Tipalti vs Zip: Which one to Choose for UK Businesses

UK companies, from small businesses to large enterprises, increasingly require procurement solutions that provide automation and efficiency. Effective spend management starts with the right tools, and thorough research is key to selecting the best fit.

We compare two popular options, Tipalti and Zip, examining their capabilities, pricing, and use cases to help businesses determine the right management solution. This outline examines key factors, including compliance, payments, and accounting integration—all crucial for UK organisations.

What Does Tipalti Do?

Tipalti is a global payables and procurement automation solution with a significant UK presence, including a London office. It helps businesses gain greater visibility over spend and financial controls, reduce manual work, and enhance compliance, contributing to better risk management. The user-friendly solution aims to eliminate ‘maverick spend’ (unapproved purchases) and helps your team capture, approve, and track expenses efficiently, highlighting its ease of use.

Tipalti’s cloud-based procurement software allows employees to move away from ad-hoc emails, difficult-to-track support tickets, and monotonous spreadsheets. Customers globally report results like increased cash flow visibility, and Tipalti reports benefits such as:

• Up to 90% of spend under compliance
• 3x faster approval cycles
• Fast time to value implementation

Tipalti also provides well-established accounts payable (AP) automation and a solution for businesses This includes features for global tax compliance (including UK VAT handling), a self-service supplier management portal, automated payable processes, and fraud detection mechanisms. Tipalti is Authorised as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

What Does Zip Do?

Zip (or ZipHQ) is a procurement management solution that initially focuses heavily on the “intake-to-procure” process (managing the initial purchase request and approval stages). 

It has expanded its presence in the UK and EMEA, with a recently opened London office. The system provides one place for an employee to initiate a vendor or purchase request, which is then routed for approval across departments like IT, finance, and legal. It aims to improve the employee experience and the purchasing process.

The Zip platform integrates into P2P and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions (including Workday, Oracle NetSuite, and SAP) to create purchase requests and purchase orders within a single workflow, providing visibility to the requester. These ERP integrations connect the procurement intake to wider financial systems.

Zip aims to help UK businesses scale procurement operations and reduce administrative burden. It enables early involvement in spend, aiming to reduce compliance leakage and mitigate risk, while improving decision-making through better visibility.

Zip also added procure-to-pay (P2P) functionality, although this is newer compared to its established intake features.

Features Comparison: Tipalti vs. Zip 

Important Note on EMI Regulation: Both Tipalti and Zip’s payment partner (Airwallex) are regulated as EMIs by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This means they must safeguard client funds (e.g., by holding them in separate accounts), but these funds are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which protects deposits in UK banks.

Tipalti Features Overview

Tipalti procurement tools aim to save your business time and money. Crucially for UK firms operating internationally, it processes transactions across 200+ countries and territories, in 120 currencies, using various payment methods including UK standards like Bacs and Faster Payments. Whether you’re a small business or a larger enterprise, the platform offers scalability and efficiency for your payment processing needs.

Tipalti vs Zip: Features Overview

The Tipalti platform has earned various accolades, and UK businesses can expect robust capabilities like:

Enhanced Supplier Management

Streamline vendor management with custom registration forms designed to capture UK-specific details. This includes the collection of financial (e.g., UK bank details), contact, and contractual data, while aiding compliance with UK GDPR data protection requirements for supplier information. A clear audit trail is maintained for changes. Tipalti has over 26,000 global validation rules to help reduce errors.

Easy Requisition Management

Capture spend from the very beginning with AI-powered, employee-friendly intake forms. This centralises control and ensures you collect all critical data upfront as part of the purchasing process.

Instant PO Creation

The platform automatically generates purchase orders once a purchase request is approved, reducing manual data entry.

Advanced Approval Workflows

Automate the approval process with rule-based routing, helping eliminate bottlenecks.

Real-Time Integrations

Get more value from your existing tech stack. Tipalti offers pre-built ERP integrations with leading Single Sign-On (SSO) providers, major ERPs popular in the UK (including NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online UK, Xero), and collaboration tools like Slack.

Tipalti ERP Integrations

Tipalti integrates with any ERP and accounting system, including many popular brands, such as:

• 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

Tipalti Pricing

The Tipalti starter plan costs around £99/ month, though the total cost of procurement plans typically depends on the number of requesters and approvers using the solution.

Pricing is often customised and provided in GBP (£) for UK customers. Discounts may apply when procurement is bundled with Tipalti’s AP automation solution. 

Tipalti’s Top Awards from Trusted Software Review Sites

Zip Features Overview

Zip helps businesses scale procurement operations and eliminate manual tasks. Some top capabilities include:

Intake Process

Forms guide requesters and involve stakeholders automatically. The system can ingest and categorise vendors, flagging potential overlaps or duplicates. This supports better initial spend management.

Approval Workflows

Generate approval chains based on request details, providing visibility throughout the process.

Vendor Management

Aims to streamline vendor relationships and create a single source for vendor data, supporting compliance needs like UK GDPR.

Renewal Management

Automates renewal planning workflows.

Key Integrations

Connects intake with existing tech stacks, including major ERPs often used by larger UK companies (e.g., SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Workday) and systems like Coupa.

Spend Insights and Analytics

Enables early spend visibility through the intake process.

Zip ERP Integrations

Zip positions itself as an intake-to-procurement solution for streamlined purchasing and vendor requests. A key strategy is integrating this user-friendly front-end with existing financial and operational systems. For UK businesses, Zip offers integration capabilities with popular ERP and P2P platforms like Oracle NetSuite and SAP Ariba for automated data flows. 

Beyond core systems, Zip also provides an Integration Platform and API library for custom needs or connecting with other tools which aims to orchestrate workflows across an organisation’s existing software stack.

Zip UK Pricing

Zip does not publish standard pricing on its website. UK businesses need to connect with their sales team for a custom quote tailored to their specific needs and contract terms. 

Third-party data suggests annual costs can vary significantly, depending on the deployment scope and requirements.

When to Choose Tipalti

Your business requires an established end-to-end procure-to-pay solution

Tipalti offers a single unified solution covering purchase requisition to payment reconciliation, developed since 2010. They cite high customer retention (reportedly 99%) and satisfaction rates (reportedly 98%) globally and serve UK clients like music tech company Spitfire Audio. Capabilities span procurement, AP automation, global payments (including UK BACS/Faster Payments), and expense management. Its feature set, including areas like supplier management, UK VAT handling, advanced FX, fraud prevention, and multi-entity support is designed to scale with growing businesses.

Zip, launched in 2020, initially focused on the “intake-to-procure” phase and introduced integrated P2P capabilities. This provides a different evolutionary path for its platform. Zip often integrates with specialist P2P platforms like Coupa and SAP Ariba, particularly in enterprise settings.

Your organisation needs integrated solutions beyond procurement intake

If seamless integration across procurement, AP, payments and expense management within a single, long-standing suite is a key requirement, Tipalti presents a comprehensive option. Tipalti’s platform includes functionalities such as advanced OCR, 3-way PO matching, and features supporting UK MTD for VAT compliance.

While Zip also offers P2P features, other integrated features available within the Tipalti suite include:

• Managed services options for invoice data capture accuracy.
• AI/ML for data entry suggestions and future invoice logic.
• Complex PO matching (2- and 3-way) with tolerance settings.
• Mass payments workflows.
• Payment validation and robust sanctions screening.
• Features to assist with UK and international tax compliance (VAT validation)
• A dedicated Expense Management module.
• Real-time API integrations with UK-centric ERPs like Sage Intacct.

Your business has growing global needs or complex structures

As your UK business scales internationally or manages multiple subsidiaries, Tipalti’s platform addresses these complexities. It assists with varied workflows, paying global suppliers efficiently from the UK (using local and international methods), higher transaction volumes, and multi-entity financial management within one system.

• Tipalti executes payments to 200+ countries and territories in 120 currencies, offering direct support for UK standards like Bacs and Faster Payments natively, alongside wires, PayPal, etc. Its FCA EMI licence provides regulatory oversight for these UK payment activities.
• Zip utilises a partnership model for payments via Airwallex (also an FCA-regulated EMI), facilitating payments to vendors across many countries and currencies, including UK Bacs/Faster Payments. This partnership structure contrasts with Tipalti’s direct handling of payments under its own licence.
• Tipalti’s Multi-Entity architecture is designed for organisations managing multiple subsidiaries, centralising controls and reporting. Features for managing FX risk are also available.

When to Choose Zip

You have an immediate, primary focus on improving the intake of purchase requests

Zip is widely recognised for its strengths in the “intake-to-procure” phase. Its platform offers a user-friendly interface designed to streamline initial requests and approvals across departments. If optimising this specific ‘front-end’ experience is the primary immediate goal, especially when integrating with existing downstream P2P systems (like SAP Ariba or Coupa, which Zip integrates with), Zip presents a compelling option.

(Note: Tipalti Procurement can also be purchased standalone to modernise procurement operations, with the option to add AP, Payments, etc., later.)

Your company prefers a custom quote process

Zip determines pricing on a case-by-case basis following direct consultation. This requires contacting their sales team for a quote tailored to your specific requirements and scope, which may appeal to businesses seeking bespoke commercial terms.

Tipalti pricing is usually based on the number of active users (requesters/approvers), allowing for potentially more targeted rollouts (e.g., by department or geography). The suitability of each model depends on the anticipated user base and access needs within the organisation.

You value a highly guided experience for purchase requisition forms

Zip emphasises its intuitive intake forms aimed at driving user adoption with minimal training. The system guides users through the necessary questions for required approvals (e.g., legal, IT, security), ensuring data completeness for downstream processes.

Four Signs It’s Time to Upgrade to Tipalti

While Zip excels at streamlining the initial purchase intake and approval process, businesses, particularly those in the UK experiencing growth or increasing operational complexity, may find they need a more comprehensive, end-to-end financial automation suite. Four reasons why you should consider switching to Tipalti:

1. Your Global Payment Needs Are Becoming Complex and Costly

Tipalti is specialised for global payments, supporting 120 currencies to 200+ countries with various methods like BACS, SEPA, ACH, wires, and PayPal.

2. You’re Drowning in Manual Invoice Processing and AP Work

If your team spends excessive time on manual invoice data entry, PO matching, complex invoice approval chains, and reconciliation, you need more automation.Tipalti’s solutions can reduce workload significantly, freeing finance teams for more strategic tasks.

3. You Require Enhanced Auditability Across the Entire Payables Lifecycle

Robust controls throughout procure-to-pay are critical, especially those with multiple entities or compliance requirements. While intake solutions address approvals, Tipalti provides deeper controls throughout processing, execution, and reconciliation including screening before payment, VAT number verification, audit trails, and segregated duties to manage finances across subsidiaries.

4. Manual Reconciliation is Straining Your Month-End Close

If reconciling varying payments slows your close and reduces visibility, integrated automation is needed. Tipalti offers automated reconciliation with ERPs which can accelerate closing dramatically for clearer financial visibility.

What UK Customers Are Saying

Save Time and Money with Scalable Procurement Automation 

Tipalti and Zip both offer procurement automation, but excel in different areas. Tipalti is ideal for UK businesses needing an end-to-end P2P management solution with integrated accounts payable automation, global payments, and strong compliance features built in. Zip shines at streamlining the initial intake and approval process stages of the procurement process, often integrating with other specialist tools.

Carefully weigh your needs: Are you automating the full cycle or just purchasing? Compare integration, payments, and compliance attributes. 

If you’re looking for a complete procure-to-pay solution tailored for the UK market, request a free Tipalti demo. See firsthand how Tipalti can automate and optimise your entire financial operations.

Note: This text is based on information as of April 2025, may not be up-to-date when reading and is subject to change. For the most up-to-date and accurate pricing information for your specific business requirements, contact the providers directly. The information provided here is for general guidance only and does not constitute professional tax or legal advice.