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“Have I paid that vendor yet?” you ask yourself as you sort through the dozens of invoices you’ve received this month. Definitely not the way you wanted to spend your Friday afternoon.
As your small business grows, manually managing accounts payable (AP) processes becomes more challenging, time-consuming and error-prone.
Enter accounts payable software. These platforms can automate processes like invoice management and payment processing while syncing to your accounting software to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
This article offers an overview of the six best accounts payable software solutions for small businesses so you can find just the right platform for your needs. We’ll also give you a list of the features you should look for when choosing a platform, plus tips for how to make your decision.*
Financial admin eating up too much of your time? We can take it off your plate
Automate your accounts payable processes with Juni and free up your day for more impactful work.
*The information about all the platforms discussed in this article was collected between 9 January 2024 and 11 January 2024. This article was written and approved by Juni and is intended as marketing material.
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Whenever you’re researching software, whether that be an accounts payable solution or inventory management platform, you need to be clear on what functionalities your business needs. So before we get into our list, here are some features you should prioritise when selecting accounts payable software:
Let’s take an in-depth look at our list of software. For each platform, we’ll list its features (as well as its limitations), explain how pricing works and point out what kind of business it’s best fit for.
Juni’s platform for ecommerce entrepreneurs comes with automated accounts payable features that can help you run simpler, tighter and more accurate financial admin. With Juni, it takes just seconds to auto-collect, pay and even finance your invoices.
By collecting and scanning your invoices automatically, then pre-filling all the important payment details, Juni saves you time and reduces the risk of human error. You can also automatically import your receipts and invoices with your dedicated Juni inbox for effortless spend management, plus match receipts to transactions.
What’s more, if you need to reduce pressure on your cash flow cycles, Juni offers financing options for certain types of payments, giving you up to 120 days to pay.*
The platform goes beyond accounts payable features, also offering business accounts and cards, features to optimise cash flow management, powerful accounting automations, fast transfers and storefront integrations.
Most suitable for: Ecommerce entrepreneurs and small businesses
Juni has two plan options:
You can try our Scale plan for free for the first 30 days.
Based in Copenhagen, Pleo is a business spending solution with built-in AP automation software. Pleo’s invoice management features make it easy to capture, process, approve, pay and bookkeep invoices in a central location. With over 50 supported currencies, Pleo users can seamlessly pay vendors across the world.
Most suitable for: Companies that need to pay invoices in several currencies
Pleo has three plan options:
Spendesk is a spend management platform with accounts payable features like invoice automation and approval workflows, giving you greater control over the invoicing lifecycle and your AP processes. By using Spendesk, you can minimise (or eliminate) manual data entry for your invoicing processes, plus get real-time insights into your spending patterns.
Most suitable for: SaaS, tech and fintech companies
Spendesk doesn’t list its pricing options, so you’ll have to reach out to sales to get a quote
Sage Intacct’s cloud-based invoicing software helps small business owners and finance teams automate invoice management with the power of AI. For example, simply upload or email an invoice, and the software will automatically extract details and populate fields for your approval. The platform can also detect duplicate invoices, helping you stay in control of your expenses and avoid costly errors.
Most suitable for: Businesses that need powerful analytics tools
Sage Intacct has three plans for its accounts payable software. All plans come with three months free:
While SAP Concur isn’t specifically designed for small businesses, it’s still a good fit for solopreneurs and SMBs looking to automate their AP processes. The platform automates invoicing processes, meaning you can pay suppliers quickly without constantly having to double-check invoices and complete transactions yourself.
Most suitable for: Businesses with immediate plans to scale
SAP Concur doesn’t list its pricing options, so you’ll have to reach out to sales to get a quote.
Visma is the parent organisation for a number of accounting and invoicing solutions across Europe. It has designated products for 15 different EU countries, such as Visma eKonomi, its designated Swedish accounting platform. Visma eKonomi has basic AP features for paying vendors, but it has a range of other accounting features that can help you streamline your financial admin as a whole.
Most suitable for: Small businesses in Sweden
Visma platform prices range depending on which country you operate in and the Visma product you select. Visma eEkonomi has three plans that come with supplier invoicing features:
You can have all the software comparison guides in the world available to you, but if you aren’t intentional about your decision, you may end up choosing software that falls short for your needs. Here are a few steps you can take to help you make the right decision when selecting an accounts payable platform for your small business.
By digitising the traditionally paper-intensive process of handling invoices and payments, AP software is not only more efficient than manual processes, but also minimises the possibility of errors, like a missed or incorrect payment. Having more visibility over invoices, due dates and your general spending patterns can help you maintain tighter control over your financial operations.
But to get the most out of a platform, you need to make sure you’re choosing the right one for your needs. For example, if you run an online storefront, you’ll want to choose a solution like Juni that has the specific needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs in mind.
By choosing a software solution that’s a good fit for you, you’ll make your business more agile, resilient and competitive. Meanwhile, you’ll get back more time in the day to focus on what you most love about running your company, whether that’s marketing your product, interacting with customers or finding ways to scale.
Financial admin eating up too much of your time? We can take it off your plate
Automate your accounts payable processes with Juni and free up your day for more impactful work.
*Juni Invoices is available for EU-based companies only. Media financing is available for companies registered in NL, SE, DE, FR, ES, IT, FI and NO, upon eligibility. Fees and terms and conditions apply. Click here for more details.
Accounts payable automation software helps businesses manage and track the money they owe to suppliers, vendors and other parties. Essentially, this type of software helps business owners and finance departments handle their payment processes by recording invoices, tracking due dates and organising information.
While you can manually manage your accounts payable process, this approach can be time-consuming and error-prone. A better way to keep track of accounts payable is by using specialised accounts payable software that tracks and pays your invoices for you.
You can automate accounts payable processes by using specialised software. These platforms handle a number of tasks, including:
"Only six more to go," you tell yourself as you upload yet another receipt to your accounting software. We all know the pain of searching for receipts across emails and platforms and trying to match them to expenses.
This becomes even more challenging the larger your business becomes and the more vendors you have to pay. You can avoid most of that frustration and wasted time with the right spend management software.
But not all spend management platforms will be a good fit for your business. For example, digital commerce companies need solutions that take into account sector-specific expenses like ad receipts and multiple platform payments, while small businesses need tools that simplify their financial admin, not complicate it.
This article takes a look at the six best spend management software solutions so you can find just the right platform for your needs. We’ll also give you a list of the features you should look for when choosing a platform, plus tips for how to make your decision.*
Spend less time on spend management
With real-time spend overviews, receipt matching automation and powerful integrations, Juni will make you forget what a hassle managing your expenses used to be.
*The information about all the platforms discussed in this article was collected between 17 January 2024 and 19 January 2024. This article was written and approved by Juni and is intended as marketing material.
Before taking a closer look at the tools on our list, here are six features your spend management software (also known as expense management software) should come with:
Bonus: Look out for spend management platforms that come with built-in accounts payable and invoice automation features, which will help you centralise your financial admin and save time.
Now, let's explore the solutions on our list in depth. For each platform, we’ll list its key features (as well as its limitations), explain how pricing works and point out what kind of business it’s best fit for.
Juni helps businesses in digital commerce manage their cash flow, track their expenses and optimise their profits with features that are specifically designed with ecommerce companies in mind.
While it’s not specifically expense management software, you can use the platform for your spend management needs. Juni's goal is to give everyone in digital commerce, from the CFO to the accounting team to marketing managers, everything they need to focus on business growth.
Juni’s expense management features are especially valuable for users who have multiple receipts coming from different media buying channels and online transactions. With Meta and Google Ads integrations, plus powerful receipt matching, expense management suddenly becomes easy. On top of that, you can also manage your unpaid invoices and accounts payable processes within Juni, bringing your financial admin under one roof.
All of this comes with easy access to media and inventory financing for up to 2 million EUR, helping you free up your cash flow and grow your business.*
*Juni Invoices is available for EU-based companies only. Media financing is available for companies registered in NL, SE, DE, FR, ES, IT, FI and NO, upon eligibility. Fees and terms and conditions apply. Click here for more details.
Most suitable for: SMBs and mid-market companies in digital commerce
Juni has two plan options:
SAP Concur helps you streamline processes to deliver efficiency savings, with a focus on eliminating manual data entry, lost receipts and unclaimed VAT refunds. As such, it’s best suited to larger organisations. The platform helps you reduce the risk of human error and compliance issues with automations, plus the software can identify potential mistakes and discrepancies in real-time.
Most suitable for: Larger and enterprise organisations
SAP Concur doesn’t list its pricing options, so you’ll have to reach out to sales to get a quote.
Zoho Expense is the business expense tracking app from the Zoho suite of business tools, which means it integrates with Zoho’s other financial management apps. It’s a reasonably priced platform suited to handling all aspects of expense management and reporting for SMBs. Zoho Expense automatically records expenses from receipts, simplifying and automating the expense reporting process.
Most suitable for: People already using other Zoho products (namely Zoho Books)
Zoho Expense has three plans for its spend management software:
Expensify is a spend management solution for keeping track of business expenses on the go. Most of the expense management functionality can be done on your phone, while a series of handy integrations help to automate and streamline processes around uploading and allocating receipts. Plus, it’s easy for employees to create and submit expense reports for quick reimbursement.
Most suitable for: Small businesses with lots of employee expenses
Expensify has two plans:
One of the many features of smart accounting software QuickBooks is its built-in expense management tool. There are obvious advantages to expenses being handled via your accounting platform, like how easy it is to claim business expenses for tax purposes. And when you connect your bank to the platform, QuickBooks automatically matches and organises your receipts to transactions.
Most suitable for: Businesses who want more comprehensive accounting tools built into their spend management software
Quickbooks has five plans:
Fortnox is a cloud-based accounting software platform based in Sweden that helps businesses manage their accounting and bookkeeping processes, as well as other financial admin like spend management. Users can take photos of receipts and instantly upload them via a mobile app, and the platform automatically fills in date, amount and VAT.
Most suitable for: Businesses that operate in Sweden
Fortnox has three plans:
The information in this guide can help you make your decision, but ultimately, you need to factor in considerations about your business and its needs when choosing a platform. Here are three things you can do to ensure you’re choosing an ideal solution.
As you’ll notice from the list above, different software solutions are more suitable for different business industries and sizes. For example, Juni is spend management software built with the needs of ecommerce companies in mind. So when researching a platform, pay close attention to what type of business (big or small, ecommerce or SaaS) it’s best suited for.
While it shouldn’t be the only factor that guides your decision, you can’t ignore pricing when choosing a solution. You need to find a healthy balance between a platform you can afford (and doesn't go over budget) that still gives you all the key features and functionalities you need to run smarter, more efficient financial admin.
You may be a small business now, but if you have plans of scaling in the future, you want to make sure your expense management solution can scale with you. Juni, for example, caters to both SMBs as well as mid-market companies, meaning we can provide the solutions you need from the time your business is founder-led to when it has 100+ employees.
While you can never remove expense management from your to-do list, you can find a platform that does most of the work for you. The best spend management software is one that not only simplifies financial operations but also contributes to strategic decision-making and the long-term financial health of your organisation.
To find a platform that does all that, you need to make sure you’re making your selection with the unique needs of your business in mind. For example, if you operate in digital commerce, you want to choose a solution like Juni that comes with ecommerce-specific capabilities, like features designed specifically for media buying and online transactions.
So take your time finding the right platform—doing so can lead to significant time savings and valuable insights into spending patterns, helping you improve the overall financial health and success of your business.
Spend less time on spend management
With real-time spend overviews, receipt matching automation and powerful integrations, Juni will make you forget what a hassle managing your expenses used to be.
Spend management software is a platform or tool that helps businesses manage and control their expenses. This type of solution usually includes features for receipt management, expense reporting and approval workflows. Plus, these platforms often integrate with accounting software, as well as sync with banks and credit cards.
There are a number of benefits to using spend management software to control your expenses, including:
The price of expense management software varies depending on the size of your business and what industry you operate in, as this will impact which platform you choose. Prices range from as low as £7 per month to almost £100, and some spend management systems also offer free plans to certain users.
For most ecommerce brands, the last few years have cemented something they’ve known all along: in ecommerce, no two years are ever alike.
2023 will be no different. Recessions and the cost of living crisis will be hitting consumers' wallets, impacting many ecommerce businesses and leaving them with less spend for traditional brand-building activities like ads, PR and social.
All the while, the struggle to create content that breaks through is more challenging than ever. The number of businesses selling online skyrocketed during the pandemic, meaning there’s more competition than ever when it comes to getting your content in front of the right audience.
In this blog, we’ll examine the six defining strategies we believe all ecommerce businesses should consider to grow their brands over the next 12 months – all with a bit of help from Nick Knuppe, Senior Director of Marketing at Juni.
While next year looks increasingly unpredictable, Nick suggests it’s important to “go into 2023 focusing on what you can predict with confidence.”
There are several key areas where Nick suggests shifting focus to:
Customers who have bought from you are more likely to buy again if they have a good product or customer experience. Focus on maximising their value with consistent nurturing like newsletters and offering exclusive discounts. If something goes wrong, especially for complaints in a public forum, handling an issue well with a good outcome can lead to a valued customer.
Past data is a valuable tool to know where to prioritise your resources, especially if you’re looking at a smaller budget. If you aren’t already, consider moving towards a data-driven strategy with consistent measurement.
Nick suggests you should “examine past data to understand which channels are your best performing and most cost-effective. Kill or pause the ones that aren’t.”
Although going into such an unpredictable year can feel daunting, you’re not alone. “There are hundreds of businesses like yours going through the same challenges,” says Nick. “Seek out partnerships to cross-pollinate your products and promotions.”
Your product is both your brand and your marketing investment. Now’s the time to get smarter with price promotions, gift with purchase or trade exchanges with advertising publishers.
In a downturn, battening down the hatches and waiting for the storm to end can seem like the easy option. But it’s not always the best one.
Instead, when money is tight, investment needs to be focussed on the balance between nurturing both your current and new customers. Nick suggests moving away from generic, industry-standard ‘self-help’ content and doubling down on highly targeted, localised campaigns that focus on building an internal, professional community. The right community can deliver cost-effective engagement, feedback and retention.
Succeeding with this approach in an efficient way requires smart investment that factors in spending across the entire company. “Surviving and growing during a downturn is all about balance. So you need to clearly understand all your key KPIs like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), ROI, CAC, LTV, and gross margin. It’s all about the complete picture.”
The brands that combine this level of financial detail with targeted investment will give themselves a great chance of growth going into the next 12 months.
We understand that not all ecommerce brands will have the cash flow to maintain marketing spend. No matter how efficient they are.
Those brands can still grow in 2023, but they need to stay visible.
When sales are down and the focus is on fighting fires elsewhere in the business, it can be easy to take your eye off your community. But rebuilding those connections once the good times roll back around is hard.
Luckily, there are several low-cost ways to stay visible in a meaningful way that can result in leads further down the line:
If your content is experiencing high engagement, identify what’s working and continue testing that theme, format or channel. If not, then start experimenting. Consistency isn’t just about choosing the right content - it’s also important to post regularly to build visibility.
With fewer sales going out the door, you’ve got time to get personal. Consider handwritten notes and small freebies in your parcels. These will likely then be shared on social media.
Encourage customers to share success stories and problems they've had – and how they solved them. Profile customers or interview them on their experiences and stories.
Founder and staff profiles are a great way to grow your brand image further and share what makes you and the team tick.
Respond to comments with feedback, ask follow-up questions and tag other customers. By actively engaging with your community, you can build support for your brand beyond purchases with customers by spreading the word on social channels and giving honest and insightful feedback.
For consumers today, it’s all about authenticity, with 88% saying it’s a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support. When people perceive that a brand is distinct and aligns with their personal values, it's a powerful competitive advantage.
But brands must go beyond just talking a good game and actually be the change they claim to want. “There’s always going to be a new trend to follow, so make sure you’re not just jumping on the bandwagon,” Nick cautions. “Customers will see right through this, and it’s a lot easier to be destroyed by public opinion than to build public support.”
Take sustainability. Are you examining your supply chains? Adjusting your packaging and materials? If not, should you be posting about how important that stuff is? But if you are, that gives you a platform to have these incredible conversations and create experiences that can resonate with customers. Plus, you’re saving the world!
Whatever your mission, as you work towards it, make sure to shout about your wins. Encourage your community to join in. Partner with your competitors on industry-leading projects. Show your community that this is more than just lip service.
Then, shout about your losses too. “Sharing mistakes,” says Nick, “makes your business feel more human and adds another layer of accountability.”
It feels like an odd thing to say about a platform with over 1bn users, but from an advertising point of view, TikTok is still relatively untapped by direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands.
DTC brands are still pushing the majority of ad spend on other channels. On average, 20% is spent on Google/search, 17% on Facebook, and 12% on Instagram and YouTube.
In contrast, the average spend on TikTok is just 3.7%, making it potentially fertile ground for brands willing to take the risk, but you’ll need to act fast.
DTC ad spending on TikTok surged 231% over the past year, hitting $30m in Q2 of 2022, the highest growth among all major platforms. This is less surprising as TikTok is now the most valuable platform for DTC advertisers, with costs considerably lower than Facebook and other major social media companies.
All of this can contribute to brand growth in 2023. The short videos that TikTok is built around are proven high-performers, offering the highest ROI of any social media strategy. While the platform’s video editing capabilities are a great way for brands to showcase who they really are.
We especially like Gymshark’s strategy. The fitness brand’s approach to the platform has seen it gain over 4m followers at a relatively low cost by utilising fitness influencers, a constant stream of viral videos, user-focused and generated content, giveaways and more.
In the UK, almost nine-in-ten consumers are planning to reduce their spending over the year ahead by stopping non-essential purchases, with the typical UK household cutting £887 of its discretionary spend through to April 2023.
“For brands to grow in this environment,” says Knuppe, “they have to be seen to be solving an essential problem.”
That doesn’t mean changing your product but the positioning of your brand. Again, this all comes back to focusing on your key customer profiles. If you can truly understand that group, their challenges will become clear, and you can position your brand and products correctly.
To find out more about your customers, look at your social followers or who’s engaging with your ads. There are great in-house tools like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics or external platforms like Hootsuite and Followerwonk to help.
Once you’ve identified your customers, the next step is understanding their challenges—the best way to do this is simply by talking to them. Engage in the comments, send out surveys, and create WhatsApp groups. Not only will this give you a deeper level of understanding and guidance on positioning – but that level of engagement can help build your community.
Whatever the budget or financial restraints, ecommerce brands must attempt to build an authentic identity and narrative that genuinely reflects their work. This means investing efficiently and positively while resisting the urge to cut where possible. Meanwhile, those that cannot afford to invest should focus on community building and lead generation.
While 2023 will undoubtedly have its challenges, it also invites you to innovate and get creative to keep brand growth on a stable trajectory.
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