4 Best Invoice Management Platforms to Streamline Billing and Payments

One single invoice can take days to process. Once it’s received, data gets extracted, it’s verified with the right departments, goes through approval processes, and then finally sent off for processing and reconciliation. For companies that handle hundreds of invoices per month, manually handling each invoice can be tedious and time-consuming.

Of the hundreds of invoices, if some are entered incorrectly, it can lead to delays, lost trust between your company and vendors or clients, or even compliance requirements down the line. While manual invoice management has been practiced for decades in many companies, modern invoice management automation software is now making it easier for teams to handle invoices on time and error-free.

In this blog post, we’ll look at the benefits of automated invoice management software and look at a few of the best invoice management software solutions such as monday CRM that will help your team better keep track of every single invoice.

What is invoice management?

Invoice management is the process companies use to track, process, and pay supplier invoices from suppliers and vendors. While it may seem simple enough to receive an invoice, pay the vendor, and track the payment, this can be a time-consuming process for an accounts payable team when a company has multiple vendors with hundreds of monthly invoices.

To track all invoices, vendors, and payments, an accounting department needs to apply invoice management strategies and tools. These tools and systems aren’t only for basic accounting needs but are essential to avoid billing errors. These billing and payment errors can cause tension with vendors who may provide essential services or products to a business, so implementing the right invoice management tools to stay on top of it all is critical.

Manual invoice management: Challenges and pain points

Invoice management can introduce various challenges that, when unaddressed, can be damaging to both your company’s reputation and bottom line. With paper invoices that need to be verified and processed manually, you become exposed to a lot of opportunities for errors and delays. In fact, 55% of all B2B invoices in 2023 were overdue, demonstrating how handling invoicing can be a significant burden on many businesses.

Here are a few invoice management pain points to consider when manually handling processes:

• Time-consuming: A single invoice can take weeks for a company to process when it needs to be validated, reviewed, and reconciled by different departments. Multiply this by hundreds of invoices and managing invoices will require round-the-clock attention
• Prone to error: As with any manual process that passes through multiple hands, it’s prone to human error, which can lead to incorrect payments, unsettled accounts, and disgruntled service providers
• Billing delays: Any blip in your manual invoicing and payment procedures can lead to delays that not only damage your company’s relationship with vendors but can incur additional late payment fees
• Lack of visibility: When invoicing systems are disconnected, it can be tricky to get full visibility into where your accounts stand, leading to errors with billing deadlines, duplicate payments and invoices, and payment delays

Benefits of automatized invoice management

Unlike manual invoice procoessing, automating the process can lift the burden of manual tasks off employees’ shoulders, leaving them with more time and energy to make sure invoices are being processed and paid accurately. Some of the key benefits of automating your invoice management procedure include:

• Automating invoice management with digital platforms can help your teams save time on processing invoices
• There are fewer opportunities for human error with fewer manual invoicing operations
• Accounts get paid on time thanks to auto reminders and notifications for invoice deadlines
• More insights and transparency into your invoice management process with accurate and reliable data and invoicing archives
• Automated invoicing leads to better vendor relationships when they receive automated payments on a predictable schedule

4 of the best automated invoice management platforms

With an invoice automation platform, you can rest assured that most of the heavy lifting is taken care of, leading less manual tasks on your desk. Some CRM solutions include robust features for invoicing, making them solid choices for companies who want an all-in-one solution. Additionally, there are standalone invoicing platforms that could be ideal for teams who only want an invoicing solution. Here’s a look at our three top picks for invoice automation platforms on the market today.

1. monday CRM

As a robust customer relationship management (CRM) platform, monday CRM includes multiple features that help companies in all aspects of client management, including quotes and invoicing functionalities. With monday CRM, companies can streamline client billing processes, reduce administrative overhead, and enhance customer relationships all from one platform.

Key monday CRM features

• Quotes and invoices app: Generate quotes and invoices using a customizable invoice template and email them out all from within monday CRM
• Third-party finance tool integration: With over 200 app integrations, you can synchronize your data and automations between monday CRM and apps like Quickbooks, Cash Flow, and others
• No-code invoicing automations: Build your own custom automations in just a few clicks to get instant notifications when invoices are received, a deadline approaches, or there’s an update on a client account

monday CRM pricing

• Plans start at $12/seat/month
• Four plans available: Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise
• Free trial
• Learn more about monday CRM plans and pricing here

2. Stampli

Stampli is a platform that’s primarily focused on accounts payable (AP) automation. Stampli helps teams collaborate and get better visibility into their accounts payable deparment workflows, allowing teams to manage invoice lifecycles more efficiently and providing a single source of truth for invoice communications, making it ideal for companies that need to manage complex AP processes.

Key Stampli features

• AI-driven automations: Stampli’s Billy the Bot AI assistant helps teams process, categorize, and approve invoices quicker, extracting key data to improve speed and accuracy
• ERP integration: Stampli integrates with top ERPs like Sage, Microsoft, QuickBooks, and SAP to synchronize data effortlessly
• Collaborative interface: With a centralized hub for all invoice-related conversations, teams can easily manage invoice approvals and resolve discrepancies

Stampli pricing

• Pricing information available by requesting a quote

3. Zoho CRM

As a comprehensive CRM platform, Zoho CRM offers multiple invoicing features thatallow companies to handle client interactions, billing, and payments all in one place. With flexible customization options, Zoho CRM enables users to adapt its platform to meet each business’s specific invoicing needs.

Key Zoho CRM Features

• Invoice and payment automation: Automate invoice creation and reminders to streamline collections and improve cash flow
• Multichannel communication: Integrate client communication across email, phone, and social media for easy access to billing discussions
• Built-in reports and analytics: Get more out of each invoice through insights on all the accounts you manage with detailed analytics and reporting functions

Zoho CRM Pricing

• Plans start at $14/user/month
• Five plans available: Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate
• Free trial
• Learn more about Zoho CRM’s plans and pricing here

4. AvidXchange

AvidXchange is designed for companies that need an efficient, scalable invoice solution for managing accounts and payments. Specializing in AP automation, AvidXchange enables teams to replace manual payment processes with a digital invoicing system powered by AI to help organizations get better internal controls and visibility into their AP processes.

Key AvidXchange Features

• Custom invoice automation: AvidXchange allows users to design invoicing processes and workflows so that they have an electronic invoice to route and manage rather than a manual one
• AI-enhanced invoicing functions: AI and machine learning are used to capture data from invoices to make them quicker to work with
• Integrate with external AP tools: With integrations tailored to apps like Sage, Quickbooks, Oracle, and Microsoft, AvidXchange can fit easily into your existing financial software

AvidXchange Pricing

• Custom pricing available based on request with a personalized quote

Automate invoice management from start to finish with monday CRM

The benefit of using a CRM like monday CRM for invoice management is that you can manage much more than only invoices in a single unified platform. While there are still all the necessary tools you’ll need to automate invoice management, you can also use the same data to nurture customer relationships, gather data on your clients and vendors in one central repository, and keep your entire team afloat on recent task updates.

Aside from monday CRM’s invoicing features we mentioned previously, there’s a lot more to the platform that makes it ideal for companies looking for an AP tool that doubles as a CRM. Here’s a look at some more of monday CRM’s best features for invoice management and beyond:

• Sync email accounts to get notified when a vendor emails a new sales invoice and centralize all communications in monday CRM
• Track all quotes, sales orders, invoices, and receipts in one platform where you can upload files and documents and collaborate on them
• Custom dashboards for sales and invoice tracking make it easy to stay on top of your accounts at a glance

• Pre-built customizable board templates for finance team requests, client management, contacts, and others make it quick and easy to get started
• monday CRM’s baked-in AI functionalities help you quickly compose emails and build automation and workflow formulas to better manage invoices
• Mobile monday CRM app helps you keep a handle on invoices and accounts at any time and from anywhere

• Generate advanced reports based on data from accounts and invoice data capture to get deeper insights into customer accounts, invoicing timelines, and finances
• Collaborate seamlessly by assigning invoice reviews to team members and get notified when tasks are completed or stuck
• Automatically merge duplicate invoices and data so no client account or invoice gets added to your workflow twice

Automated invoice management and accounting software for stronger customer relationships

Automating your invoice management processes isn’t only ideal for avoiding invoice errors related to manual entry, but gives you much greater control over your accounting software and procedures and client relationship management. When you use a platform like monday CRM, your invoicing process is sure to be much smoother, leading clients, vendors, and suppliers to view you as trustworthy and reliable, which both enhances your company’s reputation and helps you retain more business.