“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.
Keeping track of your spend can be difficult if you don’t have the right tools. We take you through the spend management process, the common challenges your finance team might face, and how you can solve them.
Spend management is the end-to-end process of handling business costs. This includes employee expenses, accounts payable and recording your payments in your accounting software.
To manage your spend step-by-step you should:
There are several challenges you and your team might face when it comes to managing spend. Later in this article, we’ll take you through how you avoid these with a streamlined spend management solution.
Scattered spend: When your spend is spread across different platforms and processes you can waste valuable time bringing it together or miss out on crucial costs due to lack of visibility.
Complicated expense policies: If you don’t have a clear policy or intuitive tools, employees can get confused. You may need to chase receipts, struggle with incomplete information, or end up with expenses that are out of the scope of your policy.
Making mistakes: Human error is common when you’re doing manual processes like matching or inputting transactions. Along with this being really time consuming, you could also be left questioning whether your data is correct.
High costs: If you can’t see all your spend clearly, you could be paying for things you don’t need. Legacy subscriptions, unexpected charges or unnecessary expenses could be hiding from view when you don’t have the right visibility.
Which right spend management solution is right for you will depend on your business needs. It’s important to find the right platform for your size and industry, perform a cost-benefit analysis, and understand how the solution can grow with your business to help you scale.
Using the right tools and setting up good processes can streamline your spend management, increase accuracy and save you valuable time which you can spend on high value tasks instead.
Juni is a spend management solution built for modern commerce, and designed to provide you with the tools and flexible capital you need to help you grow. Let’s take a look at how a solution like Juni can help you manage your spend efficiently.
Generally banks don’t offer spend management, and spend management solutions don’t offer features like virtual cards, business accounts or capital financing. So, this means you’re forced to create multiple accounts just to control your finances.
Managing your spend between several different platforms can be really challenging. It increases the risk of error, means more manual admin and can also incur higher costs.
But, this doesn’t have to be the case. Instead, you can simplify the process by choosing a spend management solution like Juni that brings it all together.
Playtech startup Boxbollen faced just this challenge. They switched to Juni which allowed them to track their spend in one place – and saw the benefits. “Being able to manage your payments, ad spend, and invoicing and credit within the same environment saves us a huge amount of time where previously we had to manage this on several different platforms,” says Jacob Eriksson, Co-Founder at Boxbollen. See how Boxbollen manages their seasonal spend.
To really have visibility of your business spend, you should have everything in one place:
Increased visibility can also help with reporting, giving you a clear overview to make informed decisions for your business. If you want to optimise your spend, unifying your payments in one intuitive dashboard can give you the information you need to spot trends, discover where you need to cut costs or where you can afford to invest for growth.
Employee expenses are a large part of spend management. A key part of implementing a good expense management policy is having the right tools to enable employee spend and ensure you don’t have an overwhelming amount of manual admin.
Virtual cards are an excellent way to distribute budget ownership, making each employee responsible for the expenses that go through their card – including their receipts. Virtual cards mean there’s no need for reimbursement, giving a smoother experience to both employees and finance teams.
The team at travel brand Carl Friedrik were looking for a way to improve managing their expenses and make financial admin more efficient, then they found Juni. “Having individual cards for our team members has not only made it easier to manage expenses but has also significantly enhanced financial efficiency and transparency by aiding in receipt tracking,” says Paulina Lejarza, Marketing Executive at Carl Friedrik. See how Carl Friedrink manage their expenses.
Handling receipts manually is a really time consuming process. So, choose a software that makes it simple for your employees to manage their receipts instead. With Juni, you can easily capture receipts and invoices by sending them to a receipt inbox or auto-collecting receipts from an email account.
Mobile payments can also enable expenses on the go, which not only allows you to track expenses in real time, but also makes it simple to capture receipts by snapping a picture.
Control is another key element of employee expense management, so make sure you can set controls to monitor, limit or block spend at card level.
Jewellery brand ANI Jewels were struggling to manage their spend as the business grew, sharing one card across the business. With Juni, “we set a budget with spending limits and controls for each employee, and after they’ve made their expenses they upload their receipt, so I can approve the statements,” says Tomaj Sangchi, CEO & Co-founder at ANI Jewels. “It’s been really easy, and has significantly enhanced time management and operational efficiency.” See how ANI Jewels have unlocked 3x faster financial admin.
For more information on how to set up an employee expenses policy, check out our guide.
Accounts payable (AP), like marketing and inventory spend, have a different set of needs from employee expenses, although there are some similarities.
Virtual cards can also offer a solution for accounts payable. When you can create an unlimited number of virtual cards, it’s up to you how you distribute them. For example, you can create cards for different subscriptions or marketing channels.
NUDIENT, a fashion tech brand, did just that. “Juni has enabled us to be highly agile in setting up new ad channels fast by providing different cards for each channel,” says Anton Höjding, Chief Marketing Officer at NUDIENT.
Settling your invoices can be simplified with automation. Juni collects and scans your invoices automatically and pre-fills all the important payment details. Then, pay your invoices in a few clicks including bulk payments, and schedule payments for any upcoming invoices too.
Sending and receiving money efficiently and in a cost effective way is another step in simplifying your AP. With Juni you can manage and move your money effortlessly with IBAN accounts in multiple currencies and low FX fees, and pay suppliers Europe, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US with fast and secure SEPA and SWIFT transfers (for EEA customers only).
NUDIENT have also streamlined processing their invoices by centralising their ad spend. “Using Juni is time-saving for us. Instead of having to process invoices from multiple suppliers every month, we only need to transfer money to our Juni account a few times each month,” says Anton. See how NUDIENT can move fast with efficient financial admin.
Automation can also play a key role in simplifying your accounts payable process.
Automating aspects of spend management can help you reduce errors and have faster financial admin.
Integrations like payment gateways, bank accounts, accounting software and storefronts like Amazon and Shopify can bring all your data together in one place, simplifying reporting and giving you an accurate view of your finances.
ANI Jewels have automated many of their processes with Juni, from inventory to expense management. “We integrated Juni with our accounting software, Fortnox, and our bank, Nordea, creating a cohesive system to automatically sync financial data across platforms. This has eliminated manual data entry errors and provided a real-time view of our financials,” says Tomaj.
Automated receipt and invoice matching can save a huge amount of time compared to doing this manually. Juni Match pulls and matches receipts and paid invoices at the click of a button. You can connect your Gmail account to auto-collect receipts from Meta, Shopify, Klaviyo and TikTok. You can also automatically import your receipts and invoices with your dedicated Juni inbox, and we automatically fill in the information via OCR for effortless spend management.
Internet-first taxi platform Sneleentaxi automated their day-to-day spend management with Juni. “Juni automatically matches the right Google Ads invoices to the right payments. This saves our financial department time,” says Sven Braam, Founding Partner at Sneleentaxi. See how Sneleentaxi took control of their expenses.
Doing your accounting is the final step of spend management. Although this may be handled in an accounting software like Fortnox or an ERP like Netsuite, there’s several ways your spend management solution can help you prepare and streamline the process.
Accounting integrations, like Juni’s two way integration with Fortnox, can make handling your transactions effortless. Pull dimensions, set up custom rules, tax codes and sync transactions to reduce manual admin.
Pre-accounting can help prepare your data for export, and save you time doing your bookkeeping in your accounting software. Create custom dimensions and effortlessly assign them to transactions, either individually or in bulk. Specify accounts, project codes, cost centres and VAT rates, and assign them to transactions in bulk. This means you can add information to lots of similar transactions at once. See how you can save time with pre-accounting.
Exporting your data needs to be effortless. Juni offers export via CSV or SIE to sync with your bookkeeping or ERP tool. With SIE fields, you can set a custom export format to configure your information to map to your ledgers correctly.
NUDIENT uses Juni’s export to cut down on financial admin. “All of our marketing expenses can be conveniently collected in one platform and then exported and added to our ERP once a month. This makes our bookkeeping process less complicated, as it requires fewer transactions than traditional invoices do,” says Anton.
For more information on how automated accounting workflows can save you time, check out our guide.
Many modern commerce businesses face a similar struggle: how do you bridge the gap between paying for stock and marketing, and recouping the cost with sales?
This challenge can be a big barrier to business growth. Luckily there’s a solution: flexible financing. Jacob, Co-Founder at Boxbollen was not only struggling with bridging this gap, but also with the cash flow challenges posed by scaling a seasonal business. With Juni, he has the capital he needs to continue Boxbollen’s growth trajectory.
“Juni’s credit products* enable us with the ability to grow at scale, whilst having visibility and control over the cost of scaling,” Jacob Eriksson, Co-Founder at Boxbollen.
By having credit and healthy cash flow, you may be able to negotiate better rates with your suppliers by paying upfront. Ultimately, flexible financing could help you increase your profit margins and plan your budget effectively.
The right tools can give you the solution you need to streamline your spend management, save valuable time and increase visibility of your finances. Ultimately, you’ll have all the information you need to make better decisions for your business, and operate cost effectively.
*Credit cards are available for companies registered in UK, NL, SE, DE, FR, ES, IT, NO, and FI, upon eligibility. Invoice credit is available for companies registered in SE, DE, NL, FR, ES, IT, NO and FI, upon eligibility. Fees and terms and conditions apply.
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