Quadient Accounts Payable by Beanworks Review: Features & Pricing in 2023
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Eric is a staff writer at Fit Small Business and CPA focusing on accounting content. He spends most of his time researching and studying to give the best answer to everyone.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
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.
In the news:
Beanworks AP rebranded to Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks on November 7, 2022.
Overall Score:
3.60 / 5
What We Like
- Bill coding feature including multicurrency bills
- Bill approvals and routing
- Audit trail
- Accounting software integration with QuickBooks
What's Missing
- Pricing isn’t transparent
- Image files containing invoice data can’t be exported from Quadient AP to QuickBooks
- Search functions are limited
Visit Quadient Accounts Payable
Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Small businesses managing voluminous A/P transactions |
Pricing |
|
Free Trial | ✕ |
Accounting Software Integrations | QuickBooks Sage Oracle Netsuite Xero Microsoft Dynamics |
Special A/P Features | Automatic bill capture from email Optical character recognition Workflows Batch processing of bills Audit trails Vendor portal |
Visit Quadient Accounts Payable
If you’re looking for complete bookkeeping systems with a good A/P function, check out the best small business accounting software.
Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks Alternatives
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
Best for: Small businesses seeking a complete bookkeeping system with bill pay features | Best for: Small businesses looking for an A/P solution without a platform fee | Best for: Tax compliance and international payments |
Cost: Starting at $55 per month for QuickBooks Online Essentials, plus 99 cents per automated clearing house (ACH) transaction and $1.99 per check for bill pay | Cost: Free for platform; Transaction fees apply | Cost: Quote based |
Read our QuickBooks Online review | Read our Melio review | Read our Tipalti review |
Despite Quadient’s free starter plan, we’ve scored them low in pricing because of their lack of transparent pricing and lack of details as to what is included in the free plan. Quadient Accounts Payable offers customized feature-based plans instead of tiered plans. This means each plan has a unique set of features. There are very few details about the different plans.
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 (POs): For businesses looking to manage purchase orders (POs) and requisitions
- Invoices: For businesses wanting invoicing solutions for unlimited users and storage
- Payments: For businesses needing payment solutions like check payments, ACH, electronic funds transfer (EFT), forex, and remittances
- Expenses: For businesses looking to track expenses
Quadient Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks 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, paying bills, and so on. 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’s mobile-friendly, with the ability to access and approve invoices on both iOS and Android devices.
Automated POs (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
In the Purchase Order 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.
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.
Tracking expenses (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
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.
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.
Invoices in progress (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
The heart of Quadient Accounts Payable is the Invoice 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.
Once approved, they 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.
Payments in progress (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
In the Payment 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.
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 Accounts Payable. This is so that the payment authorizers have the invoice backup for review while signing off on payments not made through Quadient Accounts Payable. It also has a two-way sync with your accounting software, so you can verify which invoices have been paid.
Mobile App (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
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.
With the invoice 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 expense module, you can capture the receipt, add it to the expense report, and submit the report for approval.
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, which means that 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.
View of Dashboard (or Beanboard) (Source: Quadient Accounts Payable)
Moreover, Beanboard is Quadient AP’s version of a dashboard. The example above shows the performance of various users, which includes the details of invoices processed and approved.
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 Automation by Beanworks Integrations
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 Accounts Payable Automation by Beanworks User Reviews
Quadient Accounts Payable reviews from users indicate that the software is suitable for small business accounting. However, some reviewers said that the response to support emails takes some time. Quadient AP received the Top Performer award in Featured Customers.
- Featured Customers: 4.7 out of 5 stars based on around 1,650 reviews
- G2.com: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on around 130 reviews
- GetApp: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on around 35 reviews
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What does Beanworks do?
Quadient AP Automation by Beanworks (formerly known as Beanworks AP) is a cloud-based A/P automation software that integrates with popular accounting software.
Does QuickBooks have A/P automation?
QuickBooks has A/P automation features but isn’t as robust as Quadient AP Automation by Beanworks. Since QuickBooks focuses mainly on accounting software, 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.
