As a business owner, you know that managing invoices can be a time-consuming and tedious task that takes away from the core functions of your business. In fact, according to a report by PYMNTS, 80% of businesses still rely on paper checks. This takes away the time and resources that AP teams can allocate toward strategy-building initiatives. 

However, there is a solution! By investing in e-invoicing software for your business, you can streamline your invoicing process, save time, and reduce the risk of errors and payment delays. 

But with so many e-invoicing software options available, how do you choose the best one for your business? In this article, we will understand what exactly e-invoicing is and explore what features to look for in e-invoicing software and their benefits, so you can make an informed decision and take your invoicing process to the next level.

What is e-Invoicing?

An e-invoice automates and streamlines invoices and compliance documentation. Businesses can share e-invoices with customers, track their status, file returns, etc. Moreover, the software helps avoid manual errors and prevent fraud by enforcing error-free documentation using digitalized invoice data and verifying it against contracts, purchase orders, receipts, etc.

E-invoicing software enables users to generate B2B e-invoices and authenticate them on a designated IRP portal. An e-invoice makes digital information easily accessible compared to a traditional paper-based system. It provides solutions for the following:

  • Managing tedious compliance tasks.
  • Improves collaboration within the organization and partners involved in training.
  • Maximization of early payment discounts and working capital optimization.
  • Lowers the risk of overpayment and fraud.

Top 10 e-Invoicing Software 

Whether you are looking for a simple or more advanced invoicing solution, this ten e-invoicing software are sure to meet your needs:

1. Zapro 

Zapro is a spend analysis software that increases your working capital by reducing unnecessary spending and payables across your business units. It helps simplify the purchase process and automate spend management by delivering strategic cost savings and securing reliable supply sources thanks to leveraging source-to-contract capabilities.

Free Trial: Available

Check out the pricing here.

To find out more, schedule a demo with us. 

FEATURES

  • e-Procurement, Assisted Buying
  • Hosted and Punchout Catalogs
  • Services Procurement
  • AP Automation and Compliances
  • Store Management
  • Contracts Lifecycle with Compliance Management
  • Two Way, Three-way, Multi-Way Matching
  • Cloud Deployment
  • No Code Customizable Platform
  • Slack / Teams Integration
  • Reports and Analytics
  • Webhooks and API Support

PROS

  • Gain a holistic, data-driven view across your supply chain and supplier base.
  • Mitigate third-party risk and establish supplier compliance.
  • Drive deeper collaboration with suppliers and vendor management.
  • Reduce or eliminate eSourcing process workflow inefficiencies.
  • Establish a seamless, high level of cooperation between stakeholders — internal and external.
  • Significantly reduce cycle times to accelerate business opportunities.
  • Better manage spending to cut costs and increase savings across categories.
  • Create contracts faster and more quickly directly from sourcing events.

2. Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is an entirely free cloud-based invoicing solution designed to help small companies with invoicing, accepting online payments, and tracking expenses. It can help track estimates and create invoices while sending reminders to the clients to complete their outstanding payments. Users can also create tasks, collect advance project payments, and track their invoice history.

FEATURES

  • Project billing
  • Time tracking
  • Customizable templates
  • Client portal.

PROS

  • Create invoices with multiple currencies and languages
  • Free account for life

CONS

  • Limited FAQ support
  • Requires customization to get started
  • Payroll services are separate and not free

3. Xero

Xero has an excellent reputation among SMEs because, along with invoicing, it includes valuable accounting automation services such as account reconciliation, bank rules, automatic invoicing reminders, and recurring invoices.

The users can access multiple plugins and extensive accounting capabilities depending on the plan chosen. It helps keep track of your inventory and systematically records your company’s tax status, purchases, and transaction information.

FEATURES

  • Intuitive dashboard that makes tracking receipts simpler.
  • Security features such as a multiple-approval model.
  • Two-factor authentication for shared invoices.

PROS

  • Send invoices and quotes
  • Settle bank transactions
  • Short-term cash flow and business snapshot

CONS

  • No free plan
  • Multiple currencies are not supported for all plans
  • Additional fees for analytics and tracking projects

4. Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja enables you to create professional invoices and set up auto-billing, especially for freelancers or small business owners. Invoice Ninja is a solid free billing software that generates invoices and allows you to receive payments online.

FEATURES

  • Accept payments online
  • Tracking billable hours
  • Banking integrations

PROS

  • Completely free option
  • Easy access to customer support knowledge database
  • Customizable invoices

CONS

  • Navigation is confusing
  • Recurring invoices are difficult to set up

5. Quickbooks

QuickBooks is a small business accounting software that helps you manage your business from anywhere, anytime. It provides intelligent tools for your business yet is very easy to use.

Quickbooks help you organize your books, manage expenses, generate and send invoices, track inventory, and run payroll. It also tracks sales tax collected by the jurisdiction, generates reports, and allows you to pay directly from the Software. It can evaluate sales tax rates based on the customer’s address and automatically apply them to the invoice.

FEATURES

  • It has an intuitive dashboard and user-friendly design.
  • It eases billing and bookkeeping through invoice templates.
  • It has features like tracking tools and automatic reminders for billing.

PROS

  • Easily manage tax rates
  • Automatic billing reminders
  • Monitor all of your financial records in one location

CONS

  • A limited number of users and accounts
  • Pricier than competitors

6. Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct is a flexible financial platform that provides comprehensive accounting capabilities to many businesses worldwide.

Sage Intacct offers various core accounting applications such as a general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, and order management to any finance team or accounting department.

FEATURES

  • It supports functionality for built-in dashboards
  • Real-time reporting
  • Time and expense management
  • Project accounting
  • Global consolidations for multiple entities.

PROS

  • Supports unlimited users on the top-tier plan
  • Users can modify the dashboard and create custom reports.
  • Automatically tracks expenses
  • 24/7 customer support

CONS

  • Product details aren’t transparent, and the website is confusing
  • No free option

7. Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a cloud accounting platform for growing businesses. It helps B2B businesses streamline business transactions, track income, and expenses, and automate business processes.

It allows businesses to create e-invoices in a designated format and connect it directly to the IRP portal. You can add transactions to the account quickly, and by connecting to the bank feeds, you can get daily transactions in real time. Recurring transactions like invoices, expenses, or bills can be set on auto-pilot.

FEATURES

  • Create error-free e-invoices under Government mandates
  • Send bulk e-invoices to the IRP portal and add an extra layer of approval
  • Easily track e-invoice status like canceled, pushed, to be pushed

PROS

  • Available in multiple languages and businesses
  • Generate invoices in your customer’s currency.
  • Generate estimates and invoices on the go
  • Vendors, customers, and items are all in sync between the two applications

CONS

  • The pricing structure of Zoho Books can be confusing.
  • It has some limitations in terms of advanced features and reporting capabilities.

8. Coupa

Coupa allows you to take control of your spending and position your business for growth and resilience. Its fast and secure global payments platform enables you to maximize your rebate and working capital. It allows you to automate and scale your Accounts Payable with an AP automation solution that provides multi-level automated invoice validation, dynamic approval workflows, and full mobile access.

FEATURES

  • Contract and catalog management
  • Budget definition and Approval
  • Inventory management
  • Fraud prevention and mitigation

PROS

  • An enterprise-level app with the user-friendliness of a consumer shopping experience. 
  • Integrates easily with the ERP facilitating the financial processes.
  • The tool is very flexible and intuitive.

CONS

  • It lacks a project accounting suite which may be challenging for project-driven organizations.
  • It lacks integration between the sourcing platform and the requisition process.

9. SAP Ariba

SAP Ariba is a cloud-based software to enhance collaborative spending, finance, and sales management. SAP Ariba e-invoice management solution helps remove the complexity of your invoice-to-pay process and get to ok-to-pay with as little manual intervention as possible.

You can establish everything with the use of a single platform. This solution makes it easy to work with your trade partners to manage spending, manage finances, and accelerate sales.

FEATURES

  • Automated invoice reconciliation and approval processes
  • Network-based business rules help ensure contractual and regulatory compliance
  • Intuitive tools to collaborate on early-payment discounts

PROS:

  • Improves user experiences for maximum impact
  • Offers a user-friendly interface

CONS:

  • Complicated User Interface
  • The complex system makes integration with other systems time consuming
  • Confusing for new users to understand the complex solution
  • More priced than its competitors

10. Zycus

Zycus provides an innovative way to adhere to compliance for preferred buying. The platform intuitively guides the user toward the correct buying journey using a self-learning engine called MerlinAI.

You can achieve economic and easier invoice management via touchless invoice processing, faster three-way matching, high portal-based invoice generation, and global compliance.

FEATURES

  • Insightful Analytics
  • Mobile Invoicing
  • Flexible workflow Management
  • Faster Invoice matching and approval

PROS

  • Accounts payable process stabilization
  • Catalog management with the support of the spending data
  • Insights on the spending and visibility
  • The invoice with less manual intervention

CONS

  • Complete automation is not available, and users are required to add the data manually
  • Users cannot customize according to their requirements; it’s a kind of fixed functionality
  • Confusing and non-user-friendly RFP templates.

How to choose e-Invoicing software?

Investing in e-invoicing software is no small ordeal. Keep a lookout for these 8 features before finalizing the tool:

Compatibility with accounting software

It is essential to choose an e-invoicing software that can seamlessly integrate with your existing accounting software. This feature will allow you to save time and reduce errors by automatically syncing invoices and transactions between the two systems. For instance, if you use QuickBooks, choose an e-invoicing software that can integrate with QuickBooks, which will enable you to keep track of your invoices and payments in real time.

Customization

The ability to customize your invoices is another critical feature to look for in e-invoicing software. This feature allows you to add your company logo, color schemes, and other design elements that match your brand identity. You can also customize the layout and format of the invoice depending on your client’s requirements. For example, if your client prefers to receive invoices in PDF format, you can customize your e-invoicing software to generate PDF invoices automatically.

Automation

One of the primary reasons for using e-invoicing software is to automate invoicing and payment processes. An excellent e-invoicing software should provide automated features that can save you time and effort, such as automatic invoice reminders and recurring invoices. With automatic reminders, you can reduce late payments and improve your cash flow, while recurring invoices can save you time by automatically generating invoices for repeat customers.

Payment Options

Your e-invoicing software should also offer multiple payment options for your clients. By providing various payment options, you can make it easier for your clients to pay their invoices and reduce the chances of payment delays. For example, your e-invoicing software should allow clients to pay through credit card, bank transfer, or PayPal.

Security

Security is critical when it comes to e-invoicing. Your e-invoicing software should provide adequate security measures to protect your financial data, including SSL encryption, two-factor authentication, and other security features. These security measures ensure that your financial information is secure and prevent unauthorized access to your data.

Reporting

An excellent e-invoicing software should also provide robust reporting features. These features allow you to track and analyze your invoicing and payment activities, monitor your cash flow, and identify areas where you can improve your invoicing process. For example, you can generate reports on overdue invoices, payment histories, and customer spending patterns.

OCR

OCR is a technology that enables the recognition of printed or handwritten text characters within digital images. In e-invoicing software, OCR technology is used to extract information from invoices, such as the invoice number, date, vendor name, and other relevant details. OCR saves time by automating the manual data entry process, reducing the chances of errors that can occur during manual entry. Additionally, OCR allows for faster processing of invoices, which can help improve cash flow for both the invoicing party and the recipient.

3-way matching

3-way matching is a process used to compare and verify three key pieces of information in an invoice: the purchase order (PO), the receiving report (RR), and the invoice. The process is automated in e-invoicing software and helps to ensure accuracy, prevent fraud, and reduce the risk of errors in the invoicing process. The software compares the invoice details against the PO and the RR to ensure that the goods or services were received as specified in the PO before payment is made.

Wrapping it Up

Whether you’re an established business, a contractor, or a start-up, numerous software options are available to help you manage your invoices and billing. These are designed to help your company automate billing processes and gain greater visibility into billing data and metrics that can help you manage the full scope of your business’s financial operations. These tools can help you streamline your billing process and improve customer relations.

Furthermore, many e-invoicing solutions offer free trials or demo versions that let you test the billing software and see how it can meet your needs before committing to a subscription. Overall, it’s worth investing in billing software to help you manage your billing processes more efficiently.