AvidXchange vs. Esker

For a company who is needing to transition from paper invoices/manual approvals to an electronic solution, AvidXchange is an excellent option. It is very functional and will highly improve your invoice capability, the speed of invoice processing, and will help your overall accounts payable department. It also makes auditing much easier, where auditors are able to easily search invoices, see approvals, payment status, etc.

Incentivized

I would recommend Esker based on the automation of invoice sending - it is very nice to have a tool that not only stores all of the contact info, but sends the invoices out as well. The tracking feature is great to have to see if the submission was successful. I do think that overall it could be much more user-friendly, but once you know what you're doing, it is not hard software to use.

Incentivized

• Automation: Every part of Avid's process is automated through the use of workflows established by the AvidXchange administrator. This allows all vested entities to review and approve the payment of an invoice in a timely manner.
• Transparency: As an invoice goes through the review and approval process, every step is documented and available for review. This ensures all parties are appropriately vested in ensuring the timely approval of invoices for payment
• Accuracy: Automating the AP process has helped to minimize the risk for errors that occur through manual invoice entry and approval.

Incentivized

• Everything is electronic and every manager receives an email each morning telling them how many invoices they need to approve.
• It has completely removed paper form the Accounts payable process and automatically archives invoices for the mandatory period required by Inland Revenue.
• For monthly reporting there is visibility over what has not yet been included in the accounts and staff can follow with the tardy managers.

Incentivized

• I really wish there was a way for AvidXchange indexers to "get to know" the companies they index for. The indexing policies are such that it leaves little room for common sense and I do a fair share of correcting workflows and such.

Incentivized

• We can't enter credit memos in Esker. Need to enter in SAP and then link.
• PO invoices that were trained to go into the PO bucket, route into the non-PO buckets.
• Freight invoices that have had hundreds going into the non-PO bucket have a tendency to route to the PO-bucket because a PO number is referenced on page 7.

At the moment we have a contract for another year, we are hoping there is improvement with the company to decide if we stay with them or change.

Incentivized

AvidXchange is very easy to use and the customer service is always there is you need help or more training. New employees even comment on how easy it is to pickup the program.

Incentivized

Esker does everything that it promises to do, but it is very hard to figure out. I am a very tech-savvy person, but I needed extensive training to be able to use the basic functions of Esker. Once you know what you're doing, it's not too hard, but I don't understand why they couldn't make it easier to use.

Incentivized

Except for occasional escalations needed to Level 2 support, they are efficient and quick with nearly all requests.

They have been very helpful and the online support site is awesome. They keep the site up to date with the latest changes and present challenges to keep learning the new updates to keep things entertaining. They are overall a great crew to work with

Incentivized

At the time we moved to AvidXchange; CSI did not have the full functionality of processing invoice for payment. We only utilized them for specific vendor who took payments via virtual credit card. All invoices were processed in house by our AP Department.

We investigated Readsoft early in our exploration of upgrade options. We were on Esker DeliveryWare, but the UI for Readsoft, at the time, seemed to be a little convoluted and geared towards exception handling and required tiered users. Also, Readsoft was more cost prohibitive and did not have a solution for our faxing. Though, as I understand it, they may have since found a solution for this issue

Incentivized

• AvidXchange has saved us on payroll by making the process go from hours to minutes. It really cuts down the time needed to get invoices approved and into QB for payment.
• It is very easy to train employees to use which also saves time and money.

Incentivized

• We now have reporting available down to the individual field level (changes, errors, etc) and can calculate cost to serve.
• It replaced on-premise hardware with cloud SaaS that is more cost effective and risk adverse.
• It is more intuitive; we can put new hires on order entry and experience less user errors. As a solution owner who fixes problems and answers questions, I don't find myself having to "think" about Esker and it has become a smaller part of my job now that end-users are more self-sufficient.

Incentivized