your procurement process. You can accommodate manual processes and integrate them with other software without going through a complete flip.
With the right automation software, you bring all the critical stages of accounts payable on a centralized platform. Here are the five key steps you can automate:
1. Invoice Management
Manual: The vendor sends an invoice to a dedicated email or a physical copy via fax or mail. The employee receives it and moves from one stakeholder to another for approval. The process is delayed for days if any manager is unavailable. Once the approval is complete, all the documents go to the accounting team, who clears the payment.
Automated: Depending on how the vendor sends the invoice, the automation platform captures the invoice from email or WhatsApp. If you receive a physical invoice, you can upload the invoice, and the system extracts all the vital information via OCR. There's no need to manually enter details or add a general ledger (GL) and taxation code. The system captures, extracts, and consolidates all the invoices.
2. GRN Matching
Manual: The dedicated team receives goods along with the goods receipt note (GRN) and must match it with the invoice and purchase order. This ensures that the specified goods are received as per the purchase order. Manually, this process is prone to errors, leading to discrepancies. It demands accuracy to ensure you receive the correct items in specified quantities.
Automated: Automated software makes this easy by combining all the relevant documents on a single platform. The dedicated team has the invoice and purchase order side by side, making it easy to compare items, purchase orders, and invoices for three-way matching. As a result, spotting discrepancies becomes more manageable, reducing the chances of errors.
3. Approval Workflow
Manual: Once the invoice is received, the employee gets it approved by dedicated managers. Based on the invoice amount, they need more than a single approval. Manually, this means going from one office to another or delving into long threads of email or Slack conversations. It becomes difficult for accounting teams to track approval and clear payments.
Automated: With automated software, each invoice triggers an approval workflow for relevant stakeholders to approve the payments. The admin can create custom no-code workflows based on different if-then rules. For instance, marketing purchases above $50,000 will have more approvals than expenses of $5,000. Also, all the relevant teams will have visibility into the approval status, making it easier to clear payments on time without confusion.
4. Payment Processing
Manual: Once the invoice is approved, the accounting team determines the details and pays via checks, cards, or other payment methods. It takes a few days before the payment is cleared, and the teams need to sync all the information across the accounting software for reconciliation.
Automated: With automation, accounting teams and employees enjoy more flexibility. For instance, Pluto offers corporate cards, payment gateway integration, and a digitization platform for bookkeeping.
- With corporate cards, you can create custom vendor-specific cards with advanced controls to ensure payments are made only for approved vendors.
- Pluto integrates directly with your payment gateways to facilitate payment within the platform.
- If you make payments via checks or other physical modes, Pluto will act as a digital bookkeeping platform. You can enter the payments made on the centralized platform and ensure that all the information is streamlined.
5. Reconciliation
Manual: Reconciliation is the messiest part of accounts payable. Teams must maintain records, manually enter all the details, and sync them across the accounting platforms and ERPs. It is time-consuming, prone to errors, and tricky in case of purchases where one invoice invites multiple tax and GL codes.
Automated: Automation consolidates all the information on a single platform without manual data entry. It uses OCR to extract all the critical information with a feature to upload the invoices in bulk. Further, you can split the transactions to add multiple tax and GL codes to address the audit season rush.
How Accounts Payable Automation Simplifies the Procurement Process
Accounts payable automation is not just for the procurement or the accounting department. It also makes it easier for stakeholders to approve the payments and employees to get timely resources.
Overall, it assists you in bringing together scattered parts of the procurement process. Here are reasons why you must invest in accounts payable automation:
1. Improve Compliance
You get complete visibility and control over your accounts payable. You can create custom workflows to ensure that any purchase that goes against the company policy is rejected. You can also accommodate intricate hierarchies to suit your organization's needs and get timely approvals.
2. Avoid Double Payments
It is usual for teams to end up paying the same invoice twice as no one has visibility into the payment status. It happens when the same invoice is paid twice by different team members or when vendors send the same invoice twice, and both get paid. You can avoid this as the software detects duplicate invoices and gives visibility into the status of invoices. The main dashboard highlights the pending invoices and the ones awaiting approval. It becomes easy to stay on top of all the invoices and avoid errors.
3. Faster Approvals and Matching
You get a trigger-based no-code approval workflow engine where you can create customized workflows to accommodate intricate hierarchies. The software notifies the stakeholders to review and approve the invoices. Since all the information is available on a single dashboard, two-way or three-way matching is a matter of a few minutes. This accelerates the approval process, and payments are disbursed much faster. It improves the vendor relationship without risking over, under, or delayed payments.
4. Better Reconciliation
You get all the relevant documents consolidated on a single platform with the appropriate purchase. Additionally, the software automates the coding and categorization, simplifying the reconciliation process. In case of discrepancies, spotting errors becomes easy. Moreover, with features like locking the approved payments and restricted access for auditing, you can eliminate the chances of fraud or manipulation.
5. Accuracy
You improve the accuracy of your records and GRN matching with all the information streamlined on a single platform. Moreover, as the software relies on OCR, you eliminate the need for manual data entry, reducing the chances of errors. Also, you can integrate the automation software with your accounting platform and ERPs to sync data and ensure consistency across the platforms.
6. Centralized Dashboard
You get a centralized dashboard with all the key information available in a unified place, acting as a single source of truth. Additionally, you get insights that can help in data-driven decision-making to facilitate procurement cost savings. Further, you can view all the awaiting payments and approvals on a dedicated dashboard. You no longer need to run from one platform to another for information as the software integrates with your accounting system.
7. Accessibility
The unavailability of a single person can create bottlenecks in the approval process and block the supply chain. With all the information streamlined on a single platform, each stakeholder can access relevant data for decision-making. So, whether the CEO is traveling or the CFO is not at the office, they can access the details from any corner of the world and avoid disruption in the supply chain.
8. Visibility
You get visibility for each step, each document, and each purchase. You can bring the entire procurement automation on a single platform and track the status in real time. Whether an employee raises a request, gets an invoice, or needs to clear payment, you will stay on top of the information without creating any delays or friction.
Automation is Easy With the Right Software
Adopting automation software isn’t easy, especially for critical processes like accounts payable, which also involve external stakeholders. The top three factors to look for in appropriate software are flexibility, visibility, and integration.
Choose one that integrates with your existing processes and systems and is flexible enough to accommodate complex hierarchies. Instead of focusing solely on the accounting or procurement team, it should cater to all the key stakeholders and make automation easier to adopt.
At Pluto, we aim to bring a balance among the spenders (employees), the savers (finance teams), and the sourcers (procurement teams). Each stakeholder gets visibility, and decision-makers get flexibility. Pluto integrates with your current system and enables you to automate accounts payable without affecting the supply chain.
You can also automate your entire procurement process with Pluto and improve your bottom line. Read more in our procurement automation post.
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Mohammed Ridwan
How to Improve the Expense Reconciliation Process to Close Books Faster
For every expense, teams maintain extensive documents like purchase orders, goods received notes (GRN), invoices, etc. With each increasing expense, the finance team has to spend more and more time on spend management — maintaining these documents, syncing data across accounting systems, ensuring proper approval, categorizing accurately, etc.
This manual process is time-consuming and prone to errors like missing receipts, employee fraud, unrecorded expenses, data entry typos, etc.
As a result, teams have inconsistent data across company systems and spend more time fixing these issues than focusing on their core activities. So, when finance teams strive to improve budget allocations, streamline expense tracking, and enhance financial reporting, they find themselves dedicating substantial time to addressing discrepancies among different financial databases and systems.
This blog will cover improving the expense reconciliation process and replacing manual and old methods with an improved solution.
What is Expense Reconciliation?
Expense reconciliation is a process that matches the actual expenses with the corresponding book entries. It involves comparing two sets of financial records, such as bank statements, credit card statements, receipts, etc., to identify and rectify discrepancies between them.
So, for every expense, you have an entry at an external source and in the internal systems. You match them together to ensure the accuracy of financial reporting, compliance with accounting standards, and prevention of errors or fraud.
However, companies rely on outdated systems — entry-level accounting tools, spreadsheet-based solutions, or legacy ERPs, which cannot handle end-to-end reconciliation processes. These compel finance teams to spend valuable time on manual tasks like data entry and receipt management, hindering reconciliation efficiency and increasing the risk of errors in financial data.
Hence, submitting and tracking expenses becomes cumbersome for employees, while finance teams face manual verification and reconciliation challenges. Managers struggle with delayed approvals, and the overall process becomes susceptible to errors, affecting accuracy and compliance.
How to Reconcile Expenses Faster
Invest in spend management software to reconcile expenses faster. With spend management software, you can track and monitor each transaction on a centralized platform in real time.
The automated process makes reconciliation simpler and faster by providing a single source of information and enabling advanced controls. You can create customizable approval workflows and specify spending rules to suit complex hierarchies and ensure compliance with company policies.
Especially with Pluto, each expense triggers the approval workflow and notifies employees to upload the receipt through WhatsApp. The accounting system integration syncs data across the financial systems to provide a consistent and accurate database.
Here is how switching to Pluto helps you reconcile efficiently and close your books of accounts ten times faster:
1. Easy to Identify Discrepancies
In a traditional manual reconciliation process, identifying discrepancies involves sifting through piles of paperwork or navigating complex spreadsheets.
With Pluto's automated system, this cumbersome task is simplified. The platform's alert system actively flags potential issues, promptly notifying users of duplicate receipts. It not only streamlines the identification of irregularities but also introduces a proactive layer of fraud prevention.
You can visualize and interact with discrepancies directly on the centralized platform, turning what used to be a tedious task into a more intuitive and efficient process.
2. Speed and Accuracy
Automation, real-time tracking, receipt capture (via optical character recognition (OCR)), approval workflows, and robust controls accelerate reconciliation cycles on Pluto.
You need not spend a minute on a manual redundant task. The platform captures and extracts invoices from emails and WhatsApp on a centralized platform. The trigger-based workflows ensure prompt approvals without any friction. Matching documents for three-way and four-way matching simplifies with all the documents on a single tool.
Therefore, the inherent accuracy of financial data, coupled with efficient discrepancy identification, ensures speed and reliability in the reconciliation process.
3. Real-Time Tracking and Visibility
Unlike conventional tracking methods, Pluto offers real-time insights through its centralized dashboard. This furnishes internal teams with immediate visibility into transactions, guaranteeing proactive adherence to company policies.
The agility provided by real-time tracking enables timely data-driven decision-making based on the latest and most accurate data.
4. Better Data Sync for a True Picture
Manual data entry is prone to errors and delays, leading to discrepancies in financial records. Pluto's seamless integration with major accounting systems like Xero, Zoho, QuickBooks, Netsuite, and Dynamics ensures that the financial data is up-to-date and aligns with the organization's accounting records. This synchronization eliminates the need for manual adjustments and corrections, providing a true and accurate picture of the organization's financial status.
5. Enhanced Controls Over Processes
Building intricate approval workflows is simplified with Pluto. You can set up approval processes using simple if-then rules without the need for complex coding. Devise custom workflows that align perfectly with your company policies, creating a seamless and controlled process.
6. Traceable Audit Trail
Pluto maintains a traceable audit trail of all financial transactions and activities. It provides a comprehensive record of changes made to financial data. From the initiation of a transaction to any subsequent modifications, the traceable audit trail ensures transparency and accountability. This trail helps you avoid fraud and trackback discrepancies without friction.
Also, you can lock transactions post-approval, which adds an additional layer of security and integrity, facilitating smoother audits.
7. Save Time and Money
Automating financial processes, including procurement, expenses, and payables, significantly reduces manual steps in reconciliation.
Pluto's ability to capture general ledger and tax codes from expenses automates data entry. It reduces the time spent on routine reconciliation tasks. This efficiency allows finance teams to allocate resources more strategically, focusing on higher-value initiatives rather than repetitive manual tasks.
Timely financial insights help finance teams support decision-making processes with precision and confidence, fostering a data-driven financial ecosystem.
Internal Controls Strengthen Expense Reconciliation
Expense reconciliation burdens finance teams with time-consuming manual efforts and the constant threat of challenges like duplicate receipts and policy violations. These complexities lead to prolonged reconciliation cycles, hindering financial efficiency.
However, the actual progress happens when you strengthen internal control over financial reporting (ICFR), which is the anchor for successful automation in finance.
When you embrace ICFR strategically, it bolsters internal controls, protects against risks and fraud, and sets the stage for smooth automation. The impact goes beyond just easing manual work; it promotes precision, reliability, and transparency in financial workflows.
In simple terms, ICFR mitigates risks tied to financial inaccuracies. Read how to improve your ICFR framework for enhanced reconciliation processes.
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Mohammed Ridwan
Top 9 Procure-to-Pay Software for Enterprises
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
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:
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.
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The product and services mentioned on this webpage belong to Pluto Technologies Ltd (Pluto), a company incorporated under the laws of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Dubai holding commercial license number CL5294. Pluto is a financial technology provider and not a bank. Pluto provides certain facilities for the utilization of payment services through Nymcard Payment Services LLC under the applicable payment network and Bank Identification Number Sponsorship of Mashreq Bank PSC. This is pursuant to the license by Visa® Inc and is available for the residents of UAE subject to Terms and Conditions of use