AP automation buyer's guide: what to look for before you choose a platform

Every AP automation vendor will tell you they’re the right fit. Fewer will survive contact with your real invoices, your exceptions, and your ERP.

Choosing a platform is one of the highest-stakes decisions a finance or AP leader makes this year, and the risk isn’t usually in the demo. It’s in what happens after go-live, when automation rates plateau, exceptions still land on someone’s desk, and the ROI case starts to look optimistic.

This session gives you a practical framework for running that evaluation properly: which metrics should anchor it, how to score vendors before you’re influenced by a good demo, and what to actually test before you commit.

What we’ll cover:

• Why there’s no single “best” AP automation platform, only the best fit for your specific constraints
• The metrics that should anchor your evaluation, and the ones vendors would rather you didn’t ask about
• How to build a weighted scorecard before a single vendor call, so your decision holds up under scrutiny
• What to test with your own data, including the invoice types most platforms quietly struggle with
• Sharper questions to ask about AI claims, so “AI-powered” means something specific, not just a checkbox
• Why reference checks reveal what no demo ever will