Top Spend Management Softwares for Finance Teams

While there is no shortage of recent studies on spend management, finance professionals don’t need these studies to tell us that an intelligent approach to spend management can put a company in a better position to respond to unforeseen business events and sharpen its competitive edge in uncertain times. With the right vendor management software, you can avoid overspending, improve team awareness and collaboration, and ensure your material and service needs are covered, all without breaking a sweat. 

The best vendor management software (VMS) solutions on the market also offer the ability to see all vendor context in one location, easily collaborate with relevant business partners, and see impactful metrics.

Choosing the right vendor management software for your company from the numerous options available is not a walk in the park. For this reason, we have done the legwork and uncovered the top products in this space.

To kick us off, however, let us start with some basics.

What is vendor management?

Vendor management is the continuous process of developing and implementing the right measures for controlling purchasing costs, reducing vendor-related risks, ensuring excellent service, and deriving long-term value from vendors. 

It involves researching the best vendors, obtaining accurate pricing information, gauging product and service quality, evaluating performance, ensuring timely payments, and supporting long lasting relationships with the vendors you choose. 

What are the advantages of vendor management software?

Vendor management software is designed to help you manage all vendor related activities while simplifying processes in a cost-effective manner.  A comprehensive solution replaces the manual, error-prone processes of planning between multiple departments, purchasing, and paying with a more efficient and insightful workflow. 

Proper VMS can save you money with better payment tracking, more efficient operational work, and increased trust across your organization through accurate, consolidated financial records. 

How to choose the right vendor management software

Vendor management software solutions are not equal. Some products offer more services than others. Nevertheless, it is advisable to choose software that excels at the basics.

Some of the features a good vendor management software offers include:

• User-friendliness: Proper vendor management software has simple, intuitive interfaces that are easy to learn. They present information in clear, compelling dashboards and formats, giving finance teams and business partners full visibility and control of their vendors.
• Seamless record-keeping: Good software makes processing and storing documents like vendor contracts, order forms, receipts, and invoices a breeze. It helps you manage your records efficiently and avoid errors, while also providing easy access to the information you need to make ideal business decisions. 
• Flexible: The best vendor management software supports numerous popular business finance and accounting packages, which makes them more straightforward to incorporate into your business. You can integrate your usual payment tools to manage accounts on one comprehensive platform.
• Time-saving: The key selling point of vendor management software is that it automates all the time-consuming vendor management activities, freeing your team for more strategic activities.

The best vendor management softwares for your financial team

If you are a business manager or finance executive, it is imperative to find a vendor management software solution that ticks the right boxes. Below are five top options you can consider. Please note that vendor management systems are not mutually exclusive and you do not have to settle for one software. You can get several products and use the best features of each of them.

1. Sudozi

Best for strategic financial teams looking for better context and control of their spend.

Sudozi is a robust vendor management solution that provides a platform for finance teams to keep tabs on financial commitments and employee spend requests. With Sudozi, you can save money and time by avoiding incorrect payments, catching renewals early, and capturing business context in one platform.  

Sudozi displays all the information you need about your vendors on its comprehensive dashboard. Sudozi stands out from the competition because of its holistic approach to vendor management. Instead of merely tracking payments, the platform offers insight into prices, contract terms, and performance, supporting healthy long-term vendor relationships. Sudozi is also more accommodating to small and medium-sized enterprises than other solutions like Coupa.

2. Airbase

Best for finance teams that want to consolidate corporate cards, bill payments, and real-time reporting

Airbase presents spend data from all your employees, departments, and categories on an intuitive cloud-based dashboard, giving you a clear view of your total costs regardless of time, location, and device.

With just a web browser, your finance team can take advantage of Airbase’s market-leading spend management solution on the cloud.

3. Teampay

Best for business managers and finance teams to manage requests, approvals, and track company spending in real-time. 

Teampay offers businesses of all sizes the chance to manage expenses, send invoices, and pay bills within one platform. The software works with your policy to automate purchase requests and route them to the right approvers. For purchases, all you need to do is feed in your requirements, and Teampay will take over the process from start to finish, following your pre-approved procurement amounts and vendors. 

Teampay earns top marks for its seamless integration with financial and accounting software.

4. Coupa

Best for enterprise power users looking to have everything on one platform. 

Coupa is a multi-faceted business spend management platform with robust capabilities for medium-sized and large enterprises. Its features start from sourcing to purchasing, invoice management, and payments processing. Coupa gives financial teams a powerful interface for tracking various payment trails, minimizing the chances of missed payments. By working with consultants, you can customize Coupa’s implementation for your company’s complex needs.

5. Approve.com

Best for users that want to stay on top of what they spend, with whom, and why. 

Approve.com is a vendor expense management software built to offer simplified purchase requests, easy approvals, and data-driven decisions. It is ideal for companies that want to automate manual approvals quickly while receiving reliable spending updates.

With this VMS, your finance team can create, submit and approve quick reports and access analysis on demand. 

Go for the solution you need

When choosing a vendor management solution, it pays to know what your business needs. Many so-called great spend management systems are tailored for power users and procurement specialists. They come with numerous features, most of which are of little use to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Thankfully, you can also find more accommodating solutions on the software market. Products like Sudozi can give you the functions you need today and scale with you as your business grows.