We’re very proud to have been mentioned in several analyst reports from Gartner, Forrester and others over the past few months. Most recently, we’re delighted that Serrala was recognized in the QKS SPARK Matrix for Accounts Payable.
In our discussions with these and other analysts, we’ve seen several repeat themes and trends. Businesses and technology leaders are facing specific complex challenges related to finance ops and AP in 2025. And these challenges shape what it means to be an “AP automation leader”, and what separates the best of the solutions and vendors on the market from run of the mill alternatives.
We’ll be exploring these differences in this article. We’ll be incorporating some excerpts from our recent webinar with the QKS group. Along with our own experience and insight into the challenges and barriers facing our customers as they work to streamline their operations and rationalize their processes to pave the way for more strategic approaches to working capital management.
Read to learn the key drivers and the business capabilities and technologies that you’ll need as an AP leader to transform your operations, stay compliant with regulations, and keep your organization growing and innovating.
1. What key drivers motivate the top performers in AP?
The AP automation market is driven by top performers‘ need to find and implement solutions that can go beyond the mere routinization of low-level tasks and help drive real strategic value creation. Analysts, enterprises, and finance leaders are looking for vendors that go beyond basic functionality like this to enable finance transformation.
This means automation solutions must be able to support real-time decision making (founded in robust real-time data), reduce risk through appropriate controls and compliance assistance, scale globally and integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise software landscapes, and set the stage for the next round of transformations by enabling the use of predictive analytics and other types of AI.
Callout stat: 90% of CFOs will deploy at least one AI-enabled solution by 2026 and 58% have already adopted AI/ML – Gartner
This means there are five key “capability areas” or requirement dimensions that influence decisions about AP automation purchases today.
- Accelerating payment process and reduce invoice processing time. This is number one, but it’s also “table stakes.” AP automation solutions that automate tasks such as data entry, approval routing, and payment processing, reducing manual effort and human error are now seen as the baseline for a viable product.
- Siloed and inefficient processes: Technology buyers are looking for unified solutions, driven by a lack of integration in their internal procure-to-pay processes. It’s no longer good enough to simply create the perfect tool for one part of the process. A leading automation solution needs to bring the whole AP workflow together in one place.
- Access and credential control: Trustworthy AP automations solutions must also be able to guarantee that they only trust the right users. Proper access and credentialing capabilities are vital to reduce instances of internal procurement fraud. If your system doesn’t incorporate its own identity and access management principles or integrate with other solutions that do, it’s exposing you to unnecessary risk.
- Multicurrency and multi-language support: Platforms for global AP automation must offer multicurrency and multi-language capabilities to make handling complex cross-border payments and invoicing procedures as streamlined as domestic transactions.
- Regulatory compliance and risk management: A modern AP automation solution must have compliance features built in as standard. Forcing companies to conform to a preferred workflow isn’t an option in a world where continuous auditing mandates, e-invoicing, and global payments standards like ISO 20022 shape the reality of financial conduct and operational processes.
2. What are the three pillars of a best-in-class AP automation provider?
Leading AP automation providers separate themselves at the strategic level by a commitment to three major business principles.
1. Innovation and intelligence from technology application to company approach
Leaders readily embrace advanced technologies like AI and ML to handle disputes, detect anomalies, and continuously improve. In particular, predictive ML algorithms are seeing wider adoption because they’re capable not just of routing invoices, requests, and disputes, but because they can provide added security by spotting potential fraud.
Leaders also constantly explore new avenues to drive the quality of the products they deliver while reducing the burdens of purchase and use on their customers. In recent years, the pivot to cloud has played a huge role in reducing IT maintenance overheads and creating infinitely scalable and secure solutions that can support invoice volumes in the millions. Strategic partnerships with
2. Collaboration with other businesses and specialists
True AP leadership means looking at ways to support collaboration and compliance where AP intersects with other stakeholders and functions.
E-invoicing capabilities, for example, are a must for global organizations, with many countries progressively mandating their use for B2G and B2B transactions. Leading AP automation providers must be aware of all these requirements and provide integrations for all systems used in these jurisdictions—or partner with companies that do.
Closer to home, vendor self-service portals can dramatically improve data accuracy and touchless processing rates for quicker, more efficient payments. This requires an AP automation system that integrates with your organization’s procurement solutions to efficiently manage supplier master data across different departments, manage relationships with vendors, and allow your business to capture dynamic discounts and other cost savings.
3. Strategic, future-focused enablement
Top-tier providers look toward the future, seeking solutions that don’t just fix a specific short-term problem, but support long-term strategic goals and “clear the way” for further improvement in the future.
AP leaders must seek out the tools that help them move from tactical improvements and efficiency gains to better financial decision making and greater flexibility. AI and ML will play a pivotal role here, and along with AP automation more generally, will become increasingly important as markets continue to shift in the coming years.
3. Why Serrala is recognized as a market leader in AP automation?
Our approach has earned recognition from leading analyst firms who evaluate providers based on product strength, innovation, and customer impact. We’ve been specifically highlighted for our solutions’ ability to capture invoice data from all formats and delivery channels via Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)—a highly accurate, AI-backed capture approach that supersedes traditional OCR.
IDP and intelligent 2- and 3-way matching automation allow our customers to achieve straight-through processing on half or more of their AP invoices.
We’re also consistently praised for our solutions’ integrations with a variety of different ERP systems and other enterprise systems of record. Our solutions deploy as wholly embedded S/4HANA-ready extensions of SAP, or as standalone cloud-native offerings that seamlessly integrate data from Microsoft, Oracle, Infor, Sage, and the most complex of hybrid architectures. All of which can be rapidly implemented on a modular basis to augment and extend the capabilities of your existing investments. While offering end-to-end AP visibility, minimal IT burden, and scalability across business units and global payment ecosystems.
Our leadership position comes not just from our ability to eliminate manual workflows in everything from invoice processing to dispute handling by up to 85%, almost half the time it takes to approve individual invoices, and cut costs-per-invoice by over 50%—although of course we’re very proud of this. It’s also about how we help our clients prepare for tomorrow. Providing an architecture that supports built-in intelligence for fraud prevention, smart matching, and dynamic approvals via strategic partnerships (like our Microsoft Teams app, which allows everyone involved in the AP approvals process to action and review workflows and extract key insights from data anytime from anywhere in the world). And supporting a variety of operational approaches (including shared service centers), simplifying compliance demands, and providing strategic support via long term innovation roadmaps.
4. What kind of results can organizations achieve with an AP Automation Leader?
Serrala’s Edge: How Our Client Zurich North America Benefits from AP Automation
Leading insurance provider Zurich North America chose Serrala to lead its AP modernization journey. Not just to improve automation, but to standardize, scale, and innovate across borders and create a single unified process worldwide.
Zurich rolled out our solution out during coronavirus crisis in Spring 2020. Thanks to our prioritizing a smooth implementation and user experience, the company found it easy both to hit the ground running with the new system, and to train and bring agents up to speed remotely.
With Serrala, Zurich reduced time spent processing invoices and paper documents—and reduced costs in the process. The company also significantly increased the accuracy of its financial reporting and reconciliations, effectively eliminating errors between SAP and EZ Access. This has translated into hours saved on data corrections and reprocessing.
These are the outcomes that define a market-leading provider.
5. What should organizations look for when choosing a future-ready AP automation partner?
Recognition by QKS and other industry analysts confirms what our customers already know: leadership in AP automation isn’t just about product features—it’s about partnership, innovation, and strategic alignment.
If your finance team is looking not just to catch up—but get ahead—Serrala is the partner to get you there.
How can Serrala help you create a leading AP automation framework?
As the pace of change accelerates, AP leaders must stay informed about emerging trends and invest in the right technologies and processes to thrive in this dynamic landscape. By embracing these trends, organizations can turn their AP departments into strategic assets that contribute to overall business success.
Serrala AP automation solutions are designed to create a coherent, end-to-end ecosystem for your AP and payment processes that simplifies your accounting workflows and allows for full working capital optimization.
To discover why we’re trusted to lead AP automation for the world’s most innovative finance teams to book a personalized demo.
