Oracle NetSuite has used the annual Suiteworld conference to announce a slew of new features in the brand’s small and medium enterprise offerings.

In an effort to ease the burden of accounts payable processes, NetSuite has revealed a range of banking services in its ERP system that will make it simpler for process bills and pay vendors within NetSuite.

It’s great news for time-stressed business owners and will also allow for better control over cash flow.

Making the announcement on day two of the Vegas event, NetSuite founder Evan Goldberg stressed the time and money-saving features of the new AP Automation.

“Accounts payable plays an important role in helping organisations manage cash flow, control costs and maintain strong relationships with vendors, but all too often, the process is slow, tedious, and error-prone,” said Goldberg.

“By simplifying and automating the entire bill payment process – from data capture to payment and reconciliation – NetSuite AP Automation eliminates these challenges. This helps businesses streamline and improve a key operation, empowering AP teams to operate more efficiently and ultimately reduce costs.”

Partnering with NetSuite on the new feature will be global finance giant HSBC. Goldberg says the partnership will deliver faster, simpler processing for NetSuite customers.

Why AP Automation should matter to businesses

NetSuite’s AP Automation will allow vendors to capture the entire bill process. Bill scanning via AI/ML-based object detection and optical character recognition will eliminate the need for manual data entry. NetSuite automatically creates a bill record, using artificial intelligence based on previous bill entries and pre-populates the appropriate fields. Meanwhile, a side-by-side view of the actual bill makes it easier for AP teams to review and approve.  Bills can also be matched and sent for approval, and vendor payments are automatically generated, saving business owners 100s of hours. Better yet, when it comes to tax time, reconciling will be made simple thanks to the elimination of error-prone manual reconciliation.

The sad news for Aussie fans of NetSuite, is the AP feature is rolling out in the US first, with a release date for down under still to be determined.

The author was a guest of NetSuite at Suiteworld 2022