Take Control of NetSuite Payment Management with AP Automation

Making vendor payments can be expensive and time-consuming. All too often, accounting teams need to jump between different payment processes and systems to pay vendor bills. The result is a mishmash of inefficient, error-prone manual processes that slow down the payments process – resulting in late payment fees, costly errors, and upset vendors.

Oracle NetSuite customers can leverage accounts payable automation to optimize payment processing workflows. By choosing the right AP automation solution, businesses can take advantage of NetSuite’s functionality to take control of their P2P workflows and combine multiple payment processes into a single solution. Payment automation lets businesses access more payment options, pay vendors quickly, improve cash management, and make reconciliations more efficient.

In this article, we dive into the NetSuite P2P process to take a closer look at how AP automation can optimize your vendor payments workflow in NetSuite.

Supplier Payment Management in NetSuite

Businesses that use manual processes for vendor payments usually follow a basic workflow. The general stages of the workflow are as follows:

• Vendors send invoices to Accounts Payable
• Accounts Payable enters the invoices into the accounting system and adds GL codes to line items
• AP verifies the invoices and forwards them for approval
• Approvers confirm the invoices and send them to Finance for payment
• The Finance department ensures there is cash available to pay the invoices, then queues them for payment
• Finance pays the invoices by check, ACH, electronic payment, credit card, or another payment method according to the vendor contract terms

In a NetSuite ERP environment, the various teams in the payment workflow will manually update the transaction data in NetSuite during the process. In general, businesses have several payment options within NetSuite:

Payments Through NetSuite Payment Management 

NetSuite comes with NetSuite Payment Management functionality built in. Businesses can use the Electronic Bank Payments module to make electronic funds transfers (EFTs) to vendors via ACH, direct deposit, and other methods. The functionality of the free Electronic Bank Payments module is limited. Businesses must subscribe to the advanced module to access advanced features such as multi-country and multi-currency payment options.

Payments Via NetSuite SuiteApps

NetSuite SuiteApps are third-party solutions that integrate with NetSuite SuitePayment and other NetSuite modules to provide vendor payment functionality. Different payment SuiteApps work in different ways, but generally, businesses make payments by subscribing to the SuiteApp and then selecting the payment solution when making payments within NetSuite. Some SuiteApps, such as Stampli, integrate closely with NetSuite to synchronize transaction data and vendor information in real-time, ensuring high visibility and control over payments.

Although NetSuite can expedite the financial processes around payments, the payment workflow can be slow and inefficient if the business hasn’t fully optimized its accounts payable processes. Data is often manually entered into NetSuite, which makes the business vulnerable to fraud and data entry errors. AP automation streamlines the entire P2P process, including payment workflows, and automatically syncs with NetSuite to make payments more accurate. But that’s not all – payment automation has many other benefits to businesses.

Key Benefits of NetSuite Accounts Payable Automation for Payments

In Stampli’s 2023 white paper, AP in 2023: Expectations, Technology, Opportunity, 72% of businesses reported that they expected to use electronic payments more frequently. Over a quarter of businesses (27%) expected a significant increase in how often they made electronic payments. This seismic shift in payment methods means businesses will be looking for ways to streamline how they handle digital payments – including moving away from manual check-based payment methods.

Accounts payable platforms facilitate electronic payments by centralizing payment methods to a single platform and synchronizing payment data with ERPs. Automating payments processing ensures that AP and finance teams can access up-to-date data on payment terms, bank account information, vendor payment details, and discounts and credits.

AP automation not only helps businesses realize significant cost savings, but it also has some other tangible benefits for business: 

Centralized Payment Methods

Moving to a payment automation platform replaces multiple disconnected payment methods with a single method to process payments, making it simple to manage vendor preferences and to make payments in multiple locations and currencies.

Eliminate Manual Reconciliation

Payment automation solutions automatically collect and synchronize invoice and transaction data with NetSuite to create a single source of truth. Accounting and finance teams gain full real-time visibility into transactions at every stage of the P2P process.

Reduced IT Costs

By replacing expensive legacy, on-premise systems with cloud-based SaaS AP solutions, businesses can reduce IT overhead and reduce the need to invest in hardware and software.

Improved Risk Management

Automation provides CFOs and controllers with greater visibility and control over AP processes, which makes detecting, preventing, and mitigating fraud and errors easier. Payment systems also help enforce internal controls like the segregation of duties and maintain a complete AP audit trail.

Data-Supported Financial Management

CFOs and finance leaders can make more informed decisions by reviewing accurate, up-to-date data and analytics in NetSuite. Better information means better control over cash flow and expenditures and more accurate forecasting.

Better Scalability to Support Growth

Payment automation platforms provide the scalability and flexibility to support business growth by handling increased invoice volumes, more complex invoices, global expansion, and multi-location, entity, and subsidiary scenarios.

Integrated payment automation helps businesses get the most out of their NetSuite ERP. However, to realize many of the benefits of automation, the integration between the automation platform and NetSuite must be efficient and accurate – it’s crucial to select a payment solution that seamlessly integrates with NetSuite to provide optimal collaboration and data sharing across the P2P process.

Empowered NetSuite Payment Management with Stampli Direct Pay

Businesses need a powerful and efficient payment management platform backed by a capable, experienced AP solution provider to leverage NetSuite and optimize their vendor payment workflows fully. The most powerful AP automation platform is of little value if it can’t be easily integrated and doesn’t synchronize data and communications effectively. To succeed, businesses must select a partner with a proven track record of successful accounts payable integrations with ERPs like NetSuite.

Stampli’s AP automation and payment solutions provide next-generation capabilities backed by Stampli’s proven industry-leading expertise and experience. Stampli Direct Pay and Stampli Card easily integrate with NetSuite, support multiple options, locations, and currencies, provide centralized communications and collaboration, and are supported by Stampli’s award-winning implementation team.

Stampli’s payment solutions give you total control and transparency over vendor management, payment processing, and corporate card spending. Here are just a few of the advantages of using Stampli to manage your payments:

• Transparent: Purchases made with Stampli Card are automatically synced in NetSuite as a payment receipt, allowing full control over card transactions
• Payment Agnostic: Choose your own payment method. Make payments instantly with Stampli Card or by ACH, direct debit, check or other methods.
• Secure: Stampli is compliant with NetSuite token-based authentication, so your data is always safe and secure.
• Full Control: Stampli Card lets you control spend by limits, usage types, vendors, and more.
• Real-Time Insights: Stampli collects transactional data and automatically syncs it with NetSuite to provide timely and accurate data across the organization.

A 14-time G2 Grid Accounts Payable Leader recognized for exceptional implementation, customer relationships, and delivering results, Stampli is the clear choice for flexible and powerful payment management for your NetSuite ERP. Contact our team today to set up a free demo of Stampli Direct Pay and see how to get the most out of NetSuite.