Unusual Invoice Alerts: A Free Stampli Feature to Protect Cash Flow

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Jun 27, 2023, 11:16 ET

Today's CFOs need even better visibility into cash flow. Stampli flags unusually high bills the moment an invoice is received, instead of at the end of the month when it's too late.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Is the large price increase written into the contract? Is it a typo? Or is the vendor trying to pull a fast one?

These are the questions that finance teams need to answer whenever they discover unusual vendor payments — especially in today's economy, where cash flow must be closely managed. Unfortunately, these payments are most typically uncovered during the months-end close, when the teams are overwhelmed with reporting requirements and, worse, the payment has already been sent.

Stampli, the leader in AI-powered Accounts Payable automation, has developed a solution to this problem. Its "Unusual Invoice Alerts" feature provides an early warning system for invoices that deviate from the historical trend. By triggering an alert when the invoice arrives, finance teams can investigate the issue before the end of the month and well before the invoice is paid.

A bad experience leads to a valuable feature
This first-of-its-kind feature was developed after Stampli itself was blindsided by a software vendor that more than quadrupled the cost of an annual software subscription.

Dealing with this issue required months of back-and-forth with the vendor — activity that would have been entirely unnecessary had the issue been flagged when the invoice arrived.

Recognizing the common risk this scenario created for all businesses, Stampli set out to develop a solution that didn't exist in the market – not even in their own software.

"We experienced first-hand the potential disruptions caused by unexpected invoice increases," said Eyal Feldman, co-Founder and CEO of Stampli. "We realized that the market lacked an efficient solution to this issue. We built Unusual Invoice Alerts because we needed it for ourselves, and we knew other businesses would, too."

How Unusual Invoice Alerts work
This feature, which is included free for all Stampli customers, automatically calculates historical invoice patterns for any vendor. If a new invoice significantly exceeds a certain threshold, the feature automatically alerts up to five designated recipients.

Stampli customers often choose recipients in the leadership team because they are outside of the day-to-day interactions with the vendor and can offer a fresh set of eyes.

Best of all, this feature builds upon Stampli's unique approach to collaboration and issue resolution. Stampli's communication tools are integrated directly on top of the invoice, which enables AP and team members to ask and answer questions directly alongside historical invoices, vendor documents, signed agreements, and any other relevant information. These tools can be even used to bring external vendors into the same conversation, ensuring that there's a complete audit trail about the issue and how it was resolved.

Since developing this feature, Stampli itself has been able to protect against unexpected charges, including one vendor bill that went up 1000% over the course of a month. "I see benefits beyond cash flow and stress management," said Feldman. "These alerts help us identify breakdowns in our internal communications procedures, leading to new processes that protect our cash flow even further."

How PetLab Co protects its cash flow
George Koukoumpanis, Financial Controller at Petlab Co., an online retailer of pet supplements, and his team have been utilizing Stampli's Unusual Invoice Alerts for proactive visibility into software subscriptions, consultant fees, property leases and other recurring expenses.

"Finance does not usually compare invoices against historic costs on a day-to-day basis. We review as we approach the end of the month. Unfortunately, the month-end is a very stressful period for any finance team, so any discrepancies compound the stress the team already feels," says Koukoumpanis. "Stampli's Unusual Invoice Alerts gets us ahead of the issues. This makes our month-end less frantic and gives us a better chance to protect our cash flow without putting tensions on our employees or our vendor relationships."

In one notable case, this feature even helped Petlab Co preserve a fragile relationship with an important vendor. "The vendor sent a 33% increase while our CFO thought we were still in negotiations," said Koukoumpanis. "The advance warning let us address the issue without any month-end time pressure forcing either party into a corner."

"This feature saves us stress as much as it saves us money," says Koukoumpanis.

About Stampli
Stampli is an AI-powered Accounts Payable automation solution that makes AP departments far more efficient, without requiring them to rework their ERP or change their existing processes. Stampli's unique approach centers all AP-related communication, documentation, and workflows into one place for complete visibility and control.

Stampli is simple for users to learn and even simpler to use, especially with Billy the Bot™ automating capture, coding, routing, fraud detection, and other manual tasks. For even greater efficiency, Stampli's core AP solution is complemented by a suite of integrated products that include Direct Pay, Credit Cards, Advanced Vendor Management, and others.

Stampli supports all native functionality for more than 70 ERPs, including those from Sage, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks, and 70 others, enabling it to deploy in a matter of days, not months.

For more information, visit www.stampli.com.

Matthew Fern
[email protected]
(818) 724-2345

SOURCE Stampli