Accounts Payable
Accounts payable software
Compare Australian accounts payable software by tracing supplier bills through capture, approval, payment and bank matching.
Choose accounts payable software by tracing a supplier bill from arrival to the bank statement. The right system for your business should let staff check the charge, approve the relevant bill version, record what is owed, authorise payment and explain how it cleared. Fast capture helps but does not make those decisions.
Define the bill-to-payment path
List how bills arrive: a shared email address, a staff member, a supplier portal or a purchase order. Assign who checks the supplier and what was supplied, who reviews accounting details, who approves the charge and who authorises payment. In a small team, one person may perform several steps, but the decisions must still be clear.
Keep the stages distinct. Received means the document has arrived. Approved means an authorised person has accepted a specified charge.
Recorded as payable means the accounts show an amount owed. Payment recorded does not necessarily mean money has left the bank; a bank withdrawal and reconciliation provide further evidence. Check what each status means in the product you use.
Have your accountant or BAS adviser settle uncertain GST treatment. An extracted tax code needs review.
Compare the work the software must support
| Stage | Question for a demonstration |
|---|---|
| Capture | Can bills from your usual routes reach one queue with the original document visible? |
| Review | Can staff correct details and coding before recording? |
| Approval | What is being approved, and what happens if details change? |
| Duplicate check | Can staff find a bill already entered through another route? |
| Payment | Who checks payment details and authorises release? |
| Bank match | Can a withdrawal be linked to an existing payment or bill? |
A purchase order can help check what was charged against what was ordered and received. Without one, identify the contract, delivery record or service confirmation used for that check. Keep disputed bills visible while they are resolved.
Three Australian shortlist starting points
Xero. Its Australian bill page describes emailed or uploaded documents becoming draft bills, plus bill roles, duplicate flags and payment-file export. The export route marks bills as paid in Xero; check the bank separately to confirm the payment was sent and cleared.
Xero also offers online bill payments for domestic AUD bills. Grow lists basic document extraction; Comprehensive lists smart document capture. Confirm the proposed plan’s capture capability, bill allowance, payment fees and approval permissions.
MYOB Business. Its browser workflow lets staff upload or email a supplier document, create a bill with prefilled details, or attach the document to a bill already entered. MYOB tells users to check extracted details before recording.
It also documents converting a purchase order to a bill and matching supplier payments. Ask MYOB to demonstrate the required approval route in the product and roles you would buy.
QuickBooks Online. Australian guidance describes uploads that can be matched to an existing transaction or used to create a transaction for review. Its Bills page separates items for review, unpaid and paid.
Its review queue should not be treated as proof of a formal approval route. Check the proposed plan’s approval conditions and permissions, including what happens after an approved bill is edited.
Check payment costs and setup
Xero’s published monthly allowance for domestic AUD online bill payments differs by plan: Grow includes five, Comprehensive ten, Ultimate fifteen and Ultra twenty. Ignite includes no payments and charges $0.35 per payment; exceeding an included allowance also incurs a payment fee. Estimate expected usage against the plan you are considering.
Xero says online bill payment setup includes submitting business details for verification by Airwallex and connecting a bank account through PayTo or Direct Debit authorisation. Airwallex processes these payments. Ask who in your business can complete verification and whether the proposed payment route fits your banking arrangements.
For MYOB Business uploads, documents must be 10 MB or smaller and in PDF, JPG or JPEG, TIFF or TIF, or PNG format. In your trial, include the file types and sizes your suppliers actually send rather than assuming every document can be handled.
Xero Online Bill Payment Allowances (Monthly)
Check what bank-feed matching does
Ask the provider to distinguish a suggested match from an automatic match and from a transaction created by a rule. These behaviours affect how much review your team must do and whether a setting can create a new record instead of linking a withdrawal to an existing bill payment.
MYOB says automatic matching can apply to electronic payments and bill payments when the relevant bank-matching settings are enabled. It can also show possible matches as suggestions; custom rules for invoice and bill payments are suggestions, not automatic matches.
MYOB’s documentation says an exact available match can be applied automatically when automatching is on, and an incorrect match or allocation can be undone. In a demonstration, ask the presenter to show the control staff would use to inspect a suggested match and correct an error.
Make the decision with exceptions
Ask each candidate to demonstrate the same fictional ordinary bill, a resent copy, a changed amount after approval, a supplier credit, a part payment and one bank withdrawal covering several bills. Have someone other than the presenter find the source document, current payable, approval decision, payment record and bank match.
Classify each gap as configuration, different plan, manual control or unresolved. Include the work of maintaining supplier details, training approvers and reviewing exceptions. Choose a workflow your team can operate and explain at month end; have the finance owner approve its accounting and GST setup before live use.
In this guide
- Comparing bill capture and approval workflowsCompare how supplier bills enter a system, reach the right approver and remain traceable when a charge changes.
- Preventing duplicate supplier invoicesStop a resent or re-entered supplier invoice becoming a second payable, and investigate possible duplicates before payment.
- Matching a payment to the approved bill and bank withdrawalTrace an approved supplier bill through payment and bank matching without creating a second expense or hiding an unpaid balance.
