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Cut costs, eliminate manual work, and gain full visibility into your payables process.
As a company evolves, AP automation reduces costs, streamlines supplier onboarding, improves tax compliance, and shifts accounting teams to strategic tasks. It boosts financial controls, lowers error rates, and minimises fraud.
SaaS-based tools like Tipalti and Concur integrate with smart ERPs to eliminate manual processes. Tipalti stands out with its strong global capabilities, expanding UK client base, and a local office in London.
This guide compares Concur Invoice and Tipalti across AP automation, procurement, invoice processing, supplier onboarding, UK tax compliance, and global payments.
What Does Tipalti Do?
Tipalti is a provider of robust, cloud-based AP automation software. The intuitive platform is mostly used by midmarket companies. It offers in-depth insights, dedicated customer support, and a universal solution to your burning financial needs.
For UK businesses, Tipalti offers advantages in managing international payments, helps comply with UK tax regulations, and integrates with popular UK accounting software to ensure better cash flow management.
As a comprehensive financial management software solution, Tipalti helps UK businesses improve cash flow by accelerating payment processes and providing real-time visibility into financial operations.
What Does Concur Do?
Concur is a cloud-based platform within the SAP ecosystem that contains four modules for accounting: Concur Travel, Concur Invoice, Concur Request, and Concur Detect.
Concur Invoice specifically handles the invoice automation process, offering key functionalities like optical character recognition (OCR), PO matching, workflow automation, in-depth reporting, compliance, and payment integrations.
The system helps to improve AP visibility, reduce manual data entry, and ensure ongoing policy compliance.
Compare Key Features: Tipalti vs. Concur Invoice
Both Tipalti and Concur offer SaaS platforms for accounts payable process automation. Each software vendor offers features and solutions to streamline the payables process.
| Functionality | Tipalti | Concur Invoice |
|---|---|---|
| Payment Methods | BACS, Faster Payments, CHAPS, global ACH (eCheque), wire transfer, PayPal, cheque, and prepaid debit card. | Cheque payments only. Payment partners are required for most other payment methods, including BACS, faster payments, and CHAPS. |
| Global Payment Coverage | Payments to 200+ countries in 120 currencies. Emphasis on UK businesses paying overseas suppliers. | Requires use of payment partners for country and currency reach. Limited native support for UK-specific payment needs. |
| Automated Invoice Processing | Invoice capture by OCR at the header and line level, machine learning, and managed services. 2- and 3-way PO matching, custom fields support. | Comparable capability. |
| Procurement | Integrated PO management software helps streamline company purchases, improve spend controls, and reduce AP processing time. | PO creation, no Slack integration to accelerate approvals, and no integrations with 30+ ticketing systems. |
| Supplier Onboarding and Vetting | Self-service supplier onboarding with a client-branded portal. Supplier choice of preferred payment method, currency; 26,000+ rules validate payments, screen against OFAC/SDN lists. | Vendor data is uploaded manually or via API; no self-serve onboarding capability; the supplier portal was reportedly retired in October 2020. |
| Tax Compliance | Tiaptli collects and validates VAT registration numbers, helping with Making Tax Digital (MTD) compliance and supporting necessary reporting. | No native UK tax compliance features. Relies on integrations or manual processes for VAT and other UK tax requirements. |
| FX Solutions | Currency conversions without complications – save time and money on currency conversions. Advanced FX solutions – intercompany bank transfers, FX hedging, payee FX. Essential for UK businesses managing currency exchange and international payments. | No native FX solutions. |
| ERP Integrations | Native API integrations with major ERPs (NetSuite, Intacct, and QuickBooks Online). Integration with all other ERPs via pre-built connectors using a no-code, drag-and-drop interface. Strong focus on UK-centric ERPs like Sage, Xero, FreeAgent, and QuickBooks. | Comparable ERP integration options, but reportedly no longer has native integration capabilities with NetSuite and may require 3rd party connectors. |
Tipalti AP Automation Software
Tipalti’s AP automation software offers key features, including purchase order management, self-service supplier onboarding, invoice management, and tax and regulatory compliance. Tipalti software improves business efficiency.
Tipalti offers scalability to expand through internal growth and acquisitions while minimising headcount additions. Tipalti software saves you money and eliminates the need to implement an on-premise system to perform the same functions as you experience business growth.
Key Features of Tipalti:
Invoice Processing
The system offers AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) with Smart Scan (for header and line-level capture). The invoice management module also includes two and three-way PO matching, automated approval workflows (mobile and email), custom coding, and GL mapping. It also offers multi-entity and currency support for global transactions.
Supplier Management
Tipalti offers a white-label, self-service supplier portal that empowers vendors to manage their own data. It features automated tax form collection, bank account validations, and notifications to update suppliers on invoice status. This eliminates frequent queries, enabling AP teams to focus more on strategic tasks.
Global Payments
The Tipalti suite of tools for accounts payable also includes global, mass payables to over 200 countries, in 120 currencies. The system offers over 50 payment methods, including ACH wire, PayPal, SEPA, Global ACH, and prepaid debit cards.
A business can schedule payments, send them in batches, automatically reconcile payments, and subsequently, capture early payment discounts. You can also access tools with built-in FX conversion and hedging options.
Robust Controls
Tipalti provides a range of spend and compliance controls to help your business thrive. This includes controls for real-time budget visibility, role-based access, policy-based spend, audit trails, and approval logs.
In-Depth Reporting
The Tipalti solution offers real-time payment status dashboards, audit-ready reporting, and tax compliance reports. You can also closely analyse spend by vendor, department, and/or project.
Tipalti ERP Integrations
Tipalti integrates with over 70 ERP and accounting systems. This includes native ERP integrations via API and CSV imports. It offers a two-way sync with ERPs for GL, vendor, and payment data with custom field support and mapping. Top brands Tipalti integrates with are:
- Oracle NetSuite (including OneWorld)
- QuickBooks
- Sage (Intacct, 50, 100, 200, 300, X3, Bright Pearl)
- Xero
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Business Central, F&O, NAV, GP)
- SAP (Business One, S/4HANA, ByDesign, ECC)
- Oracle Fusion
- Workday
- Infor Syteline
- Visibility
- Odoo
- QAD
- IQMS
- Exact
- Datev
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Tipalti Pricing
Tipalti offers pricing plans tailored to businesses of varying sizes and complexities. The Starter package costs £99 per month and includes a set number of users and invoices, as well as free local bank transfers with every invoice processed.
Add-ons to the platform include additional users, multi-entity payables, and currency accounts. Upgrading to higher-tier packages gets you access to Tipalti Procurement, and Tipalti Expenses can be added on as needed.
Trusted by Finance Leaders. Backed by Industry Awards.
IDC named Tipalti a leader in mid-market AP automation. Industry experts praise its user-friendly dashboard, global capabilities, and proven impact on finance team efficiency.
Tipalti continues to earn top honours from thousands of verified users (many in the UK) for streamlining AP, managing global payments, and supporting scalable financial operations.
The system’s strong reputation with high-growth and international businesses highlights why more UK-based companies are choosing Tipalti to modernise their finance function.
Concur Invoice Software
Concur helps businesses manage their spend with expense management, travel, and invoice software. The invoice module provides functionality from purchase requisition through to invoice payment.
Key Features of Concur Invoice:
Invoice Management
Invoice capture uses OCR technology and SAP Leonardo Machine Learning to auto-populate data, followed by human validation to ensure the information from the header and line item level of the invoice is accurate before it gets processed.
A new feature called the Invoice Payment Manager has been introduced. This enables a business to batch-schedule payments for a preferred time and manually release payments for final approvals.
Reporting and Analytics
A business can make better decisions with Concur Invoice business intelligence tools. Utilise dashboards and in-depth reports, that are built on best-practises, to monitor trends and enforce policies.
Payment Options
Once captured, the invoice gets routed for review and approval, with the option to use a mobile app (iPhone or Android) for approval. Once an invoice is fully approved, it can be paid via cheque or by integrating Concur with a payment partner solution.
Payment Partners
The Concur platform needs integration with third-party apps to provide payment functionality and access to a broader range of payment methods beyond cheques.
International payment partners include NvoicePay, Paymerang, WayPay, TransferMate, AMEX, and others. Critically for UK businesses, Concur has limited native payment options in the UK.
UK businesses typically need third-party integrations to process BACS, Faster Payments, or CHAPS payments, which adds complexity compared to Tipalti’s built-in support for these essential UK payment methods.
Concur Invoice ERP Integrations
- SAP ERPs
- Oracle NetSuite
- QuickBooks
- Sage ERPs (including Sage Business Cloud Accounting)
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Microsoft Business Central (NAV)
Concur Pricing
Concur doesn’t publish specific GBP pricing on its UK website. According to some online user reviews, pricing starts on a per-user basis each month for basic expense management, with additional costs for invoice processing and travel management modules.
It’s important to note that Concur doesn’t publish GBP pricing openly, which can make budgeting challenging for UK businesses. Pricing typically varies based on company size and required functionality, with UK businesses needing to contact Concur directly for a customised quote.
Ready to modernise your finance operations?
See how Tipalti compares to Concur Invoice for automating payables, improving visibility, and streamlining financial workflows—purpose-built for growing UK businesses.
When to Choose Tipalti
You run a hyper-growth business that is rapidly scaling
Your business requires scalability in an AP solution to meet its current needs and future expansion requirements. You will need software that can efficiently process a high volume of transactions or handle complex global payments for multiple entities or across many geographic locations.
Tipalti Multi-Entity supports a consolidated headquarters payer account with multiple sub-entities associated with it, so you can manage all entities’ payables operations from a single Tipalti model, enabling each entity to operate with its own unique workflow and enabling you to manage a large number of entities.
Tipalti enables you to pay to over 200 countries and 120 currencies without relying on third-party payment partners, such as Concur. Before every payment, Tipalti screens suppliers against OFAC sanctions and other blacklists to prevent legal repercussions, including fines.
For UK businesses, Tipalti offers significant advantages
- Native BACS and Faster Payments integration: Seamlessly process domestic payments without relying on third-party providers.
- Strong multi-currency support: Easily manage payments in GBP, EUR, USD, and other currencies, essential for UK businesses with international operations.
- HMRC compliance features: Tipalti helps support compliance with UK tax regulations, including VAT and Making Tax Digital (MTD).
- UK-based support: Access to local support expertise.
- Simplified mass payments to overseas suppliers
Additionally, Tipalti allows your suppliers to choose a preferred payment method, including BACS, Faster Payments, CHAPS, U.S. ACH, global ACH, wire transfer, PayPal, cheque, or prepaid debit card.
Tipalti also offers advanced FX solutions, including intercompany transfers, FX hedging, and payee FX optimisation to help streamline your global payment processes. These features are not available with Concur.
Lastly, with Tipalti, you can accelerate financial close by more than 25% as payment methods, currencies, subsidiaries, and geographies are combined and reconciled in real time for instant visibility. Detailed transaction and reconciliation reports are integrated with your ERP system to provide a consolidated view of all payable accounts.
You want to automate the entire accounts payable process, end-to-end
Both Tipalti and SAP Concur can provide end-to-end accounts payable solutions, from purchase requisition to invoice payment. However, Concur’s offering has some gaps.
Concur reportedly retired its supplier portal feature in October 2020 and instead uses vendor information from your ERP system in the payables process. Meanwhile, Tipalti helps streamline the supplier onboarding process with a self-service, white-label, multi-language portal, enabling faster, more accurate supplier data collection and verification.
Tipalti automatically validates collected supplier payment data in real-time using 26,000 global banking rules to proactively reduce payment errors by 66%.
The supplier portal is accessible 24×7, provides visibility into payment status, and sends proactive automatic payment status emails. This reduces supplier enquiry and questions like “Where’s my payment?”, further saving you time.
Additionally, suppliers can choose a preferred payment method from a list of options. You can incentivise certain payment methods with early payment options that allow them to get paid before their due date, and allow you to earn early payment discounts.
Both Tipalti and Concur offer similar invoice processing capabilities, but some features that come standard with Tipalti result in extra costs with Concur. For example, line-level OCR data capture is not available in the baseline “Automate” invoice package. Tipalti also offers unlimited invoice approvers, whereas with Concur, you may need to upgrade your package to allow enough approvers the ability to update coding on invoices.
Lastly, Tipalti handles the “last mile” of the payables process in-house, whereas Concur often relies on third-party payment partners for payment remittance. Tipalti is a licenced money transmitter and registered as a money service business with the ability to help you send funds quickly and securely across 200+ countries in 120 different currencies.
You want to ensure straight compliance and controls while reducing risk
Since AP involves direct access to cash reserves, it’s critical to institute proper controls and governance. Tipalti offers granular controls over payables and payment operations, enhancing the security of sensitive financial data, ensuring ongoing OFAC compliance, and improving management oversight of key AP processes.
The Tipalti Detect risk module is an internal network that proactively identifies and prevents potential ongoing fraud by analyzing patterns. Payers can block or suspend payees from receiving payments, identify blocked or suspended payees attempting to create multiple accounts, and receive notifications about suspicious payees.
Tax compliance is a significant consideration, as manually collecting and validating tax forms from suppliers can involve complex legal and financial implications. Tipalti offers features designed to facilitate the collection and validation of tax information through digital processes during onboarding, ensuring that information is verified before payments are processed.
For UK businesses, Tipalti offers tools that support VAT compliance, including features for collecting and validating VAT registration numbers, as well as aligning with HMRC’s Making Tax Digital requirements.
If required, the system can potentially automate the submission of tax forms to HMRC using data managed within Tipalti. Concur may not offer the same level of built-in tax capabilities specifically for UK businesses.
When to Choose Concur
When your business is already strongly aligned with the SAP ecosystem
Concur may be suitable for UK businesses with very simple, primarily domestic needs and those heavily invested in the SAP ecosystem. However, it’s crucial to acknowledge Concur’s limitations:
- Limited UK payment methods: Concur lacks native support for BACS and Faster Payments, requiring third-party integrations.
- Making Tax Digital and VAT: Concur does not offer features specifically designed for UK tax regulations (VAT, MTD).
- Potentially higher costs: Reliance on payment partners may increase overall transaction costs.
To facilitate global payments, you will likely need to work with a third-party payment provider instead of handling all payment operations in a single, unified manner. If you are comfortable with the provided payment methods or working with third-party payment providers, Concur may be a suitable option.
You do not have a high volume of vendors
Concur offers limited vendor management capabilities and does not provide supplier self-service, as its supplier portal was deprecated in October 2020. Therefore, vendor details and banking information must be manually uploaded or submitted through the API, rather than via self-service onboarding with built-in validations.
You also lose the ability to digitally collect vendor VAT information and the resulting easy generation of MTD reporting. Your team will have to allocate resources to maintain the vendor master file, manage vendor requests, and ensure tax and VAT compliance.
This is not a scalable approach if you manage a large number of vendors. However, if your vendor list is small and not rapidly expanding, Concur may be a suitable option.
If you need a travel and expense management solution
Concur offers leading travel and expense (T&E) software for corporate travel and employee expense report reimbursement. Its travel booking functionality is particularly strong, allowing businesses to implement comprehensive travel policies and approval workflows.
If your primary need is for a travel and expense (T&E) solution, rather than an end-to-end accounts payable solution, Concur may be the better fit.
Integration with UK Tax Laws
Tipalti offers features to support UK businesses in meeting their tax obligations:
- VAT Management: Tipalti facilitates the collection and validation of VAT registration numbers from suppliers.
- Supplier Information Collection: to assist in providing correct information.
- Reporting: Generate reports to support tax filings with HMRC.
4 Signs It’s Time to Upgrade to Tipalti
Below are a few reasons why you should consider switching to Tipalti from manual processes or a less robust AP automation system.
1. You want the benefits of a self-service supplier portal
Tipalti helps streamline the supplier onboarding process with a self-service, white-labelled, multi-language portal. This portal enables faster and more accurate payee data collection and validation against 26,000 global banking rules, proactively reducing payment errors by 66%. The portal also helps reduce supplier enquiries on payment status, further saving you time.
2. You need multiple supplier payment options and a broader global payment coverage
Concur offers limited, natively available options for international payments and coverage for your global suppliers. Tipalti enables mass payments to over 200 countries and in 120 local currencies, providing worldwide coverage with six different payment options. This makes it ideal for UK businesses with international supplier networks.
3. You need help streamlining your tax and VAT compliance
Tipalti aims to support UK businesses in managing VAT compliance through features like data collection, validation, and calculations. It offers tools to help collect VAT information, validate HMRC and VAT tax IDs, and generate tax reports that align with HMRC requirements. The platform is designed to assist with Making Tax Digital compliance, potentially simplifying the submission of returns.
UK businesses are encouraged to consider MTD-compliant software to avoid potential penalties from HMRC. While initial fines for non-compliance can start at £100 for late filing, additional penalties may apply for continued non-compliance. For larger businesses, penalties could be more significant, making compliance software a valuable consideration.
4. You have an increasing number of reconciliation challenges
Payables reconciliation can be time-consuming and may delay your financial close. With Tipalti, global payment remittance using multiple payment methods is automated and consolidated into real-time reports, providing more accurate and faster payment reconciliation. This enables you to accelerate your financial close by 25% and improve cash flow management.
See what our customers are saying
Save Time and Money with Accounts Payable Automation
In our survey of global accounts payable teams conducted in collaboration with IFOL, we found that nearly half of all respondents manually process invoices over five days each month.
Payables automation technology enables your company to reduce data entry time and allocate more resources and team knowledge to strategic finance, ultimately achieving business revenue growth and cost reductions.
For UK businesses facing complex cash flow challenges, investing in a customisable management software solution can deliver significant returns through improved efficiency and enhanced financial control.
When comparing the benefits of Tipalti vs. Concur, consider each system’s fit for your needs today and in the long term. Tipalti’s AP Automation solution helps you streamline your day-to-day operations, rapidly scale and adapt to changing business needs, accelerate business visibility, and strengthen controls over fraud, finances, costs, and cash flow.
For UK businesses seeking a comprehensive AP automation solution, Tipalti offers some advantages over Concur, particularly in international payment processing, multi-currency management, and MTD requirements.
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