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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.
When you’re running a digital commerce business, a digital ad strategy is a must to help you reach new customers looking for your product. If you’re on a mission to optimise your Google Ads campaign, then SEO could be an unlikely hero to help you reach your goal.
There are lots of different aspects of SEO, from technical improvements to creating content. We will focus on the two areas we deem most relevant to improving your ads – keyword research and content optimisation.
Keyword research will help you learn what to bid on, what not to bid on, and which keywords to include in your ads. But you can go beyond simply choosing the right keywords by using SEO techniques to create awesome landing pages relevant to your customers. Doing so could improve your quality score and lower your cost-per-click (CPC).
What is SEO? SEO (search engine optimisation) does what it says: optimising your website or app for organic search. SEO aims to increase your search ranking, to easily be found when someone searches for something related to your product or service. So, how does SEO help your ads?
First, there are similarities between the two. Both hinge on relevance for search terms, so it stands to reason that by following specific SEO techniques, you’ll create a relevant ad that can reach potential customers.
A nice by-product of SEO on your landing page is that it could start ranking in organic search. A much-referenced study by Google shows that high organic page rankings can positively impact ad clicks. Although this isn’t a recent study, it does point to a clear benefit of pairing a high organic ranking with an ad: building trust.
If people see your page early in search results, it’s clear it’s a popular page, which creates trustworthiness. People are aware that ads are paid for, so showing up in organic search results also adds to your cred. As you can see, it pays to invest in SEO for your landing pages.
The first place to start when optimising your ads is with keyword research. Keyword research is finding which keywords you want to use in your ad campaign. These keywords will define which search terms to bid on if you’re doing keyword targeting, inform your ad copy, and help optimise your landing page.
When it comes to keyword research, you have a couple of options; Google Ads Keyword Planner or SEO tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs. Google Ads Keyword Planner is available in Expert Mode and can help you discover new keywords, see monthly search volume, see the cost of keywords and organise your keywords into categories. Meanwhile, SEO tools can provide similar data and additional information you can’t find in Google Ads, like search intent. You could use Google Ads Keyword Planner, an SEO tool, or both to do your research.
A great keyword has ‘high potential’. This means that the keyword has:
- High search volume: the number of people who search for your keyword
- Commercial or transactional intent: someone is looking to buy a product
- Reasonable CPC: the cost-per-click is within your budget
If you’re unsure where to start with your research, consider how potential customers would search for your product. Any customer research you have to deepen your understanding of your target market will be helpful.
Use your tool(s) to see information on your keywords to help determine if they’re high potential. In tools like SEMRush, you can look at related keywords that could also be relevant to your campaign. It’s essential to check out CPC in Google Ads Keyword Planner to see how much a campaign could cost you. But there’s another important aspect to look at when choosing your keywords: and that’s search intent.
Search intent is the reason why a person is searching for something. In a campaign selling a product or service, you need to know that your target audience is ready to buy or researching a future purchase.
SEO software labels keyword intent in different ways, but generally, there are four categories:
- Commercial: Someone is doing research before buying something.
- Transactional: Someone is ready to buy something.
- Informational: Someone wants to learn about something.
- Navigational: Someone is looking for a specific page.
So, if you’re selling something, you probably only want to target commercial or transactional keywords that indicate strong buyer intent. Then you can tailor your campaign to that part of the buying journey. This could be obvious, like ‘buy sports shoes’, or surprising, like ‘is [brand] good for feet’.
Search intent can feel intuitive, but there can be tiny nuances between different terms that change the intent, so it’s always a good idea to check your assumptions by looking at an SEO tool.
While choosing keywords that would work well for your campaign, keep track of ones that aren’t relevant but show up as related. You’ll need these later on in your ad setup.
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to group similar keywords to use in your Ad Groups.
Although it’s tempting to go very broad with these groups, the more specific you can be, the better. For example, separate branded and general keywords to further tailor your copy and pages. It means more work as you should create different ads for each ad group, but your ads will be relevant to the search terms and could drive better results.
Your negative keywords are searches that Google won’t show your ad for. You can set negative keywords for each ad group.
Remember those irrelevant but related keywords you set aside earlier? Now’s the time they come in handy. Add these to your negative keywords list.
Once your ad is running, it’s important to check which keywords you’re showing for and continue optimising your campaign. If you’re using broad or phrase match keyword types, your ad could show for searches that don’t perform well, or aren’t quite right for your campaign. Google also has an automated recommendation to ‘remove redundant keywords’, but it’s always best to sense-check these before going ahead.
Adding negative keywords is an easy way to save money on your campaigns and to make sure you’re only showing your ads to relevant searches.
Now you’ve got your keywords sorted, you can move on to the next step – optimising your ads. There are two different elements to optimising your ads, the ad copy itself and your landing page.
Add your high potential keywords into your ad copy, but get creative. Draw out key information about your product or service, like discounts, popular features or brand names and tie these in with your keywords.
Use keywords naturally in both your ad copy and your landing page. Your copy still needs to be well-written and enticing for customers, not a series of keywords trying to tick all the boxes.
If you’re creating a Search Ad, Dynamic Search Ads will test which keywords work best in your header and which copy gets the most clicks.
Your landing page plays a big part in how Google determines your quality score, so make sure your page is relevant to your ad copy.
If you’re linking to a product page, it should already be optimised for search as best practice. The following tips are more relevant for creating a specific campaign landing page, like for a discount sale, product launch or service.
The most important thing you can do to optimise your landing page is to use the right keywords in the right place. So, include the keywords you’re targeting with your ad on your landing page.
Different parts of your landing page have different levels of authority to Google. Headers, like H1 (the page title) and H2 (page section headers), give information on what your page is about to users and to Google. These are the best places to use your high potential keywords in your headers.
Align your landing page copy with everything mentioned in your ad. This is where multiple ad groups with specific keywords can result in a lot of work with different variations of your landing pages, but improving that quality score is worth doing.
People scan pages and don’t want too much text. But improving the time spent on your page and decreasing the bounce rate could help your quality score.
It’s a balance, but make sure your page is user-friendly and engaging to potential customers who visit it. It needs to be visually attractive and give a clear overview to your customer. Use fantastic imagery, and consider tools like video to help capture attention.
There are a few technical SEO aspects you can look at to help improve your page:
- Optimise your URL by including a high potential keyword. Avoid lengthy URLs with unnecessary paramets and numbers. Make sure you use hyphens to separate words in the url.
- Set meta tags that include your target keywords. These are the title and meta description that could show in an organic search result for your page.
- Make use of internal linking by linking to this page from other places on your website.
- Ensure your page loads quickly – you can check your page speed here.
- Add alt text to your images, and include keywords where it’s relevant.
- See if you can get backlinks (links from other websites) to your page. Avoid paying for backlinks as this isn’t best practise, and instead put your focus on building high-quality links organlically.
- Your website needs to be responsive and have mobile friendly design, so use responsive design templates and test your website on multiple devides. This is crucial for both user experience and search engine rankings.
- Enhance your user experience by making navigation easy, with clear calls-to-action and intuitive website design. This could lead to longer visits and increase engagement which can indirectly impact search engine rankings.
Continue optimising your campaign once you put it live. If your quality score isn’t having the desired impact on your CPC, don’t worry. Keep checking back to see which keywords are working, which text is performing best, and if your ad is showing for any keywords that aren’t relevant – and adjust your ads accordingly.
It’s important to have an overview of your ad spend and CPC so that you can make the right adjustments to your ads. Juni can help with that! With Juni, you can have all the information you need at your fingertips in a single, smart dashboard and manage your ad spend more effectively.
Instead of dealing with different platforms and currencies, receipts and invoices, and arguing with banks over spend limits, you can make running ads easier with Juni. With automatic receipt generation, real-time spend insights, and Google Ads invoices auto-pulled into your account, keeping track of your payments is simple.
You can also boost your cash flow with credit, cashback and more to help you fund ad campaigns and unlock revenue growth.
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