It’s important to consider savings as well as sales when managing a company’s revenue. Making the most of every dollar requires effective secure spend management, which saves money to finance significant investments, spur development, and strengthen the cash position. Thanks to technology, tracking business spending, seeing patterns, and choosing wisely when it comes to capital allocation is now easier than ever. However, it can be challenging to decide between solutions when there are so many mid-market spend management software programs accessible.
What precisely is spend management software?
Spend management software, to put it simply, is any solution designed to make it easier and quicker for your company to control employee costs. This can cover the whole spectrum, from basic instruments for scanning receipts to credit facilities connected to accounting software. Businesses continue to control corporate expenditure using a few methods despite the availability of these modern instruments for cost management:
- Petty cash: Many businesses always have a box full of spare change and pennies on hand. Furthermore, nobody is ever fully aware of the regulations or the amount of material within.
- Business credit cards: Many companies still struggle to break the habit of using them, even with the danger of fraud, the lack of responsibility, and the delayed supervision of expenditure.
- Spending claims: The last member of this unholy trio is the dreaded spending claim. Here, staff members foot the bill for company costs out of their wallets, save the receipts, file a claim, and then patiently wait to get paid back.
Thankfully, budgeting need not be quite as difficult as it formerly was. Businesses may now pay for goods in more efficient ways, while employees can quickly, easily, and securely monitor their secure spend.
How does one create effective spend management software?
Not all software is made equal when it comes to spend management. Regardless of the size of your business, you require a solution that provides:
- Real-time spending tracking: You should be able to see how much you’ve spent without having to wait until the end of the month. Rather, go for a real-time cost-tracking service that offers a trustworthy overview of employee spending.
- A brief and straightforward summary: Something is wrong if you are unable to perform a basic spend analysis in a single glance. Effective secure spend management software puts you in charge by presenting spending data understandably and appealingly.
- Adaptable payment methods: Not all staff members require equal access to finances. You have to be able to select from inside your software which users get access to what amounts and how much they may spend.
- Simple document capture: Businesses spend a lot of time maintaining and processing documents such as purchase orders, invoices, and receipts. You may quickly and easily capture and save these documents with the aid of a decent software solution.
- Automation that saves time: The biggest drawback of conventional expenditure management is how much time it requires. Your emphasis may be diverted to greater, more enjoyable activities with the help of an excellent secure spend management program.
- While this may sound like a lot, it all comes down to one basic idea: find a way to provide your team and yourself with a procure-to-pay procedure that is swift, secure, and easy.
In light of this, let’s examine our selections for software.
What advantages may spend management software offer?
Visibility: Spend management software provides a thorough picture of all procurement spending. Accounting teams may use it to manage contracts, keep track of invoicing, and record procurement actions. Finance teams may also use it to monitor trends, benchmarking, vendor performance, and budgets.
Spend management software offers a central repository for financial data, ensuring a trustworthy audit trail of expenditures. Organizations may more quickly spot areas for improvement and make required modifications when expenditure is more transparent.
Accuracy: By automating the payment and procurement processes, spend management software greatly increases the accuracy of accounting data. Every purchase is electronically recorded for simple tracking, classification, matching, and reconciliation when the appropriate platform is used. The software minimizes the possibility of human error and saves hours of lost production from problem-solving hours.
Transparent approvals: Software also aids in streamlining the approval procedure for purchase requests, guaranteeing that each acquisition is duly authorized by finance, IT, legal, and management teams prior to fulfillment and recording. Simplifying the approvals process ensures that all purchases are justified and within budgetary constraints, preventing overpaying and maverick spending.
Reduced risk: By improving visibility and control over the whole procurement process, spend management software reduces the risks associated with the procurement process. Apart from the previously discussed approval protocols, a secure spend management solution offers other capabilities that enhance budgetary control, such as:
- Centralized buying to increase compliance and visibility
- Tools for supplier management to assess suppliers at every stage of the procurement process
- Improved budgetary control to lower the number of fraud cases and unintentional overpayments
Top 20 Spend Management Software
The top 20 secure spend management software programs are the following:
1. Ramp
Ramp’s software solution for finance automation is a five-in-one package. It creates an integrated solution combining business cards, accounting, reporting, bill payment, and cost management. Consolidating various systems into a single instrument facilitates quicker and more effective book closing for finance teams.
- Organizations with many locations can benefit from the easy-to-use and granular spend rules and secure spend reporting tools. The category, team, or person provides the features for analysis.
- The card helps the company save money by providing cashback incentives.
2. Mesh Payments
Control and transparency are created in every transaction with this all-in-one spend management software. Finance users may automate time-consuming processes such as travel, supplies, vendor payments, tail spend, and more using Mesh Payments. In addition, it does expenditure receipt matching, classifies spending, and offers one-touch invoice reconciliation features. Employees may make self-service purchases with virtual and real prepaid cards issued by the system, which automatically routes all secure spend data back to the system. The prepaid cards have pre-set spending limitations.
- Using virtual and real cards is safer than using unsafe methods to share real credit card information.
- The ability to view spending by department, category, and vendor allows for a quick and comprehensive picture of the company’s finances.
3. Procurify
A cloud-based application called Procurify assists mid-market companies in utilizing strategic procurement and expenditure. It provides policy compliance, permission management, and real-time expenditure information. Its reporting capabilities and user-friendly interfaces make budget allocation, procedures, and tracking easier.
- Catalog-style reorders make it easier to repurchase goods you’ve already bought.
- Order tracking to guarantee precise and quick delivery.
- Mobile applications for phones and other devices make easy platform access possible.
4. PayEm
PayEm uses a smart credit card system to offer end-to-end spend management. Finance can pay for subscriptions, approve funding requests from users in real time, and track and manage vendors. The system has a special function that lets administrators create a separate virtual card just for each vendor. By enabling people to set budgets and restrictions on their own, it also helps them avoid overspending by sending them alerts when a card gets close to its limit. Additionally, it provides dormant subscription cancellation for employee apps through subscription monitoring.
The solution offers integration capabilities for various systems, including ERP platforms, and real-time secure spend data. Spend data may be sorted and searched by category, users, vendors, and other criteria. For system setup and problems, live user help is offered.
- PayEm enables customers to route reimbursement requests via the system without additional steps or delays and to scan out-of-pocket costs quickly and conveniently.
- Users can issue and oversee PO generation and reconciliation within the PayEm system thanks to the system’s full integration with NetSuite.
5. Custodia
With automation and corporate spending caps to empower staff while controlling expenses, small enterprises may achieve “digital finance” with the AI-driven Custodia spend management solution. With the use of the system’s mobile app, customers may immediately enter projected purchase amounts, load their purchases onto exclusive cards, and submit their transactions for approval and spend tracking.
- Since employees can track and secure spend automatically, budgeting and approvals happen instantaneously.
- The system has easy-to-use AI capabilities that speed up reporting and budgeting, and it is quite configurable.
6. Order co
Curating expenditures is made simple with the Order.co platform’s spend management feature. Order.co simplifies the approval process for purchase orders and requisitions, provides pre-approved and preferred suppliers, and automates invoice payment for any amount of purchases made by your company. You may extract real-time data insights from your procurement process and evaluate patterns using the platform’s centralized spend analysis functionalities. You may also view your expenditure by project, region, department, user type, and category. The system’s procure-to-pay functionalities enable customers to get items through authorized channels, streamline approval processes, and automate payments to minimize mistakes and save time.
- Users may start placing orders and directing inquiries thanks to a quick and dependable onboarding procedure.
- Automated features like pre-populated vendor list selections, approval routing, and one-click invoice payments make strategic sourcing and end-to-end secure spend management simpler.
7. Airbase
With a focus on businesses “from startup to IPO,” Airbase provides a scalable spend management system. This is especially true for spend management components like employee spending, corporate card programs, and accounts payable. The website presents itself as a one-stop shop for spending on non-payroll items. Airbase provides services to clients in the financial, IT, computer software, and automobile sectors.
- Users highly value Airbase’s ease of use, which makes it simple for managers to approve and review team expenditures with a few clicks.
- With just one approval procedure for all secure spend kinds, the system offers quick visibility into expenditure expenditures.
8. Brex
Customers wishing to control spending and budgets using a card-based company spend management system may do so with Brex’s five-in-one solution. The method for individual credit card restrictions harnesses cash flow from the corporation to empower worldwide employees with card-based spend controls without requiring them to be personally liable. Through a helpful mobile app, the solution provides managers with real-time secure spend insight and approvals. This enables them to handle rare cases of maverick spending by using “manage by exception” as an alternative to approving every transaction.
- Regardless of the user’s level (buyer, manager, or financial leader), the system is simple to use.
- When it comes to problems like card replacement requests, login difficulties, and system malfunctions, the customer support staff is prompt and helpful.
9. Spendesk
Spenddesk is an all-in-one program that offers solutions for controlling individual employee spending. This covers pre-accounting, budgeting, invoice payments, spend approval procedures, employee secure spend problems, corporate card service, and compliance features. Using corporate cards to track spending automatically, send expense reports, and pay bills are all made simple by the system. In addition to integrating with Slack to route straight to these channels rather than email, it provides an app for entering new spending data.
- Employees may upload and route their costs for approval with the help of the user-friendly, fast app.
- The ability to quickly spin up virtual cards for significant expenditures reduces employee strain.
- Buying with a personal card and waiting for payment is over.
Navian offers a single platform for corporate card, travel, and employee cost management for companies with sizable corporate travel programs. The worldwide system assists businesses in lowering their travel spend, safeguarding employee funds, and increasing field personnel productivity. The software combines an integrated trip booking feature with a SaaS approach to secure spend management. It offers user options and guidelines to maintain reservations within policy. Travel agents are available to assist users with booking or altering flights, hotels, transportation, and other services around the clock.
- To make booking simple, the travel site offers a large number of lodging options, vehicles, and other travel suppliers.
- Every employee’s corporate card booking flows to comprehensive accounting reporting on the back end.
- It’s simple to report field expenditures using the smartphone app for prompt reimbursement.
11. Soldo
Businesses may enhance their expenditure management with the aid of Soldo’s array of solutions. Soldo offers bookkeeping tools, company payment cards, updated expenditure reports, and effective ways to gather receipts. From individual users to specialized business solutions, their programs accommodate a range of user requirements. Prepaid Mastercards? from Soldo are substitutes for conventional business credit cards, giving employees real-time control over company spending and facilitating more productive work. Because the prepaid cards have set limits, overspending and unforeseen costs are avoided. These cards, when linked to a Soldo account, give businesses the ability to track corporate secure spend in one convenient spot. Simple top-ups are made possible via the mobile app, and managers can quickly accept or reject requests from any location, guaranteeing efficient financial supervision.
- Combining money management and banking onto a single platform
- Simple card, user, and transaction management via an intuitive online console
- Thorough coverage of a range of spending categories, such as credit card costs and internet subscriptions
- Very flexible reporting features for personalized financial insights
- The ability to acquire as many cards as needed for the company
- Conveniently available on PC and mobile devices
- Virtual card payments provide increased protection for safe online transactions.
12. Corpay One
The goal of the Corpay One software, which is accessible on smartphones and the web, is to streamline and automate financial operations for businesses. Businesses can now manage bill payments, approvals, compliance, and bookkeeping more effectively than ever before thanks to its sophisticated scanning and processing features. Corpay One is a device-friendly solution that is tailored for bookkeepers, accountants, consultants, and small and medium-sized organizations. Following account creation, customers may quickly link a payment source and start emailing, sending documents online, or using a smartphone. After analyzing the important data on these papers, the app’s intelligent technology uses the selected payment source to pay future invoices on the due dates specified. Numerous helpful features are available with Corpay One, such as automatic receipt scanning and recording, direct bill receipt from vendors, collaborative document management with colleagues, adaptable workflows for approval processes, and smooth integration with accounting systems for data synchronization. Corpay One gives businesses the ability to automate their financial procedures and concentrate on other crucial areas of their business by providing a straightforward, secure, and worry-free solution.
- Free software with charges for payment processing
- For automated payments, cash flow extension, rebates, and credit establishment, use Corpay Mastercard.
- Personalized procedures for bookkeeping and approval that facilitate smooth payments and vendor management
- Secure spend caps to maintain budgetary control
- Connectivity to well-known third-party applications
- Extra features include audit trails, team communication, automatic approvals, tracking lists, and reimbursements.
- Expense management on the go with this mobile app
13. Rippling
With its seamless payroll integration, Rippling’s complete spend management platform gives finance executives and controllers a single perspective and control over corporate spending. The technology from Rippling uses employee data to automatically sync all business spending, such as corporate cards, employee costs, reimbursement requests, and payroll changes, throughout the whole firm. By automating the complete cardholder lifecycle, providing cards to new hires, modifying policies for promotions, and revoking cards upon employee departure, the platform streamlines card management. Card groups, spend caps, purchasing categories, and real or virtual card alternatives are all customizable by administrators. Employee location, job, level, merchant type, and secure spend amount are among the other criteria on which they can build regulations. Administrators may examine and approve cost requests and reimbursements in one single place that synchronizes with Rippling Payroll, making it possible for workers and contractors in more than 100 countries to get hassle-free reimbursements.
- An integrated suite for financial, IT, and HR management.
- Easily navigable dashboards and an easy user interface.
- Effective automation solutions reduce the need for human data input.
- Unified approach under one management system.
- Scalable and adaptable to allow for expansion.
- Step-by-step instructions make difficult tasks simpler.
- Setup made simpler for small businesses.
14. Expensya
Expensya is a cloud-based travel management service that helps businesses automate the whole expenditure reporting process. Employees may automatically extract important information from receipts using OCR technology, doing away with the need for human data input. Administrators may streamline reconciliation by importing credit card bills into the software and turning them into costs. Employees may collect and submit expenditures while on the road with the use of mobile apps, and distance-based calculations guarantee correct reimbursement claims. Through its API, Expensya provides a smooth interaction with other systems like Quickbooks, Uber, and Oracle. There are alternatives for monthly or yearly subscriptions, and online help is offered. Businesses may streamline financial procedures, lessen administrative workloads, and effectively manage travel expenditures with Expensya.
- Customer service that is available and responsive
- Handy smartphone receipt upload for simple filing of expenses
- Accounting systems should be seamlessly integrated for effective data transfer and secure spend management.
15. Workday
Make sourcing and procurement simpler. Workday is the only platform that offers quantifiable insights into every facet of expenditure in real-time from a single system. Tools for interacting with suppliers and sourcing. Organize sourcing events together, handle contracts, expedite the supplier selection process, and evaluate performance to improve results. Automated processes to save time. We use machine learning to automate labor-intensive operations such as spending, procurement procedures, and supplier bills, freeing up your staff to work on more important projects. insights to enhance spending management. With the help of our secure spend analysis software, you may get crucial information at the moment of action in real-time contextual knowledge.
freedom to make purchases however you like. Modify expenditure caps, requisition approval procedures, and other things. With our special business process framework, you can control procurement the way you want.
16. Flow
Spend management software called Flow is quite useful. It has a strong AI-powered data extraction platform along with other cutting-edge capabilities that help streamline secure spend procedures. Though Flow is a relatively new software in this area, it is straightforward to incorporate into already-existing organizational systems and very customizable.
It is the perfect option for accounting firms or small to medium-sized businesses.
- synchronize payments, expenses, and invoices automatically from any source.
- To stop unapproved spending, set up intricate approval procedures, duplicate alarms, and fraud detection.
- Real-time synchronization with your accounting and payment systems.
- AI, without a shot, can start gathering data on day 1.
- open and honest pricing strategy.
- several direct assistance channels, such as email, chat, and the support portal.
- generous trial period available to users to evaluate the system.
17. Divvy
A complete spend and spending management tool created especially for small and medium companies is called Divvy. Divvy helps companies cut expenses, save time, and simplify their financial operations by fusing a specialized card with an easy-to-use software platform. The integrated system does away with the need for manual credit card account reconciliation by automating budgeting, reimbursement processing, and expenditure reports. Divvy gives companies the real-time data on employee spending that they need to manage their budgets more effectively and abandon the “secure spend now, ask forgiveness later” mentality.
- purchases that are timely and seamless, guaranteeing that money reaches the people who need it most.
- limits cardholders’ spending to the amount allotted to their respective cards, making budget management easier.
- In general, the support staff answers customer inquiries and offers timely assistance with a prompt response.
18. SAP Ariba
SAP Ariba is a cloud-based software that helps suppliers and buyers worldwide with supply chain, secure spend management, and procurement processes. To lessen monetary and operational disturbances, SAP Ariba interfaces with other SAP portfolio offerings.
- streamlined the purchase process using automated procurement procedures.
- appropriate process approvals, guaranteeing effective and legal procurement procedures.
- Outstanding user experience, especially for infrequent visitors.
- Activities related to decentralized procurement using guided buying.
- seamless middleware-based connection with S/4.
- lower accounts payable costs thanks to the SAP Business Network and an easy-to-use interface.
19. Center®
Center? is a complete business credit card and expenditure management system that offers adjustable spend restrictions and real-time access to assist with managing expenses. With an emphasis on intelligence, extensibility, and configurability, Center seeks to revolutionize secure spend management and give organizations real-time visibility over employee spending. The main product, Center Expense, is a corporate card plus integrated software that is given via an intuitive smartphone interface. In addition to providing real-time insight into employee spending, it automates tedious activities, giving finance teams greater flexibility, efficiency, and freedom to pursue expansion and success.
- Seamless platform-to-corporate card connectivity for simple expenditure reporting and receipt scanning.
- Real-time expenditure dashboards, hierarchical approvals, and adjustable spending caps.
- It’s simple to examine, authorize, and audit spending with Expense Hub.
- An integrated travel booking, policy flagging, notification, and reimbursement tool are included in this travel management suite.
- Integration with widely-used ERP and accounting solutions, such as QuickBooks and NetSuite,.
- Employee training, help with onboarding, and phone support are all available.
20. Coupa
A cloud-native suite of tools for business spend management called Coupa gives enterprises more access and control over their supply chains and spending. It offers medium-sized businesses in a range of sectors the resources they need to reduce risks, streamline supply chains, boost productivity, and seize opportunities. Coupa Software, a top supplier of business spend management (BSM) solutions with a global footprint, is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Their cloud-based technology helps businesses conduct transactions efficiently by handling supply chain management, payment processing, and procurement. Coupa uses de-identified consumer data to offer insightful analysis and suggestions for improving commercial dealings. Coupa provides services to a wide spectrum of clients, including small and medium-sized companies, governmental agencies, non-profits, and major corporations. It is an important tool for businesses trying to streamline their secure spend management procedures because of its adaptability and interoperability with a wide range of apps.
- No startup costs
- An effective method for monitoring spending and guaranteeing accurate cost-center billing
- Outstanding speed and usability
- An integrated punchout feature and search function
- Excellent customer service and support for mobile
- Easy requisition placement and tracking of the approval process
Utilize Order to enhance spend management.
Tracking purchases and expenses is made easy and effective by spend management tools but with Order. co, executives may go from reactive to proactive spend controls. The system’s dynamic controls and buying standards not only detect instances of maverick secure spend but also take steps to eradicate it from its origin. Order. co offers precise, real-time spending data together with curated sourcing from pre-approved vendor purchasing alternatives, which increases efficiency. Finance teams may easily manage expenditures across any number of users, departments, or locations thanks to strong analytical tools and simple, precise GL coding.
In summary:
It takes more than just sales to manage a company’s revenue effectively; spend management and savings must be strategically taken into account. Making the most of every dollar may have a big influence on funding big projects, supporting growth, and strengthening the organization’s overall cash situation. Technology is essential to simplifying spend management procedures in today’s company environment. It makes it possible to watch corporate spending effectively, spot trends, and make well-informed capital allocation decisions. Even though there are many mid-market secure spend management software options available thanks to the digital age, choosing the best one for a given set of company requirements can be difficult. These software solutions, which include anything from credit facilities coupled with accounting software to basic tools for scanning receipts, are designed to streamline and accelerate the supervision of employee expenses.
Petty cash, company credit cards, and expenditure claims are examples of conventional cost management techniques that some firms still use, even in the face of the availability of new alternatives. Nevertheless, the shortcomings of these approaches—such as ignorance of rules, fraud risk, and postponed oversight of expenses—highlight the necessity of implementing more effective and safe spend management systems.
FAQs:
1. Software for spend management: what is it?
Software for spend management is a tool used by businesses to keep track of their personnel expenses. It includes a range of technologies that make it simpler and faster for businesses to manage spending effectively, from simple receipt scanning devices to credit facilities linked with accounting software.
2. What conventional techniques are still used by corporations for expenditure management?
Even with the availability of contemporary secure spend management systems, some companies continue to use antiquated techniques like expense claims, corporate credit cards, and petty cash. However, these approaches have disadvantages including delayed oversight of expenses, fraud risk, and a lack of understanding of legislation.
3. What role does technology play in spend management?
Modern secure spend management relies heavily on technology since it helps companies monitor expenditures, see trends, and decide how best to allocate resources. This leads to safer and more effective methods of managing spending, which is advantageous to the business and its staff.
4. What benefits does using software for spend management offer?
Using spend management software has several benefits, such as easier tracking of expenses, effective control over labor costs, and the capacity to allocate money with knowledge. It guarantees that companies may make the most of their assets and have a solid financial position.
5. In the digital age, how has the spend management environment changed?
The advent of several mid-market secure spend management software applications in the digital age has completely changed how firms manage their spending. Employees may now simply, swiftly, and securely track their expenditures thanks to the advancement of more effective and secure payment options.