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IDC MarketScape for AP Automation
Managing accounts payable shouldn’t be a headache. The right AP automation software can transform your finance operations—eliminating manual work, reducing errors, and ensuring seamless global payments. Tipalti and BILL are two of the most recognized solutions, but which one truly delivers on efficiency, compliance, and scalability?
If you’re looking for a platform that goes beyond basic automation to optimize your entire AP workflow, it’s time to compare. Let’s dive into the key differences to help you make the smartest choice.
What does Tipalti do?
Tipalti provides global payables and procurement automation software that integrates all phases of the accounts payable and payment management workflow into a single cloud-based platform. The system works for everyone, from small companies to mid-sized businesses and enterprise conglomerates.
Tipalti provides industry-leading accounts payable automation, helping finance teams save time and focus on what matters most to their business. Beyond AP, Tipalti’s platform delivers comprehensive solutions for procurement, employee expenses, and mass payments—bringing all critical financial processes together in one global finance automation platform.
What does BILL do?
BILL provides cloud-based financial software for small businesses to manage financial workflows and process payments. The user-friendly automation platform offers key features for mid-market businesses and finance teams looking to streamline AP processes.
Compare Key Features: Tipalti vs. BILL
Tipalti and BILL offer software solutions that help companies automate their accounts payable processes. However, each platform has unique features, payment capabilities, and solutions for different financial needs. Let’s take a closer look at some of the differences between Tipalti vs. BILL:
| Functionality |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| *Limited functionality | ||
| Payment Methods | Local Bank Transfers, Global ACH, US ACH, Virtual Card, Wire, PayPal, Check | ACH, Check, Virtual Card, Wire, Instant Payment. Standard ACH and check payments are slow |
| Global Payment Coverage | Paying to +200 countries and territories in 120 currencies via local bank transfer, global ACH, and wire | All payments originate in USD. Mostly USD and FX wires. Some local bank transfers via Airwallex partnership |
| Reliable Payment Infrastructure | Regulated MSB with MTLs across the US. E-Money license in the UK with FCA. Blue-chip bank partners Citi, JP Morgan Chase & Wells Fargo (plus Visa & PayPal) with built-in redundancy for quick fund disbursement | US MTLs. Partnered with SVB & Chase. |
| Touchless invoice processing | AI-based OCR (Header and line level scan and capture) augmented by human review, and maching learning of corrections. AI-based auto coding of expense accounts and custom fields | Header level only OCR with manual “click and capture” used for line-level data. Templates and rules need to be setup and maintined to automate coding. |
| Bill Approval | No charge for bill approvers; approve bills via email with no login required | Invoice approvers pay a fee of >$45/month, login required, cannot approve via email |
| PO-Matching | Eliminate overspending and strengthens controls with 2&3-way line level auto-matching and coding, a flexible tolerance policy engine, and prepayments support.Automated 2 and 3-way PO Matching | Manual 2 and 3-way PO Matching, only with NetSuite |
| Supplier Onboarding and Vetting | Effortlessly onboard vendors with a client-branded portal, choice of preferred payment method, currency, and payment thresholds. 26K+ rules validate payments, screen against OFAC/SDN lists | Limited supplier onboarding customization, and no payment validation rules to prevent errors |
| ERP Inegrations | Transaction level details sync for all entities, accounts, and payment methods. Prebuilt API, file-based, professional services, and certified partner-led integrations depending on your ERP. Create custom fields to sync back to the ERP. | Strongest in SMB ERPs like Quickbooks and Xero. No support for custom Fields |
| Multi-Entity Payable Reconciliation | Manage multiple entities in a single Instance with a consolidated view; Instant reconciliation across entities and payable workflows | Multi-Instance, not multi-entity |
| Tax Compliance | KPMG approved IRS tax engine, collect W8 & W9 tax forms, automatically calculate withholdings, generate 1099 and 1042-S prep reports, and eFiling integrations. Collect and validate global tax IDs against 3,000+ rules | Collect W9s, aggregate payments, and generate and file 1099 tax forms. No W-8 support. No global tax support. |
Tipalti Features Overview
Tipalti’s automated solutions cover everything from purchase order management, supplier onboarding, and invoice management to tax and regulatory compliance to save your business time and money.
Powered by a multi-entity cloud architecture, Tipalti is built to support AP across your enterprise, including business units, subsidiaries, and international divisions. The platform provides ease of use and granular control over payables and payment operations. This is to protect your organization from fraud loss while augmenting internal processes and reducing manual work.
The accounting software supports multiple payment methods across 120 currencies in 196 countries, enabling seamless and efficient supplier payments.
Tipalti ERP Integrations
Tipalti integrates with any ERP and accounting system, including many popular brands, such as:
- Oracle NetSuite (including OneWorld)
- QuickBooks
- Sage (Intacct, 50, 100, 200, 300, X3, Bright Pearl)
- Xero
- Acumatica
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Business Central, F&O, NAV, GP)
- SAP (Business One, S/4HANA, ByDesign, ECC)
- Oracle Fusion
- Workday
- Infor Syteline
- Visibility
- Odoo
- QAD
- IQMS
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Tipalti Pricing
Tipalti’s pricing model is designed to grow with the company. As you need to add advanced features such as W-8 tax forms, international tax IDs, or multi-entity payables, Tipalti can easily handle that for you.
Pricing starts at $99/month for the platform fee. As your business gets more complex, you can seamlessly upgrade to Tipalti’s more advanced capabilities anytime. This includes features like expense management and vendor management.
BILL Features Overview
BILL’s financial software platform connects businesses with their suppliers and clients to help manage cash flow.
The BILL network is a platform for companies to send ACH and virtual debit and credit card payments to their vendors. Features like Vendor Direct and Pay By Card make it easy to send payments quickly and securely without additional fees. You can also create custom payment approval workflows based on required approvers, dollar amounts, and more. This makes tracking expense reports and overall spend management much easier.
BILL ERP Integrations
If you sign up for a BILL enterprise plan, automatic two-way sync is available for ERP systems such as:
- Oracle NetSuite
- Sage Intacct
- Microsoft Dynamics
- QuickBooks Enterprise
BILL Pricing
BILL’s Essential plan covers features like invoice data capture, unlimited storage, and standard approval policies. The Team plan offers everything that the Basic plan does, plus integrations.
The Corporate plan includes everything that the Team plan offers, plus invoice templates, payment status tracking, and auto-pay. Custom pricing is also available for enterprise applications.
Choose the right AP automation solution for your business
Whether you’re scaling globally or streamlining payments, the right AP solution makes all the difference. See how Tipalti and BILL compare—and find the best fit for your needs.
Which Solution Works Best for Your Business (and Why)
Although implementing an AP automation program will streamline your financial workflows, picking the right one can be challenging. Here are a few different scenarios to help you decide:
When to Choose Tipalti
You run a hyper-growth business that is rapidly scaling
In this case, you need an AP solution with built-in scalability to future-proof your payables. As a business grows, your AP workflow will become more complex due to factors like the addition of global supplier payments, mass payment processing, and multi-subsidiary business payables.
Tipalti Multi-Entity enables payers to manage a large number of entities within the same instance of our platform. This allows for centralized controls and consolidated financial reporting and helps to enhance workflows, streamline tasks, and simplify processes.
For global corporations, Tipalti can be funded in 30+ currencies, compared to BILL, which is limited to only USD.
Tipalti executes fast global payments to 200+ countries and territories in 120 currencies. Payments can be made using multiple international payment methods, including local bank transfers, global ACH, and wire transfers. You can also streamline your FX conversation workflow with advanced FX capabilities such as Multi-FX, FX hedging, and Payee FX optimization.
You want to automate the entire accounts payable process, end-to-end
Accounts payable is a complex process that increases the workload of your AP team, while manual operations can slow down financial close. Tipalti eliminates 80% of the workload, so you can divert resources to high-priority activities rather than back-office operations.
Tipalti enables a complete touchless invoice processing workflow with machine learning (ML) powered OCR technology that captures header and line-level details. Two-way and three-way PO matching allow automated syncing of POs and GRNs from your ERP to Tipalti to complete the PO match flow, helping to eliminate overspending and strengthen financial controls.
Tipalti offers a self-service supplier portal. This portal enables faster, more accurate payee data collection and verification, streamlining the onboarding process.
The system automatically validates supplier payment data in real time, using 26,000 global banking rules to reduce payment errors by 66%.
While BILL has payment limits that slow down processing for larger payments, there is no payment limit on Tipalti transactions, regardless of the volume or frequency.
You can accelerate financial close by more than 25% as payment methods, currencies, subsidiaries, and geographies are combined and reconciled in real time for instant visibility. Detailed transaction and reconciliation reports are integrated with your ERP system to provide a consolidated view of all payable accounts.
You want to strengthen compliance and controls while reducing risk
Proper controls and governance over accounts payable will safeguard your cash reserves, while tax compliance will protect your organization from legal and financial risk.
Tipalti’s built-in artificial intelligence and machine learning constantly adapt to identify inefficiencies and reduce errors.
The system replaces the highly manual process of collecting tax information through digital capture. Tax forms (W-9, W-8) are validated via a KPMG-prescribed tax engine.
At the end of the year, Tipalti generates 1099/1042-S tax preparation reports and calculates any necessary withholdings to ensure IRS tax compliance. The system will automate the submission of 1099s (through integration with Zenwork for eligible payees) to the IRS using the data from Tipalti.
Tipalti is regulated as a money services business and has its US money transmitter licenses (MTLs) in every state that requires them. Tipalti is also authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Electronic Money Institution. This is an important distinction between Tipalti and other payout providers, especially amidst the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Tipalti customers gain significant benefits by using our global payments solution over other non-regulated providers. We partner with blue-chip banks Citi, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo and have redundancy built in for fast and reliable global payment remittance.
When to Choose Bill
You do not operate outside of the United States
BILL works within the United States but has limited global capabilities to help support your operations.
Because the system lacks multi-entity features, you cannot centralize controls. Instead, you’ll need to reconcile payable data for each entity manually.
This makes it workable for a business operating within the confines of the US, but unsustainable if you start attracting international customers.
Although BILL offers wire transfers for US-based companies to 137 countries, there are no lower-cost options like PayPal or global ACH (eCheck).
You run a small business and do not have significant payment volume growth
If your business has low payment volumes, you won’t need as many AP automation features. In this case, the BILL system is simplified and will work. However, it will not respond well to growth or complex processes.
For example, if your business changes controls and requires additional approval, BILL wants invoice approvers to be registered users. This carries a user fee of $45 per month. It should also be noted that the system does not have payment approval workflows built into it like Tipalti (which only has bill approvals).
Furthermore, if your invoice workflows become more complex, the system may not save you much time. BILL has limited PO matching; its technology only captures header-level invoice details, leaving you to manually input line-level details via “click and capture, and it does not have AI-based auto-coding of invoices, leaving you to manage vendor templates and rules to automate invoice coding.
You tend to process smaller supplier payments
If you don’t need to regularly send large payments, a slow payment processing time won’t impact the supplier experience too much.
However, processing larger payments (over $5,000 for regular ACH) takes two additional business days. This burdens suppliers who are already subject to net 30/60/90 terms and have their own cash flow issues to overcome.
BILL has to pull funds one by one from your bank accounts as an ACH pull while your payees wait several days for funds to clear.
If you want your payment to arrive faster, you’ll need to pay an additional $9.99 per payment to use the Same-Day/Next-Day ACH option. Furthermore, there is a payment limit of $25,000. The system will not allow anything over that amount.
Four Signs It’s Time to Upgrade to Tipalti
Although BILL can help small businesses pay their suppliers and oversee some lightweight bookkeeping, its software becomes limited once your business expands. Below are four reasons why you should consider switching to Tipalti:
1. You Struggle to Pay Global Suppliers
BILL offers international payments via wire transfer, but Tipalti can send payments to 196 countries in 120 local currencies via ACH, eCheck, PayPal, and more.
2. You Are Overwhelmed by the Volume of Payments
If you manually process over 100 payments at a time, you need an AP automation solution that scales efficiently with your business. Tipalti’s integrations automatically synchronize and reconcile your ERP and accounting systems.
3. You Need Deeper Financial Controls
When more people are involved in the payment lifecycle, you need more controls and auditability. Tipalti’s enterprise-level financial controls include built-in bill and supplier audit trails and reporting to support audit preparedness.
4. You Have an Increasing Number of Reconciliation Challenges
With Tipalti, payment remittance results are consolidated into built-in reports for more accurate, faster payment reconciliation to speed up financial close.
What Our Customers Say
In our old system, Bill.com, it was difficult to create all of our payments. We work with a lot of international partners & suppliers, and we need to pay these people in different markets. If we can’t pay them effectively, it limits our reach. We used to spend three hours a week making payments. Now, it’s down to minutes, which has allowed us to reduce our payables workload by 95%
Leslie Pesante | Head of Finance, SkillShare
With Tipalti, payments flow smoothly. It took four to five business days for one person to take care of all the contractor payments. And now it takes me an hour.
Jessica Hardy | VP of finance, Art of Problem Solving
Our greatest exposure to an audit deficiency is in the area of accounts payable, processing, and payments. By automating the process, we almost completely eliminated the likelihood of having an audit deficiency in that area.
Jill Durkin | Controller and Fractor, ImaginAb
Save Time and Money with Accounts Payable Automation
In our recent survey of accounts payable teams around the globe, we found that nearly half of all respondents spend over five days each month processing invoices manually. By adding accounts payable automation technology to your workflow, you’ll spend less time on data entry and more on strategy and business growth.
When comparing the benefits of Tipalti vs. BILL, consider your organization’s short—and long-term needs. If you plan to expand your business and work with more suppliers in the near future, Tipalti’s automated AP solution enables you to scale rapidly while enhancing business visibility and strengthening fraud, financial, and cash controls.
Get started with a free demo of Tipalti today.
