AP automation software for controllers: Streamlining AP workflows and controls

Controllers sit at the center of a company’s accounting operations—overseeing financial accuracy, enforcing controls, ensuring compliance, and closing the books each month. But when it comes to accounts payable, too many controllers are still forced to rely on fragmented, manual processes. Email-based approvals, paper check runs, disconnected systems, and error-prone data entry all contribute to month-end delays, audit risk, and reporting headaches.

Ramp’s AP automation software, Ramp Bill Pay, is designed to meet the needs of modern finance teams. It reduces repetitive manual tasks while giving you greater oversight, better documentation, and deeper insight into cash outflows. With Ramp, controllers can strengthen internal controls, process invoices faster, and close the books in less time.

This guide walks through how Ramp’s AP software helps controllers automate AP without losing control—supporting more confident, compliant, and efficient financial operations.

The controller's AP challenges today

Controllers carry full responsibility for the integrity of the AP function. That includes ensuring accurate vendor payments, enforcing approval policies, maintaining compliance, and producing complete, timely financial records. But in many organizations, the AP workflow still introduces unnecessary risk and overhead.

Most AP workflows create three major problems:

• Manual invoice processing ties up your team with data entry and creates errors you'll need to fix later
• Approval workflows turn into email chains and desk drop-offs, leaving you without visibility into what's approved and what's stuck
• Reconciliation processes require matching documents across multiple systems, often by hand

These inefficiencies are more than operational annoyances. They make it harder to detect spend anomalies, enforce policies, or deliver timely reports to leadership. Even well-intentioned AP software tools often fall short for controllers—they may offer basic processing functionality, but lack the flexibility, controls, and audit trail visibility needed for enterprise-grade accounting.

You need an AP solution built for controllers—one that automates routine tasks while giving you better financial control and visibility.

What is Ramp’s AP automation software and how does it work?

Ramp’s AP automation software, Ramp Bill Pay, automates the full invoice-to-payment workflow while preserving the control and accountability controllers need. Every step of the process—from data extraction to reconciliation—takes place within a centralized platform that connects directly to your accounting system.

Here's how it works:

1. Intelligent invoice capture: Extracts data from invoices using OCR, eliminating manual entry
2. Customizable approval workflows: Routes invoices to the right approvers based on amount, department, vendor, or other rules you set
3. Automated payments: Executes payments via ACH, check, card, or wire once approved
4. Automatic syncing: Sends all transaction data to your accounting system without duplicate entry

Throughout the process, you have real-time visibility into every invoice’s status—what’s pending, what’s been scheduled, and what’s already paid. And behind the scenes, Ramp Bill pay creates a fully documented audit trail with timestamps, user actions, and supporting files, so you always have a clear record of activity.

Ramp Bill Pay also connects directly with your ERP system, accounting software, and other financial tools. This eliminates the reconciliation headaches that come from disconnected systems and helps you close your books faster each month.

How Ramp’s AP automation software addresses controller-specific pain points

Ramp’s AP automation software addresses common AP challenges that directly affect controller performance—accuracy, compliance, time-to-close, and financial visibility. Here’s a breakdown of its AP features that controllers need:

1. Approval workflows designed for internal controls

As a controller, you need assurance that every payment has been reviewed and approved appropriately. Ramp’s AP software gives you full control over how invoices are routed—allowing you to design multi-level approvals that reflect your policies without slowing the process down.

Approvals can be triggered by criteria such as invoice amount, vendor, department, category, and more. This means higher-risk or higher-value invoices can be escalated automatically, while routine payments follow a lighter-weight path. You can also assign alternate workflows for new vendors or transactions that exceed spend thresholds.

Ramp’s AP software also keeps approvals on track. If a reviewer hasn’t responded, the system sends automatic reminders and flags the delay in your dashboard. You’ll always know exactly where an invoice is in the approval chain—and if it’s at risk of holding up payment or reconciliation. This is because every step is logged, giving you a defensible audit trail of who approved what and when. This not only supports regulatory compliance, but also gives your team clarity and accountability across departments.

2. Real-time visibility into every payable and payment

Controllers need batch reports and continuous visibility. Ramp provides a unified platform showing all AP activity in flight, such as invoices waiting on approvals, payments scheduled, and transactions already completed. Because Ramp also integrates card and expense data, you can view total company spend from one place, instead of stitching together fragmented data from multiple tools.

Analytics features give you deeper insight into trends. You can review spend by vendor, department, or category, spot budget overruns in real time, and detect patterns that may warrant investigation.

3. ERP integration made for accounting teams

Ramp’s AP software is built to fit into your accounting ecosystem, not work around it. Direct integrations with leading ERP systems ensure that transactions initiated in Ramp—invoice data, transactions, bill payments, vendor payments, and more—are synced automatically to your accounting platform with bi-directional syncing.

Ramp’s direct integrations include NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, Sage Intacct, Xero, Acumatica, and more.

This means you won’t need to manually re-enter data or chase discrepancies between systems. Vendor details, accounting details, and coding structures remain consistent across your stack. This not only saves time, but reduces the risk of reconciliation errors that delay close. Ramp also supports more complex needs like multi-entity structures, international vendors, and foreign currency payments.

4. A faster, cleaner close—with AP and expense data in sync

For controllers, month-end close hinges on more than just expense reconciliation. Incomplete or delayed accounts payable activity—like outstanding invoice approvals, missing documentation, or uncoded bills—can just as easily derail your timeline. Ramp Bill Pay addresses this by ensuring your AP data is clean, current, and fully integrated with your accounting system throughout the month.

Invoices are ingested, coded, and approved using structured workflows, so there's no end-of-month backlog to catch up on. Payments are automatically matched to invoices and synced to your ERP, which reduces the need for manual reconciliation and data entry. Because everything is processed within one system, you also eliminate the need to collect PDFs, match paper vouchers, or chase down approvers before close.

What makes Ramp even more powerful is that AP lives alongside your card transactions and reimbursements. All non-payroll spend flows through one platform, making it easier to maintain consistency in accounting fields, categorization, and timing. This unified structure gives you confidence that all spend is captured and recorded, so your team can move faster—and with fewer errors—when it’s time to close the books.

How controllers are already saving their company time and money with Ramp’s AP software

Controllers across several industries are already adopting Ramp’s AP software to automate invoice intake, streamline approvals, and sync seamlessly with their accounting systems.

They’re saving hours each week, cutting out errors, and getting a clearer view of cash flow in real time. Here's how one controller is benefiting from Ramp Bill Pay:

How The Second City saved $40K annually with Ramp Bill Pay

Frank Byers, Controller at The Second City had an AP automation tool that promised OCR and coding—but didn’t deliver. Bills had to be scanned, reviewed, and manually coded line by line in NetSuite, often with errors and missing data. The process was slow, unreliable, and expensive—costing the team $40,000 annually for software that didn’t work.

Ramp’s AP automation software gave the team a real solution. With accurate OCR, line-item recognition, and automatic coding based on accounting rules, invoice entry became seamless. Vendor data was captured correctly, accounting rules were applied automatically, and payments flowed through without manual touchpoints.

This helped The Second City not only cut their bill processing time in half, but also help them save $40K annually by consolidating systems. For a lean team focused on reporting and analytics, the impact wasn’t just faster processing—it was time back to focus on higher-value work.

“Switching to Ramp for Bill Pay saved us not only time but also a significant amount of money. Our previous AP automation tool cost us around $40,000 per year, and it wasn’t even working properly. Ramp is far more functional, and we’re getting the benefits at a fraction of the cost,” says Frank Byers, Controller at The Second City.

Why controllers choose Ramp Bill Pay to automate AP

Ramp’s AP automation software is a modern AP system designed for finance teams responsible for accuracy, compliance, and operational control. For controllers, that means fewer errors, faster closes, and clearer visibility into spend.

By automating tedious tasks and centralizing documentation, Ramp’s AP software lets you focus more on oversight and analysis—and less on chasing down approvals or fixing broken workflows. It gives your team the structure they need, and gives you the confidence that every dollar is reviewed, recorded, and reported accurately.

Ramp helps controllers build a more efficient, more resilient, and more accountable finance operation—starting with AP.

Try Ramp Bill Pay.

Explore how Ramp Bill Pay supports AP automation across teams, company sizes, and industries