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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.
You’ve hit the jackpot with an ad that’s working like a dream. Products are flying out of your warehouse until… suddenly, unexpectedly, your bestseller is out of stock.
Maybe in that very same warehouse, forgotten and gathering dust, are products you ordered more than five years ago. They’re not selling, but you’re still paying for storage space.
If there’s a chance your business could find itself in those situations—or you generally waste too much time planning your inventory—it’s probably time to get some inventory management software.
A good inventory management system will help you to reorder in the right quantities and at the right times, show you which products are not shifting and give you the insights you need to make smarter inventory decisions.
This article walks you through seven options for the best inventory management software for ecommerce businesses, plus gives you tips that will help you choose the right tool for your business.
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*The information about all the platforms discussed in this article was collected between 7 February 2024 and 9 February 2024. This article was written and approved by Juni and is intended as marketing material. It was last updated on February 22, 2024.
Ever get halfway through a recipe just to realise you don’t have enough of an ingredient? You could have sworn you had enough butter, but somehow, you’re caught short. Wrapping your head around your own kitchen’s inventory and stock can be hard enough—and doing so for your ecommerce business is exponentially more complicated.
It’s not just about making sure you have the right products in stock: You also need to avoid purchasing too many items that don’t sell quickly—no one wants unsold stock taking up space in their warehouse and holding up cash flow. An inventory management system can help you avoid this.
Here’s why choosing the right tool should be at the top of your inventory management checklist:
Looking at the bigger picture, strategic inventory management and tactical buying is crucial for optimising cash flow, which makes or breaks your ability to grow your business. The right inventory management software can help you understand stock levels while forecasting future demand so you can make the right buying decisions. So now, let’s take a look at the best tools.
Inventory management means different things to different people, and some of the tools you’ll find on the market are inventory tracking software for retail—not necessarily ecommerce. Others meet the needs of distributors, manufacturers and specific industries.
However, these seven tools work particularly well for ecommerce. Let’s take a closer look.
inFlow Inventory is an all-in-one inventory software tool that incorporates tracking, pricing, packing and shipping for ecommerce businesses, with integrations for a range of platforms and accounting software.
The tool keeps track of every time you receive or fulfil an order, ensuring you always have access to real-time data on your stock (which you can track across multiple warehouses). In addition to its inventory tracking features, the software helps with other key processes like barcoding, manufacturing, purchase order management and sales.
inFlow Inventory has four plan options:
Netsuite Inventory Management is part of the Oracle Netsuite enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and integrates with other software in the range. By using historical data, the software can automatically generate tasks and alerts when an item needs to be replenished, ensuring you’re never caught with low or no stock.
The platform also comes with a built-in inventory cycle counting solution, and its Item 360 Dashboard gives you visibility over all the information you would need about your stock in one place. Just keep in mind that this solution is one of the most expensive options on this list.
NetSuite doesn’t list its pricing options, so you’ll have to reach out to sales to get a quote. Just be aware you’ll have to pay a monthly licensing fee on top of the Inventory Management module fee.
Pro tip: Netsuite integrates with Juni, meaning you can use the two platforms in unison to optimise your cash flow and keep your inventory and financial processes connected.
Veeqo markets itself as inventory management software for ecommerce—that’s clear from its features list, which includes integrations with all major ecommerce platforms. The software is actually owned by Amazon, making it a great solution for ecommerce businesses that sell on the marketplace.
In addition to inventory management features like automatic stock level updates and comprehensive inventory tracking, the software comes with shipping capabilities like label creation, order management and order scanning/packing.
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Veeqo is completely free to use because the platform financially benefits from shipping volume passed to partner shipping carriers. For more information on this, refer to the Veeqo website.
Cin7 is all about automation: Multichannel inventory management (or connected inventory performance, as Cin7 defines it) is at the heart of that. There’s a focus on optimising inventory levels via just-in-time automated stock management and granular inventory tracking.
The platform helps you increase profits with its Job Costing module, plus helps you streamline purchasing and procurement with forecasting tools and simplified supplier management. While Cin7 is a good fit for ecommerce businesses, it’s also suitable for distributors, manufacturers and wholesalers.
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Cin7 has four plan options:
Zoho Inventory is the web-based inventory software from Zoho’s suite of SaaS and business apps. It’s a comprehensive inventory tool for SMBs, and it boasts a clean UI. You can use the platform for processes like item management, customer lifecycle and vendor relations.
In addition to inventory management automation, Zoho Inventory comes with smart features like reporting and analytics, a SKU generator and reorder point calculations. Its built-in warehouse management features help you control the flow of stock, and multichannel selling makes it possible to consolidate all your sales onto a centralised dashboard.
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Zoho Inventory has five plan options:
Sellercloud’s features go beyond those of many of the tools in this list. It includes an inventory tracking system but also a wider suite of technology, including catalogue management, purchasing and accounting. The software’s pricing reflects this wide range of functionalities.
The platform manages and monitors stock levels across multiple channels and multiple warehouses, tracking your inventory from receiving to shipping. You can also set up automated alerts to prevent backorders and late shipments, plus reserve inventory for special promotions or preferred channels.
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Sellercloud doesn’t list its pricing options, so you’ll have to reach out to sales to get a quote. Just note that pricing starts at $1199/month. You can use the pricing calculator on the Sellercloud website to estimate your monthly rate.
Katana is aimed primarily at manufacturers, but because it targets small manufacturing businesses and those selling online, it also works well for ecommerce. The other key benefit of the manufacturing link is its end-to-end traceability features.
The software gives you real-time product visibility so you’re never caught short or order too much, and you can monitor stock levels across an unlimited number of locations. Katana also comes with purchase, sales order, production and warehouse management features, as well as real-time scheduling and master planning capabilities.
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Katana has five plan options:
To give you a better idea of what to prioritise when selecting a tool, here’s our list of features your inventory management software should have:
And here are some “nice to have” features that come with some inventory management software to make your life easier:
Ultimately, no one can decide what inventory management software is best for your business but you. Many of the tools have similar functionality and integrations because they all cater to ecommerce businesses. Nevertheless, the right platform for your inventory might be completely different from what works for another ecommerce company.
Take these steps to make an informed decision:
Using stock management software makes your life easier with automation features like inventory tracking and predictive ordering. What’s more, these tools also help you ensure you’re spending wisely and prevent you from tying up your money in unsold inventory—meaning you can put that money to good use to run ad campaigns, reach more customers, and grow your business.
But inventory management software isn’t the only way to optimise your spending. Juni, for example, comes with expense management features that help you spend more wisely, like real-time spend overviews and detailed reporting. The platform is an answer to ecommerce businesses’ needs to centralise financial operations, giving you all the features you need to stay on top of financial admin in one place.
What’s more, Juni Capital gives you options for invoice and inventory financing for up to 2 million EUR, helping you free up your cash flow and grow your business.* With the right software, inventory management becomes seamless and error-free, and you can make sure you’re using your resources to help your business grow.
*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.
Inventory management software is designed to help ecommerce businesses track and manage their inventory levels, orders, sales and deliveries. It can also be used to generate reports for inventory levels, orders and sales, ensuring that a business has the insights it needs to make informed decisions about stock levels and distribution.
If you’re looking for inventory management software that will fit the needs of your ecommerce business, some good options include:
The price of inventory management software varies depending on the size of your business and what features you need, as this will impact which platform you choose. Prices range from as low as $30 per month to over $1000, and some inventory management systems are free or offer free plans.
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