Tipalti has revealed updates to its market-leading global payables solution. It has introduced two new features, Bill Talk and Bill Docs. The two new features enable stakeholders within the AP process to collaborate better. Bill Talk adds capabilities that enable stakeholders to communicate with each other synchronously through chat and asynchronously via email. Bill Docs enables stakeholders to share documents within the secure and tracked context that Tipalti provides.
These two new solutions enable organisations to reduce the delays that the approvals of purchase invoices frequently occur. It will allow buyers, AP staff and operations managers to collaborate, verifying information, asking and answering questions, and sharing documentation to confirm approvals.
Once the approval process is complete there is also a clear audit trail that enables business leaders and auditors to understand how the approval progressed if there is cause to investigate. The two solutions will also reduce emails and decrease the amount of time spent by people across the organisation.
Roby Baruch, Chief Product Officer at Tipalti commented: “The AP process has historically been the most time-consuming function in finance. One of the key pain points finance teams cite is the chaotic back and forth of invoice approvals. These features are the latest example of how Tipalti is reshaping how businesses manage their financial operations by eliminating manual, burdensome processes.”
Bill Talk
There is little on the Tiplati website to explain in more detail what Bill Talk consists of. However, the release mentions the following capabilities:
- Ability to message via chats with approvers
- Tag team members within the bill
- Automatically also sends an email to tagged users, so nothing gets missed
- Easily reply to tags via email without the need to log into Tipalti
While Tipalti has a Slack integration, the announcement infers that this is something different. It raises the question of why Tipalti chose to develop its product in this way rather than leverage Slack, Teams or another solution. Organisations are unlikely to use the Tipalti collaboration tool for other purposes. So is there an integration point and what is the cost or is it included?
Bill Docs
Like Bill Talk, there is little technical or pricing information about this solution. The key capabilities include:
- Upload and review bill-related documents
- Easily access documents via Tipalti’s approval email (no login required)
- Easily pin relevant documents to bills, such as a contract or receipt
- Attach documents to messages in Bill Talk
- Easily attach the body of an email automatically
It would have been possible to integrate these features into other enterprise file storage solutions, has Tipalti OEM’d another product? Has it developed one itself?
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
These changes are welcome for accounts payable teams, those already using Tipalti will find them useful, especially AP teams. However, will teams from other departments want to log into another solution to collaborate? Much of the detail is missing. Also, there is no indication that either Bill Talk or Bill Docs can share information or messages with external stakeholders such as suppliers.
