How healthcare organizations can use AP automation software

Healthcare organizations face intense pressure to manage vendor relationships, process payments accurately, and maintain strict documentation standards. All of this happens while finance teams are trying to support patient care operations. Most finance teams spend significant time on invoice intake, approvals, and compliance tracking. That time could go toward budget forecasting or strategic planning instead.

AP automation software helps healthcare teams handle back-office operations without compromising on compliance or accuracy. The software automates approvals and consolidates payment workflows. It also maintains audit-ready records across departments.

Here's how AP automation software helps healthcare organizations reduce manual work and how to choose the right solution.

The hidden cost of manual AP in healthcare

Healthcare organizations spend hours each week on manual AP tasks. That includes invoice entry, chasing approvals, scheduling payments, and managing documentation.

When you multiply that across departments and facilities, the time adds up fast. It pulls staff attention away from patient care.

Generic AP systems usually fall short in healthcare environments. They lack the controls, flexibility, and integrations that regulated and decentralized operations need.

Healthcare AP has a few unique demands:

• Diverse vendor ecosystems. From pharmaceuticals to equipment rentals, vendor types vary widely. Each has different expectations for payment terms, documentation, and oversight.
• Cash flow uncertainty. Reimbursement timing and patient payments create variability, so rigid payment schedules don't work.
• Multi-location structures. Hospital systems often operate across facilities with different workflows and reporting lines. That makes central visibility difficult.
• Operational impact. Payment delays can trigger supply disruptions or equipment delays that affect clinical care.

Healthcare AP needs to handle all of this without creating more manual work or compliance risk.

What actually changes when you automate AP

Healthcare organizations handle hundreds or thousands of vendor payments every month—from medical suppliers to contracted services. AP automation software helps you process these payments faster and with fewer errors. Here's what changes when you automate:

• Lower operational costs. You'll eliminate paper invoices and cut down the hours your team spends on manual data entry and approvals. Most healthcare organizations also start catching early payment discounts they used to miss.
• Fewer errors, faster processing. Automation pulls data directly from invoices (using OCR technology), which means less manual typing and fewer mistakes. The system flags mismatches right away—like when an invoice amount doesn't match a purchase order. Your team can process invoices in days instead of weeks, which helps you avoid late fees and keeps reconciliation cleaner.
• Better vendor relationships. When you pay pharmaceutical suppliers, medical equipment vendors, and service providers on time (or early), they're more likely to prioritize your orders. If you're consistently paying a medical supply vendor 45 days late, they're less likely to rush your order during a shortage.
• Clear view of cash flow. You can see exactly what payments are coming up and when they're due. This helps you plan around big expenses—like a bulk order of PPE or a facilities contract renewal—without scrambling to check if you have enough cash on hand.
• Useful financial reports. With accurate, current data, you can quickly generate reports that show spending by department, vendor, or category. This makes it easier to spot where you're overspending (maybe one department is ordering supplies from a more expensive vendor) and have informed budget conversations.

What to look for when you're evaluating AP software for healthcare

Not all AP tools are built to handle the complexity of healthcare finance. When evaluating a solution, focus on features that handle both compliance requirements and day-to-day volume.

• ERP and EHR integrations: Look for native integrations with systems like NetSuite or QuickBooks to ensure clean data flow between platforms.
• Automated invoice processing: AI-powered tools should capture and code invoice data automatically. This matters most for recurring vendor charges, where you're processing the same invoices month after month.
• Custom approval workflows: Approvals should reflect your internal structure, with routing logic based on entity, department, amount, or vendor type.
• Multi-entity support: Many healthcare organizations operate across multiple legal entities. Your AP software should handle inter-entity workflows, consolidated reporting, and entity-specific approval chains.
• Real-time analytics and dashboards: Visibility into spend by department, vendor, or cost center helps you spot spending patterns before they become problems.
• Robust vendor management: Tools to track vendor documentation, certifications, insurance status, and payment preferences reduce risk and speed up onboarding.

The best AP automation software handles everything from invoice intake to payment execution. It reduces workload, improves accuracy, and keeps you compliant without adding headcount.

If you're evaluating options, Ramp Bill Pay handles these workflows with built-in spend controls and audit trails.

What Ramp Bill Pay does (and how healthcare teams use it)

Ramp Bill Pay handles your accounts payable process from start to finish. It covers invoice capture, approvals, payments, and reconciliation. The platform includes OCR-based invoice data extraction, two-way matching, customizable approval chains, and scheduled payments by ACH, card, or check. It also integrates directly with ERP systems.

You can see where every invoice stands, spot approval delays, and track when payments go out. When all your departments and facilities use the same system, you avoid duplicate entries and approvals don't get stuck waiting on someone in a different location.

Here's a deeper dive into its features.

Automated invoice capture

Ramp Bill Pay has best-in-class OCR technology that extracts invoice details—vendor, line items, totals, and terms—into structured digital records. This reduces the need for manual entry and reduces error rates, which is critical for high-volume AP teams.

Customizable approval workflows

You can configure rules by department, location, dollar amount, or user role. Clinical supply invoices can go to department managers, while capital expenditures follow corporate oversight channels.

Multi-location systems can standardize policies while allowing for localized execution. Ramp Bill Pay supports multi-level workflows with delegation and role-based permissions, so you can handle complex routing while keeping things simple for reviewers and transparent for finance leaders.

Centralized vendor management

Ramp Bill Pay centralizes vendor records (including W-9 documents and 1099 tax information), helping finance teams maintain audit readiness. This lets you verify documentation before releasing payments and simplifies preparation for audits or compliance checks.

Real-time visibility and reporting

View invoice and payment status across all departments, facilities, or vendors. Identify bottlenecks, track timelines, and get a clear view of your audit trail—without relying on manual reports or cross-team follow-ups.

Payment scheduling tools

Schedule and prioritize payments based on vendor terms and your organization's cash flow needs. Use vendor terms to prioritize payments and capture discounts while maintaining supply chain stability.

Bulk vendor payments are also available to help speed up invoice payment processing for healthcare organizations.

Accounting system integrations

Ramp integrates with whichever accounting system your business uses—so you can reconcile your books without friction. We offer direct integrations with leading ERPs and accounting platforms like NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Acumatica, enabling real-time sync of vendor bills, reimbursements, payments, and accounting fields. Select systems also support bi-directional sync for vendor bills and imported item receipts.

For platforms without native integrations, Ramp also provides Universal CSV (uCSV) exports that match your chart of accounts, tracking categories, and project codes for seamless reconciliation. Ramp also offers a robust API and trusted implementation partners to support custom integrations when needed.

Low pricing and processing fees

Ramp offers a free plan that lets you manage spend, automate vendor payments, and speed up your month-end close. For organizations with more advanced needs, Ramp Plus is available at $15 per user per month, and custom Enterprise plans are also available upon request.

Plus, you can handle all domestic and global vendor payments on a single platform—by check, card, ACH, or international wire with zero fees*.

AI agents for accounts payable

Ramp is also introducing AI agents for AP—autonomous systems built into Ramp that go beyond workflow automation. These agents understand invoice context and take action on behalf of your team. They code line items based on historical data, flag potential fraud, suggest the appropriate approver, and submit card payments when applicable.

Key takeaways: Benefits of using Ramp Bill Pay for healthcare

Ramp Bill Pay handles your AP process from invoice to payment. It simplifies daily work for AP teams, reduces risk, controls costs, and keeps operations running smoothly. Here's what it helps you do:

• Capture early payment discounts with high-volume vendors
• Avoid late payment fees
• Control who can approve payments and track every change with detailed audit trails
• Cut down on manual data entry, approvals, and reconciliation work
• Pay vendors faster without losing financial oversight, which prevents supply disruptions
• Keep all documentation in one place for easier audits and better transparency
• Connect with your existing accounting and ERP systems
• Schedule payments flexibly and see cash flow projections ahead of time
• Track spending across multiple entities, departments, and locations
• Grow without needing to replace your payment system

Ramp Bill Pay gives healthcare organizations the tools to run efficient, compliant AP operations. Whether you're managing a single hospital or a nationwide network of care facilities, the system adapts to your needs.

AP automation success stories from healthcare organizations

Healthcare finance teams deal with a lot: vendor payments across multiple locations, strict compliance requirements, and manual processes that eat up hours every week. Here's how three organizations automated their AP workflows and got that time back.

1. How the Hospital Association of Oregon reduced bill pay time from hours to minutes

Before using Ramp Bill Pay, the Hospital Association of Oregon relied on a fully manual AP process—emailing invoices for approval, preparing paper vouchers, printing checks, and physically mailing payments. Every AP batch took about 10 hours to complete, with manual data entry and hand-keyed accounting that made errors and delays more likely.

With Ramp Bill Pay, the team replaced that workflow with a streamlined digital process. Invoices are entered, routed, approved, and paid directly within Ramp—without needing paper checks or email back-and-forth. What once took an entire day now takes only minutes.

The system has also improved audit-readiness, replacing filing cabinets full of paper with easily accessible digital records. Instead of searching through physical files, finance can now retrieve any invoice or approval instantly.

Doing it the old way probably took a good 10 hours per AP batch. Now it just takes a couple of minutes between getting an invoice entered, approved, and processed.” — Jason Hershey, VP of Finance and Accounting at Hospital Association of Oregon

2. How Precision Neuroscience reduced data entry to just 1–2 days

Precision Neuroscience previously relied on a multi-step, spreadsheet-driven procurement and bill pay process that required extensive manual entry and constant switching between systems. Each PO had to be built from scratch, approvals were routed manually, and AP coding was largely outsourced.

With Ramp, the team consolidated four separate tools into a single platform integrated with their ERP. Ramp’s OCR automatically extracts data from uploaded vendor quotes, removing the need to retype information into purchase orders. Duplicate invoice detection and auto-coding further reduced manual workload and errors.

The impact has been significant: the procurement process is now about 50% faster, recurring tasks take minutes instead of hours, and monthly close has been cut down to just 1–2 days—freeing up time for higher-value finance work.

“Ramp’s OCR has been so useful on the procurement side. It automatically takes all the information from the quote and saves all the data entry that we would have otherwise had to type into a purchase order.” — Brian Lautenbach, Financial Controller at Precision Neuroscience

3. How Skin Pharm cut its approval timelines from weeks to hours

Before Ramp, Skin Pharm managed expenses, reimbursements, and procurement through fragmented systems—including Google Sheets, Slack messages, and a mix of corporate cards. Bill pay was manual, approvals were slow, and there was no centralized way to track or control spending across clinics.

With Ramp Bill Pay, Skin Pharm now handles invoices, approvals, and payments in one system. Bills are processed automatically, regardless of whether team members are in the office, and approvals—once delayed for weeks—now happen in as little as 48 hours. Month-end close has been reduced from 25 days to just 10–15, freeing the finance team to focus on more strategic work.

Ramp’s centralized visibility and automated approval flows have also helped enforce internal controls and eliminate unapproved spend—giving leadership more confidence in spend data and audit readiness.

“Bill pay now happens automatically, regardless of whether a team member is in the office or not. Now we know we’re not falling behind on anything.” — Kaela Patrinely, VP of Finance at Skin Pharm

Why healthcare organizations choose Ramp Bill Pay to automate AP

If you're managing AP for a healthcare organization, you know the drill: multiple entities, strict compliance requirements, and vendor payments that can't afford to be late or lost in the shuffle.

Ramp Bill Pay handles the automation piece without forcing you to rebuild your entire process. It adapts to multi-entity structures, tracks documentation for compliance, and keeps vendor payments moving on schedule.

The right system should reduce manual work without creating new headaches. Ramp Bill Pay makes it possible.

*Same-day ACH payments and International payments may incur a fee unless you are using a Ramp Business Account. Ramp Bill Pay is available on our free plan with no software or transaction fees. Note that certain ERP integrations require a Ramp Plus account, which includes a monthly fee.