Two A/R automation solutions can offer similar features but deliver very different results. Here's what finance teams should consider before choosing one.
Shopping for accounts receivable automation software can get complicated quickly. Most platforms promise to reduce manual work, accelerate collections, improve visibility, and help companies get paid faster. Many offer similar capabilities, from automated payment reminders and customer portals to cash application, reporting, and increasingly, AI.
On paper, the differences can be difficult to spot.
But a feature list only tells you what a system can do. It doesn't necessarily tell you how well that system will work with your ERP, how much effort it will take to maintain, or whether it will make life easier for the people using it every day.
That's where the evaluation needs to go a little deeper.
It's tempting to start with a list of requirements and see which vendors can check the most boxes. There's nothing wrong with having requirements, but they should come from understanding how your finance team works today.
Consider collections, for example. If your team spends hours sending reminders, automated communications might seem like the obvious solution. But what happens when a customer responds with a question about an invoice? Can the team see that conversation alongside the outstanding balance? Does the system recognize when a payment has already been made, or will someone need to intervene to prevent another reminder from going out?
The same applies to cash application. Automating payment matching sounds appealing, but the real test comes when a customer pays multiple invoices at once, sends a partial payment, or leaves out remittance information.
These are the situations worth understanding before comparing products.
Flywire's Beyond Automation: What Finance Teams Really Need from AI research found that manual work continues to affect accounts receivable, with data entry between systems, overdue invoice follow-up, and cash application among the most commonly identified bottlenecks.
Those findings remind us that the goal isn't simply to automate more tasks. It's to address the work that consumes time and creates unnecessary complexity.
Your ERP is already the foundation of your financial operations. It holds customer information, invoices, balances, transactions, and financial history. A/R automation should build on that foundation rather than create another place where finance has to manage information.
That makes integration one of the most important parts of the evaluation.
In Flywire's research, 83% of respondents identified poor integration between A/R processes and systems of record as a challenge. That can become especially frustrating when information has to be moved manually between applications or when finance can't easily see what's happening across the entire receivables process.
When evaluating a solution, ask the vendor to demonstrate how information moves between its platform and your ERP.
For example, when a customer pays an invoice, how does that payment get reflected in the financial record? If someone updates customer information, does it need to be changed in multiple places? How are exceptions handled? What happens if information doesn't match?
A vendor may advertise ERP integration, but that description alone doesn't tell you how much manual work remains.
The important distinction isn't whether a solution connects to your ERP. It's what that connection actually allows your team to stop doing manually.
For a closer look at why those connections matter, Invoiced by Flywire explores how integration between ERP, payments, and A/R automation can help reduce the manual work that happens between systems in Reimagining Accounts Receivable: How Integration Closes the Gap.
A/R automation is often discussed in categories. Collections tools, payment platforms, cash application solutions, customer portals, and reporting applications all fall into this category.
Each serves a purpose, and companies don't necessarily need one platform to do everything.
However, the activities themselves are connected.
A customer receives an invoice, may have a question, eventually makes a payment, and expects the transaction to be reflected accurately. Finance needs to track that activity, apply the payment, resolve any differences, and understand what's still outstanding.
A solution might automate collections reminders well but offer limited visibility into payments. Another might provide a convenient payment experience but leave finance with substantial reconciliation work.
Neither situation is necessarily obvious from a feature comparison.
That's why it's worth asking vendors to walk through a complete invoice-to-cash scenario rather than demonstrate individual features separately.
Watch what happens when the process doesn't go exactly as planned. Can someone easily see why an invoice remains unpaid? Does the system account for payments in progress? Can finance identify and resolve an exception without searching through several applications?
Those demonstrations can reveal much more than a checklist.
Payment capabilities deserve particular attention, especially for companies managing different payment methods, currencies, or business entities. Flywire explores these considerations in Embedded Payments for Dynamics 365: Scaling A/R Globally.
AI is becoming a regular part of A/R automation conversations, but not every AI capability works the same way. Some solutions use it to extract information from documents or recommend which customers to contact, while others can predict payment behavior, draft collection messages, or help manage more complex workflows.
There's plenty of potential, especially when AI can take repetitive work off the finance team's plate or help people make better decisions. The challenge for buyers is understanding what those capabilities will actually do for their business.
Flywire's Beyond Automation research found that 90% of surveyed finance professionals had budget allocated for AI tools, yet 33% said the return on investment wasn't clear and they needed guidance on where to begin. Trust and transparency were also significant concerns.
Those findings highlight why it's worth looking beyond the AI label during a software demonstration. Rather than simply asking whether a solution includes AI, finance teams should dig into how it works.
A few things worth exploring:
Collections is a particularly good example. AI can help teams prioritize accounts and determine when follow-up may be needed, but customer relationships still require context and judgment. Invoiced by Flywire explores this balance in Collections Intelligence: Smart vs. Manual, looking at how technology can support collections teams without taking people out of the process.
A software demonstration usually shows the product working as intended. Your finance team will be using it when customers change payment habits, business processes evolve, and unusual transactions need attention.
That's why implementation and ongoing maintenance deserve more attention during the buying process.
Find out what it takes to configure workflows, change collection rules, add users, support new payment methods, or accommodate another business entity.
If your company operates internationally, the evaluation may also need to account for different currencies, payment preferences, and reconciliation requirements.
Consider who will manage these changes. Can the finance team adjust routine workflows, or will every modification require IT assistance or a vendor support request?
It's also worth understanding how the system will accommodate growth. A process that works well for a relatively small invoice volume may become more difficult as transaction counts, customer types, and business complexity increase.
These considerations aren't always the most attention-grabbing part of a demonstration, but they can significantly affect how useful the software becomes over time.
If you're evaluating solutions, ask vendors to show you how their software handles the situations your finance team encounters every day.
The answers should give you a clearer picture of what the software will be like to use, not just what it can do.
There's no shortage of A/R automation capabilities to compare, and feature lists are still a useful part of the buying process. They help establish whether a solution offers the functionality your business needs.
But they shouldn't be the deciding factor on their own.
A better evaluation looks at how the software fits into your existing financial operations, how information moves between systems, and what happens when a transaction needs extra attention.
It also considers the people who will rely on the technology every day. Will they spend less time tracking down information? Can they see what's happening with customers and payments? Will they have more time to focus on the accounts and exceptions that genuinely need their attention?
Two solutions may check many of the same boxes. The difference often becomes clear when you ask them to demonstrate how the work actually gets done.
That's what finance teams should be shopping for.
Looking at A/R automation solutions? Invoiced by Flywire has put together a comparison of seven accounts receivable automation platforms, including capabilities and considerations to help evaluate your options.
Explore the A/R Automation Comparison
Flywire is a Founding Sponsor of The ERP Update.