Revalize Digitalizes Its Global Payables Operations as They Increase Entities

HQ Jacksonville, FL
Customer Since 2020

Revenue Software

• Gained informed budgeting and more precise financial forecasting
• Reduced manual work and data-entry with a self-onboarding process for new vendors
• Integrated instant invoice input and accounting reconciliations with its ERP, NetSuite

Revalize is a global leader and go-to software platform for manufacturers looking to optimize revenue operations. The Revalize Cloud for Manufacturing offers industry-leading CPQ and design solutions to help organizations accelerate their time-to-cash. The business has helped 15,000+ global customers to design, customize, quote, and sell more than $8 billion in products monthly.

Launched in 2020, Revalize has already secured 17 acquisitions to enhance its platform as a primary growth driver. The company has proliferated and has worked with many vendors worldwide in just two years.

Katelyn Stephens, CPA and senior accountant of Revalize, explains: “One of the unique challenges [for Revalize] is how global we are. We have several companies in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK—all in addition to our United States companies.

When the company went fully remote during the pandemic, Revalize needed to expedite its finance processes. With a small accounting staff responsible for processing invoices from around the world, manual tasks—even printing—were ineffective from a remote-work standpoint.

Revalize notoriously keeps its eyes open for new companies and modern technology. The finance team wanted a solution to streamline processes and lean out operations.

There was no question that we couldn’t operate individually. [Invoices, payments, and more] needed to be in one system to address accounts payable for each entity. We had so much overlap by having three or four companies running on separate but similar software platforms—we don’t want to pay for the same features three times over.

With so many companies to juggle, Revalize knew manually handling so many finance workflows was not a possibility as they continued to grow.

If I were to manually enter [each invoice for 13 companies], I don’t think I would do anything but that. [Manual input] is such a bottleneck and a roadblock for us. It would inhibit the way we grow.

To automate its finance function, the Revalize team implemented Tipalti to streamline its workflow processes. With Tipalti, Revalize’s vendors and contractors could self-onboard through its vendor portal. All they needed to get started was to provide an email address.

It’s almost like giving the keys back to the vendors—they have a lot of freedom and visibility into the process. It was a little shocking that this could even be this visible to them. [The Tipalti solution] has provided much more knowledge about how department heads pay vendors. It’s enabled vendors to understand the process and to be able to see payments directly. Streamlining that process gives them the freedom to manage their own business.

In addition to Tipalti, their ERP, NetSuite, helped automate Revalize’s core processes. Together, these solutions automatically input tax forms and streamline vendor management.

Revalize spent a significant amount of time on their annual audit. With Tipalti—and ardent team collaboration—their records were transparent for auditors.

I’m thankful we were as transparent as possible with Tipalti and those records. That was the easiest part of the auditing process. [sic]

In addition to transparency for the audit, Revalize gained visibility and transparency through vendor payments.

We see how many hours a contractor billed us for the year so we can prepare our budgets for next year. [sic]

Now that Revalize has digitized its global payables operations, invoices are batched each week. This process has given the controller and Stephens the flexibility to schedule payments ahead of time. They’re catching overlaps for companies and payees.

The biggest benefit for us is the visibility by centralizing global AP operations. We added 13 entities to Tipalti, and more are coming. It’s impossible to know every detail of what’s happening in individual companies if they’re all in different systems. [This visibility] enables the accounting and finance teams to forecast what will be added to Tipalti, what is coming up, and what has been approved.[sic]

As a remote team, Tipalti helped Revalize free up their manual workload so they could direct their focus on the company’s mission.

Revalize has several core values that encourage our employees to understand and integrate into our culture. One big one we have is everybody makes the coffee. Nobody is too big to do a job. We’re all in it together and on the same team to cooperate on the same thing. Another big one is results or bust. We’re after results and effort—whether it’s the controller, the senior accountant, or a contractor we’ve hired for a project. Everyone is dedicated to the same goal.

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