Coupa vs. Stampli

I am new to customer-supplier portals in my career. I use several different ones in my current role, including Ariba and Tipalti. To be honest, I don't really enjoy the user experience of any of them. I can see how larger companies may benefit from their services but for my current role submitting invoices on them and filling out vendor information requests seems somewhat clunky to me. When I'm in Coupa, the easiest, most non-clunky process for me is when I'm successfully connected with a customer who has successfully created their purchase order and I can easily upload my invoice to said PO. To me, emailing customer invoices directly to the customer from our invoicing system seems like the easier route of delivering an invoice. I suppose it is helpful and reassuring to know that an invoice has been successfully uploaded into a company's system rather than waiting to find out if your emailed invoice made it to the correct department for payment processing.

The Stampli tech is very good in processing our transactions and linking to our accounting system. And even for any pain points encountered, we have worked with their tech and customer rep teams (specifically [...]) to promptly resolve the matter in a seamless and pain free way (unlike our previous invoice processing provider).

• Coupa is easy to use, however, we had to teach our end users about procurement. They are not used to conducting an RFP, onboarding a supplier, or preparing a PO. This is the change management that our employees had to be prepared to understand. The Shelby Group helped us with the implementation.
• The hardest part was the integration between NetSuite and Coupa. We wanted to have a dynamic tight integration between the two solutions. If we adjusted the chart of accounts or added a new supplier we wanted it to be able to done in both systems and be available immediately in both systems. We used a partner called SuiteSkies to accomplish this dynamic integration.
• We’ve been able to manage the implementation and maintenance with a very lean IT group.

Incentivized

• Learning - Billy the bot learns much quicker than our previous OCR.
• Global lookup - we have multiple entities which creates a challenge for finding invoices entered in the wrong place. Stampli has removed this issue.
• Maximizing manpower - reduces the need for more personnel.

Incentivized

• Support Team - A little slow in responding. I think the tool is so configurable that they struggle with figuring out what is causing certain issues that are being submitted on the portal.
• I'd love for the Sourcing Module to be able to support larger events. There seems to be a limit on the number of lines each event can support and as a growing retailer, our store count dictates we have room to grow and that each store is represented in the bid process.
• Would like to see the ability to issue multiple POs for a single item to multiple locations. The tool may do this but I know I can't and it may be due to how we interface with our ERP.

Incentivized

• Only 1 template for vendor onboarding--we have multiple vendor "types" that would benefit from having tailored invites to the vendor portal
• The software doesn't locate invoice details (such as invoice total) after the 1st page
• Invoice discrepancy reporting could be easier and more robust

Incentivized

I cannot imagine going back to pre-Stampli processes. Our jobs in the Accounting department (not just AP) have all become more engaging because we've cut out so much mindless, non-value added work: data entry, signing checks, stuffing envelopes, stamping envelopes, etc.

Incentivized

A lot of checks and balances in the system that are an accountant's dream - just takes some time to understand the new process to get up to speed.

Never an issue with downtime

Very fast and no issues with the Sage Intacct integration

We have a dedicated rep (who was also our implementation rep--they stay with you after implementation) who we can email whenever needed and meet with every quarter. There is a chat option within the software that gets responded to by a real person within minutes.

Incentivized

Excellent documentation, step-by-step instructions

We lost an AP employee right as we were deciding to implement, so we had to speed up our timeline. We went from signing the contract to fully functional system within 4 weeks. We did not dedicate any more than 4 hours per week during the implementation.

Incentivized

Concur was a lot easier and more user friendly for employees doing expense reports on their phone. That is not the case with Coupa. You must use your laptop to do expenses and our managers don't always have enough time to do that while out in the field working. This has caused some issues.

Incentivized

Tipalti was not system friendly to what we needed (syncing with NetSuite) and the implementation process was frustrating. We experienced delays and no responses from their team. Stampli has been the complete opposite! It's user friendly, from approvers to coders, reasonably priced, and their team members are responsive, caring, and genuine in getting you set up for success

Incentivized

I would not change anything

Ease of deployment both domestic and international

• It has allowed for proper processing of expenses tied directly to the proper LOB and GL Codes
• Has taken the guesswork away and allowed for the proper budgets to be hit and reconciled
• Ease of use has led to mass adoption and more prompt processing of expenses

Incentivized

• The best testament to Stampli is that is has decreased DTP (days to process) by over 3 days.
• It has transformed invoice approval. No invoices are being sent duplicate times for approval by error. Stampli does a great job at identifying duplicate invoices.