Alright, the business has finally agreed that AP Automation is a priority and next in line for implementation. You’ve put in the hours, you’ve read the articles, and you’ve asked around- now you’ve gotten it narrowed down to Microsoft’s Invoice Capture and SignUp Now’s ExFlow. Which one is going to get you the biggest return right out of the box? Let’s compare these two solutions looking at how you can get a few big wins almost immediately.

First, let’s talk nuts and bolts. Luckily, both options are embedded within D365 and can handle multiple entities.  This means you’re leveraging your existing ERP investment, and you don’t have the high initial cost of an integration, nor will you have the headache of one to deal with when it’s upgrade time. The other noticeable benefit is that the user interface doesn’t feel foreign to the user’s standard experience, making adoption rates higher. Invoice Capture is a newer solution, just being released in 2023, so there is an expectation that new features are on the roadmap at Microsoft to make it more robust.  ExFlow has been around for 20+ years so while they are still evolving, substantial changes will be less frequent. Now, about those wins…

Both have web invoice capture portals where incoming invoices are managed by exception. Invoices are matched and reviewed prior to actually being pulled into D365 via batch jobs for final processing. ExFlow provides an additional web portal for approvers as well. This means that not all approvers have to be in D365 to review, approve, or provide feedback on their invoices- making training easier and process acceptance higher.

The easiest process for both Invoice Capture and ExFlow is a 2- or 3-way match on your Purchase Order’s. If you use PO’s and the Vendor references it on their invoice, matching works well in both solutions. This is the fastest path to true automation. Each solution can learn to match the different invoice types with various fields and process them accordingly. These are meant to be your happy path scenarios with little to no human intervention needed when processing. ExFlow does PO line matching in a more exact way than Invoice Capture does out of the box.  The initial parameter setup allows you to set fields like freight, handling, discounts, and taxes that all get matched on your PO.  Each system can also process Expense type invoices easily as well. ExFlow does provide pre-coding using business rules or machine learning to suggest financial coding so AP can simply review and change if needed. Agreement Match is a feature that ExFlow offers that is not available today in Invoice Capture. This standard feature can be used to completely automate reoccurring spend not on a PO like utilities, rent, leasing, or mobile phones. You set the criteria for acceptance and as long as that’s met, it’s sent for payment. Additionally, you can use advanced posting proposals or automatic invoice coding here too!

What happens though when you do need approval from business owners, and it can’t just fly through to invoice payment?  Invoice Capture uses the standard workflow functionality in D365 to send approval notifications to people based on the position hierarchy or user group. When that’s not enough, you can use Power Automate to build out more complex flows.  ExFlow has its own set of expanded approval workflows that you can configure. These can be set to go to financial dimension owners, project managers, vendor owners, or PO requestors making the flexibility for approvals out of the box easier.

Overall, both solutions will help you automate AP processes and get that precious resource called time back. Managing by exception is key, so training the solution correctly is the most crucial step in implementation as well as maintenance going forward. As both solutions learn the placement of fields using AI and your training, the invoice exceptions will decrease every day, and this is the ultimate goal of any automation initiative! Ultimately, both solutions are great but depending on your specific company needs one could be better for you than the other.

Reach out to us at Caf2Code and we can help you from choosing the right solution all the way through implementation, training, and continued growth of your business processes.