Accounts Payable
Learn about how Ottimate automates the accounts payable process
Accounts payable (AP) represents money a company owes to its vendors and suppliers for goods or services that have been received but not yet paid for. It’s recorded on the company’s balance sheet, and the total accounts payable balance is the sum of all outstanding payments due to vendors.
Companies typically have established procedures for procuring goods and services from vendors and releasing payments. This process involves several key documents. For example, if Company A needs to purchase five laptops for a new office location from an IT supplier at a contracted price of $10,000, the process might include:
- Purchase Order (PO) - A document generated by the purchasing department detailing the equipment to be purchased, including make, model, quantities, and contracted prices. The PO is managed in the company’s ERP software and coded with the appropriate ledger account and other dimensions. Once approved, the company places the order with the vendor.
- Delivery Note - The IT vendor ships five laptops to the office location. The office manager signs and acknowledges receipt of the five laptops.
- Invoice - The IT vendor sends a PDF invoice via email detailing the five laptops, listing amounts due, with references to the PO number, delivery note, and the vendor’s contracted payment terms with Company A.
How Ottimate automates accounts payable
Ottimate automates the accounts payable process by:
- Extracting data - Automatically extract structured data from invoice files
- Matching documents - Match invoices against purchase orders or delivery notes to validate accuracy
- Applying dimensions - Automatically apply GL accounts and other dimensions based on the ERP setup
- Managing approvals - Create and apply approval workflows to automatically route invoices for approval
- Syncing to ERP - Sync coded invoices back to the client’s accounting software so the correct accounts are debited and credited
- Processing payments - Automatically make payments to vendors based on contracted terms and post payment information to the accounting software
What you can do with the Ottimate API
- Export digitized invoices - Access invoices that have been processed through Ottimate’s extraction pipeline
- Push electronic invoices - Send invoices into Ottimate for coding and approvals
- Push purchase documents - Send purchase orders, delivery notes, and receipts into Ottimate for two-way and three-way matching (coming Q4)
- Export AP bills - Access completed AP bills (invoices that have been coded, approved, and are ready for export to the ERP)
- Export payment information - Access payment details for invoices paid through VendorPay (coming Q4 2025)
