Finance · 7 stages
Order-to-cash system
Order entry, credit holds, invoicing, payment matching, collections and disputes, end to end.
Procure-to-pay automation from purchase request to payment run
Requests turn into approved POs without email chains, suppliers are verified before their first payment, and invoices are matched and coded before AP looks at them. People approve spend and release payments.
Replaces: Purchase requests in Slack and email, approvals chased by hand, supplier forms in shared drives, invoice keying and match exceptions worked in spreadsheets
Procure-to-pay system
7 stages
What is procure-to-pay automation?
Procure-to-pay (P2P) automation runs the buying cycle from an internal purchase request to a supplier payment: requisitions, approvals, purchase orders, supplier onboarding, invoice capture, three-way matching and payment run preparation. It works with your ERP and approval rules. Budget owners approve spend, and releasing payments stays with the people your controls name.
The system, stage by stage
7 stages from requisitions to payment runs, each with what runs on its own and the decision that stays with your team.
- 1
Requisitions
Employees ask for what they need in Slack, Teams or a form, and the request becomes a complete requisition.
- Coupa
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- NetSuite
Automated
- Requests turned into requisitions with item, quantity, supplier, cost center and GL code suggested
- Checks for existing contracts, catalog items and preferred suppliers
- Duplicate requests detected across teams
Built with workflow automationYour team decides
The requester confirms the requisition and budget owner, and procurement decides on non-catalog purchases.
- 2
Approvals
Requisitions are routed by amount, category and cost center under your delegation of authority.
- Coupa
- SAP Ariba
- Slack
- Workday
Automated
- Approval chain built from your delegation of authority matrix
- Approval request showing budget remaining, contract status and prior spend with the supplier
- Reminders, and routing to a named delegate when an approver is out
Built with workflow automationYour team decides
Budget owners and finance approve at the levels your matrix sets, and IT and security approve software and data-processing purchases.
- 3
Purchase orders
Approved requisitions become purchase orders and are sent to the supplier.
- NetSuite
- SAP
- Oracle
- Coupa
Automated
- PO created in the ERP or procurement system, with terms taken from the contract
- PO sent to the supplier, with confirmation tracked
- Change orders compared with the original PO and re-routed when they exceed tolerance
Built with workflow automationYour team decides
Procurement approves change orders above tolerance and any PO raised against an expired contract.
- 4
Supplier onboarding
New suppliers are set up with verified tax, banking and compliance details before their first payment.
- Coupa
- SAP Ariba
- NetSuite
- DocuSign
Automated
- Supplier form, W-9 or W-8, insurance and compliance documents collected and checked
- Bank details checked against supplier documents and verified by call-back to a known contact
- Sanctions and duplicate-supplier checks before the vendor record is created
Built with document intelligenceYour team decides
Vendor master owners approve each new supplier and every bank detail change, separately from the people who release payments.
- 5
Invoice capture
Supplier invoices from email, portals and paper are read, checked and coded.
- NetSuite
- SAP
- Coupa
- Outlook
Automated
- Header fields and line items extracted from PDFs, scans and e-invoices
- Duplicate checks by supplier, invoice number, amount and date
- GL and cost center coding suggested from the PO and past invoices
Built with document intelligenceYour team decides
AP reviews fields the model is unsure about and codes invoices that arrive without a PO.
- 6
Three-way match
Invoices are matched to the PO and the goods receipt, and differences are explained.
- NetSuite
- SAP
- Coupa
- Slack
Automated
- Line-level matching of quantity and price against PO and receipt within your tolerances
- Missing receipts chased with the requester in Slack or email
- Exceptions routed with the difference and its likely cause
Built with finance operationsYour team decides
The budget owner or AP decides on price and quantity differences outside tolerance.
- 7
Payment runs
Approved invoices are grouped into payment runs by due date, terms and cash position.
- NetSuite
- SAP
- Bill.com
- Kyriba
Automated
- Payment proposal built from due dates and early-payment discount terms
- Pre-release checks for duplicate payments, recent bank detail changes and suppliers on hold
- Remittance advice sent and payments reconciled to bank data
Built with finance operationsYour team decides
Named treasury or finance approvers release each payment run in the banking platform.
What we measure
Agreed before the build, measured against your baseline, reported every month.
- Requisition-to-PO time
- Time from a submitted request to a PO sent to the supplier.
- Approval wait time
- Time requests spend with each approver level, to show where they stall.
- Invoice touch rate
- Invoices that needed manual correction or coding before posting.
- Match exceptions
- Invoices that fail three-way match, grouped by cause such as price, quantity or missing receipt.
- Spend under PO
- Share of spend with a PO raised before the invoice arrived.
Safeguards built in
Controls specific to this function, on top of the audit trail and approval gates in every system.
- Bank detail changes verified through a known contact and approved by someone who cannot release payments
- Approvals follow your delegation of authority, with approver and timestamp recorded
- Duplicate invoice and duplicate payment checks before every payment run
- Payment release stays with named approvers in your banking platform
Who it fits
- Finance teams processing supplier invoices from a shared AP inbox
- Procurement teams on Coupa, SAP Ariba or NetSuite purchasing
- Multi-entity companies with approvals spread across email and spreadsheets
- Companies preparing for an audit that need cleaner approval evidence
How it rolls out
One workflow first, live in six to ten weeks. Then the rest of the function, on the same foundation.
- 1Weeks 1–10
First workflow
Invoice capture, duplicate checks and three-way matching for your highest-volume suppliers.
- 2Months 3–4
Extend
Requisitions from Slack or Teams, approval routing and PO creation.
- 3Month 5 onward
Full function
Supplier onboarding with bank verification and payment run preparation, joined end to end.
Questions about the procure-to-pay system
Is P2P part of SAP?
SAP covers procure-to-pay in its purchasing and accounts payable functions, and SAP Ariba adds a procurement suite. This system works around SAP through its APIs: it prepares requisitions and POs, matches invoices and flags exceptions, while the records stay in SAP.
Do we need a purchase order system?
Not to start. If purchase requests arrive by Slack or email today, the system turns them into structured requisitions and creates POs in your ERP once they are approved. Teams that later add a procurement tool keep the same approval rules.
Do we need Coupa or SAP Ariba?
No. Many teams run procure-to-pay from NetSuite, Xero or QuickBooks with email approvals. The system works with your current setup and can feed a procurement suite if you add one later.
Can the system pay suppliers?
It prepares payment runs and checks them. Releasing payments stays with the approvers your controls name, in your banking platform.
How do you prevent bank-detail fraud?
Bank detail changes are held, checked against supplier documents and verified by calling a contact already on file rather than one given in the change request. Someone who cannot release payments approves the change, and payments to recently changed details are flagged in the next run.
What about invoices without a PO?
They are coded from past invoices and routed to the budget owner for approval. Reporting on spend without a PO helps procurement decide where POs should be required.
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Plan your procure-to-pay system with an engineer.
A 30-minute call with an engineer. You will leave knowing what a system could do for that workflow and what it would take to build.
What happens next
- 1
Strategy call
We learn how the workflow runs today and what a good outcome would be.
- 2
Workflow audit
We map the process and measure where a system would save the most time.
- 3
Proposal
A written scope, timeline and fixed price for your first system. No obligation to build.