Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks (formerly Beanworks AP) is a cloud-based automated accounts payable (A/P) solution that helps accounting teams move swiftly from invoice to payment. It uses automatic data entry to import data to its secure online dashboard and manages the approval process. While upfront pricing is unavailable, you can request a demo of the software before purchasing. Our Quadient Accounts Payable by Beanworks review goes over the platform’s pros and cons, salient features, ease of use, and more to help you determine if it fits the bill.
The Fit Small Business mission is to deliver the best answers to people’s small business questions. Hence, we spend hours researching and testing so that we develop editorial reviews that can help our audience. For this article, we used a rubric that scored software against a set of criteria that we expect to see in accounts payable platform.
Pros
- Bill coding feature includes multicurrency bills
- Bill approvals and routing
- Audit trail
- Accounting software integration with QuickBooks
Cons
- Pricing isn’t transparent
- Image files containing invoice data can’t be exported from Quadient AP to QuickBooks
- Search functions are limited
Pricing & Scalability | Prices are not published on Quadient AP’s website. You may request pricing by filling out the contact form. |
Discount | 50% off for three months if you subscribe now |
Free Trial | 30 days (Note: You cannot get the discount if you get the trial) |
Money-back Guarantee | ✕ |
Standout Features |
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Customer Support | Phone, email, and self-help library |
Average User Reviews | Mix of positive and negative reviews. Users like it because it’s easy to use, while some find that it lacks robust features in purchase order (PO) management. |
- Businesses seeking software integration for QuickBooks Online and Desktop: We selected it as one of the best A/P software because it integrates with popular accounting solutions.
- Controllers and chief financial officers (CFOs) seeking more control over the A/P process: Your accounting team will make well-informed decisions with access to accurate reports and the ability to manage multiple legal entities in one central place.
- Businesses operating remotely: Its mobile app allows you to approve or reject invoices, capture receipts, and submit reports for approval. This can come in handy while on the road.
If you’re looking for complete bookkeeping systems with a good A/P function, check out our roundup of the best small business accounting software.
Quadient AP by Beanworks Alternatives & Comparisons
Pricing | Automatic Bill Capture from Email | Workflows | Audit Trails | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Customized | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
 | Starts at $45 per user, monthly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
 | Free | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
 | Starts at $60 per month | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
When To Use Alternatives | Learn More | |
|---|---|---|
| Accepting and making payments with other BILL users: BILL offers faster and easier payments if you pay and receive payments with other BILL users. | |
| Small businesses seeking free A/P software: Melio only charges for transaction fees, which helps you save money if you process only a few transactions per month. | |
| Those looking for A/P features within accounting software: QuickBooks Online’s A/P features are comprehensive, and it includes a built-in bill pay feature. |
Despite Quadient AP’s free starter plan, we’ve scored the provider low in this criterion because of its lack of transparent pricing and details on what is included in the free plan. Quadient AP offers customized feature-based plans instead of tiered plans, and there are very few details about the different options.
All plans are custom priced, except for Beansprout where users can start for free.
- Beansprout: For businesses new to A/P automation needing payment approvals and cloud storage
- Purchase orders: For businesses looking to manage POs and requisitions
- Invoices: For businesses wanting invoicing solutions for unlimited users and storage
- Payments: For businesses needing payment solutions like check payments, automated clearing house (ACH), electronic funds transfer (EFT), forex, and remittances
- Expenses: For businesses looking to track expenses
Quadient AP Features
In evaluating the features of Quadient Accounts Payable, we compiled general and special features related to A/P. General features are essential functions like creating bills, recording bills, creating POs, and paying bills. Special ones, on the other hand, pertain to A/P automation features that help users have a smoother A/P management experience.
The main purpose of Quadient Accounts Payable is to assist businesses with tackling four core areas: POs, invoices, payments, and expenses. It can create and match POs automatically to invoices, set and manage spending limits, search for digital invoices, configure customized approval channels, and set up batch payments. It is mobile-friendly, with the ability to access and approve invoices on both iOS and Android devices.
In the Purchase Orders module, users can create or view imported POs and approve them. This adds visibility into your committed costs and enables users to track spending within their department easily. Each PO is coded, submitted for approval and, once fully approved, it’ll wait to be matched automatically to invoices when they arrive in Quadient Accounts Payable.
Automated POs (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
You have the option of setting and managing spending limits by department, vendor, or project. You can also set manager budgets to control spending for each department.
The heart of Quadient AP is the Invoices module, which is where invoices first arrive from vendors or from being scanned. Using the GL smart coding feature, these invoices are coded with all required information needed, and then they’re submitted for approval.
Invoices in progress (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
Once approved, invoices can be exported to your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or accounting software. The invoice coding capability automates data entry for invoices by importing information from your accounting and ERP platforms. You can also reduce the risk of duplicate payments and errors by setting up customized approval channels for your team.
In the Payments module, you can create virtual credit card, check, EFT, ACH, and wire payments for your unpaid invoices and request authorization easily. Once the payments have been approved, they’re released to complete the invoice lifecycle.
Payments in progress (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
This module is also used to create payment backup for payments made out of your ERP or accounting software and matched to invoices in Quadient AP. This is so that the payment authorizers have the invoice backup for review while signing off on payments not made through Quadient AP. It also has a two-way sync with your accounting software, so you can verify which invoices have been paid.
With the Expenses module, you can allow employees to upload receipts and create expense reports from anywhere via the web browser or mobile app. You have the option to create approval procedures that will ensure compliance with expense policies.
Tracking expenses (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
Managers can be given access to approvals, reducing any potential delays. By setting up customized receipt categories that map to your general ledger (GL) codes, coding will be completed automatically.
The Quadient AP mobile app is available for iOS and Android users and is an extension of the web application. Both the invoices and expense modules are supported on the mobile app.
Mobile App (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
With the Invoices module, you have the option of capturing invoice images with your mobile device, submitting them to the web app, and approving or rejecting the invoice. With the Expenses module, you can capture the receipt, add it to the expense report, and submit the report for approval.
Quadient AP integrates with many of the leading ERP and accounting programs to automate the A/P process. These include QuickBooks, Xero, Sage 50/100/300/500, Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite, Rent Manager, Jonas Club Software, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Clubessential, and Northstar.
Quadient AP’s reporting functionality and quick, real-time access to your expense data provide you with financial insights and allow you to conduct internal audits from anywhere. For example, you can view the previous month’s invoices and verify the prices within the software. You can also stay on top of late payments by creating an on-demand aging report.
The platform allows you to digitize your office filing cabinet, giving you and your team access to invoices at any time, from any location. Completed invoices and transactions are securely stored in the cloud for seven years, which eliminates paperwork filing. You can also search invoices by vendor, GL code, amount, legal entity, or any other information on the invoice easily.
Embedded within the essential A/P features are the special features that we’re looking for in A/P software. It has optical character recognition (OCR) features that speed up data entry with 99% accuracy, according to Quadient AP. The OCR feature is extremely helpful for small businesses that process a lot of physical documents.
There are also workflows within the app that work with your accounting software. Quadient AP automatically forwards data to the accounting software through a series of workflow steps. If there are invoices and bills sent to your email address, Quadient AP can automatically fetch them and record them in the platform.
Quadient AP comes with a full support structure. The website has a help center, which expands upon all of the core features and functions in more detail. There’s also a solid resources section, which contains a blog, white papers, infographics, and case studies that home in on many key areas of A/P automation.
The level of customer support depends on the plan that you get. For example, the Starter plan promises a response within one business day, while the Premium and Enterprise options promise a dedicated customer support manager and a response within four business hours.
Quadient AP can also be integrated to work alongside your accounting software, meaning you can export batch payment data with very little effort. One of its claims is that it can implement its fully automated A/P system in less than six hours, an attractive offer for businesses wanting to avoid a long period of downtime.
Moreover, Beanboard is Quadient AP’s version of a dashboard. The image below shows the performance of various users, which includes the details of invoices processed and approved.
View of Dashboard (or Beanboard) (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
Information for invoices processed includes the number of invoices and average and median processing times. Meanwhile, information for invoices approved includes the total number of invoices, average and median approval times, and number of invoices approved or rejected. This information can be filtered by legal entity name and date range and can be exported to a comma-separated values (CSV) file.
Quadient Accounts Payable by Beanworks Reviews From Users
| Users Like | Users Dislike |
|---|---|
| Easy to use and intuitive | Expensive pricing (based on custom quote) |
| Excellent bill approval workflow | Duplicate entries on rare occasions |
| Efficient and accurate A/P tracking | Cannot download disbursed checks as PDF |
Those who left a Quadient Accounts Payable by Beanworks review mostly highlighted its excellent user interface, with many finding Quadient AP easy to use because of the user-friendly interface. Most negative reviews focus on minor inconsistencies of Quadient AP, such as duplicate entries and inaccuracies data extracted from invoices.
Here are Quadient AP’s scores in top user reviews websites:
- Featured Customers[1]: 4.7 out of 5 stars based on around 1,900 reviews
- G2.com[2]: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on about 150 reviews
- GetApp[3]: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on around 40 reviews
How We Evaluated Accounts Payable Software
We evaluated the A/P software based on four criteria: pricing, general A/P features, special A/P features, and ease of use.
25% of Overall Score
In assessing the pricing, we considered the transparency, affordability, and flexibility of pricing plans. We also gave more credit to the software providers that can accommodate more users.
25% of Overall Score
When considering basic A/P functionality, we looked at features, such as creating vendors, tracking vendor transactions, viewing outstanding bills, recording vendor credits, and other minor A/P features.
25% of Overall Score
In evaluating special A/P features, we focused more on A/P automation. We heavily considered the ability of the software to reduce data entry time, workflow approvals, and batch processing. We also included the following:
- Automatic payments: We looked at whether the software automates the payment process for recurring bills.
- Automated alerts: For every vendor that’s set up in the system, we considered whether you can create custom alerts to inform you when a bill has arrived or is due.
- E-bill aggregation: We evaluated whether electronic copies of all your bills can be sent directly to your accounting software.
- Audit trails: An audit trail helps approvers of bills see the history of the transaction being processed. Audit trails provide transparency and establish evidence that bills have been processed according to the company’s policies.
25% of Overall Score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Quadient AP Automation by Beanworks (formerly Beanworks AP) is a cloud-based A/P automation software that integrates with popular accounting software.
Yes, QuickBooks has A/P automation features, but they aren’t as robust as Quadient AP Automation by Beanworks’. Since QuickBooks focuses mainly on accounting, you can expect basic A/P automation features like workflows (in QuickBooks Online Advanced) and bill management.
Bottom Line
Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks empowers accounting teams to succeed by automating the A/P process. You can set the A/P workflow, automate the approval channels, and manage multiple entities easily in one consolidated system. With the addition of smart coding, the data entry is all but eliminated.
The platform excels when used across multiple teams, departments, and companies, allowing you to manage simple yet powerful workflows. With no user fees, you can involve the real spenders and collaborate across the entire organization in real time.
User review references:
1Featured Customers
2G2.com
3GetApp
