How mid-sized companies can automate AP with Ramp Bill Pay

At mid-sized companies, accounts payable (AP) is a critical workflow that affects cash flow, vendor relationships, and reporting accuracy. As invoice volumes rise and approval chains grow more layered, manual processes or entry-level AP tools often fall short.

But full-scale enterprise systems can feel like overkill. They're costly, complex, and slow to implement.

That's where Ramp Bill Pay comes in. It automates the repetitive parts of AP without requiring a six-month implementation or a dedicated admin. You get invoice capture, approval routing, and payment execution in one place. It syncs with your accounting system so you're not manually updating records.

This guide walks through how to set up and use Bill Pay to handle your AP workflow, from invoice receipt to payment and reconciliation.

How Ramp Bill Pay handles the full AP workflow for mid-sized finance teams

Mid-sized finance teams need AP software with more than basic invoice scanning. As invoice volume grows, manual routing breaks down and visibility gaps create bottlenecks. Ramp Bill Pay automates every stage of the AP workflow while staying easy to deploy and use. Here's how it addresses the specific challenges mid-sized teams face:

Invoice capture and automated coding

Invoices arrive through email forwarding, file uploads, direct uploads, and more. Ramp Bill Pay uses OCR to automatically extract invoice data like vendor name, invoice number, due date, and line items. It then suggests GL codes based on historical entries, saving your team from manual entry or cross-referencing codes across systems.

This helps teams reduce errors and shorten invoice processing time, even as invoice volume increases. The system learns from corrections, so coding suggestions improve over time.

Approval routing that matches your org structure

Ramp Bill Pay routes invoices based on your organization's actual structure. You can set up routing by department, threshold, vendor, or project. For example, invoices over $10K can automatically route to finance leadership. You can also assign backups for out-of-office coverage.

Approvers receive alerts and can review invoices via desktop or mobile, with full invoice details and documentation attached. Every action is logged for audit readiness, including submission, edits, approvals, and reassignments. This helps mid-sized businesses enforce internal controls without manual oversight or workflow delays.

Payment scheduling and vendor self-service

You can schedule payments individually or in batches, whether you're optimizing for cash flow or capturing early payment discounts. Save dashboard views to manage upcoming payments and plan disbursements in advance.

Vendors can onboard via secure links, upload tax and banking details, and monitor invoice status through their own portal. This reduces back-and-forth emails. It also gives vendors more visibility without creating extra work for your team.

Ramp Bill Pay also supports international payments, including currency conversion and cross-border compliance, without requiring separate banking setups in each country.

See what's pending, approved, and paid without switching systems

Ramp Bill Pay provides reporting tools that give you instant visibility into AP activity. Track pending approvals, invoice status, scheduled vendor payments, and more. You can segment data by department, vendor, project, or time period to identify bottlenecks or process gaps.

Your accounting system syncs automatically

Ramp integrates directly with 200+ platforms. Top ERP and accounting integrations include QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Acumatica, and more. These integrations sync accounting fields, vendors, payment records, reimbursements, and more. Approved invoices and payment data flow into your accounting system without duplicate entry or reconciliation delays.

For businesses using custom ERPs or niche financial tools, Ramp also supports API integrations and universal CSVs.

Catch fraud before payments go out

Ramp enforces role-based permissions, audit trails, and segregation of duties without requiring custom scripts or outside admin help. Vendor bank information is encrypted and verified before payment. The system flags unusual activity (like changes to banking details or out-of-pattern payment amounts) so finance leaders can review them before money goes out the door.

These protections give mid-sized companies stronger internal control, even without a dedicated compliance team.

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.

What Ramp Bill Pay costs for mid-sized teams

Ramp starts with core AP automation and adds more advanced workflows as your finance function grows. There's a free tier to get started. But if you're managing 50+ invoices a month, working with multiple approvers, or dealing with compliance requirements across departments, Ramp Plus is usually the better fit.

Ramp Plus includes everything in the free tier, plus features that give you more control when you're managing AP across entities, departments, or different invoice types.

Key AP features in Ramp Plus:

• Invoice capture with AI-powered OCR
• Bill payments by check, ACH, card, and wire
• Advanced exports
• Vendor onboarding and tax management
• Ability to create bills using CSV uploads
• Mobile bill approvals
• Advanced approval workflows (+Route based on vendor, department, accounting field, payment type, and more)
• Automated batch payments
• Payment release approvals

Ramp Plus starts at $15 per user per month, with platform fees based on team size. If you need multi-entity consolidations or custom integrations, Ramp Enterprise is also available with expanded functionality and support.

For a complete list of available features across all tiers, visit Ramp Pricing.

How much time can you save with Ramp Bill Pay?

Mid-sized companies using Ramp Bill Pay are cutting their invoice processing time in half. Some are processing bills twice as fast. Here's how two teams made it happen.

1. How Quora improved bill processing time from 5–8 minutes to just 1–2 minutes

Quora’s finance team was juggling a fragmented bill pay process: invoices were emailed to a shared inbox, downloaded manually, stored in Google Drive, then manually entered and linked in NetSuite—often with approvals happening over email. The process was slow, error-prone, and created unnecessary work for a lean team.

With Ramp, Quora automated the full AP workflow. Ramp auto-ingests invoices from email, codes them using vendor history and Quora’s chart of accounts, routes them for approval based on custom rules, and syncs them directly to NetSuite. Approvers receive clear, consolidated requests via Slack or email and can approve with one click—no login required.

Adopting Ramp Bill Pay led to Quora reducing their bill processing time from 5–8 minutes to just 1–2 minutes per invoice. What used to take multiple steps and manual inputs now happens in a few clicks, giving the team time back for more strategic work—and helping them stay lean without sacrificing control.

“In the old world, there were multiple entry points, and sometimes bills were put into the wrong places. There were 10+ steps to go from PDF processing to NetSuite, to payment and reporting,” says Richard, Finance Manager at Quora.

“With Ramp and Netsuite together we’ve reduced that to 3 simple steps. It’s more efficient and a huge time saver. Our monthly close for cash and credit cards has gone from being probably a two to three-hour exercise to 15-20 minutes.”

2. How Ramp Bill Pay helped Snapdocs cut reconciliation time from 5-6 hours to under 30 minutes

The finance team at Snapdocs relied on three separate platforms—Brex for corporate cards, Expensify for reimbursements, and Bill.com for vendor payments. These tools didn’t integrate seamlessly, requiring manual intervention for approvals, data syncing, and reconciliation.

The lack of an automated AP workflow meant that finance teams spent excessive time reviewing and approving invoices, leading to payment delays. Additionally, month-end close required hours of manual reconciliation, creating stress and inefficiencies in the accounting process.

Snapdocs implemented Ramp Bill Pay to automate vendor payments, invoice approvals, and reconciliation, eliminating the need for multiple platforms. With Ramp’s seamless QuickBooks integration, all AP transactions synced automatically, ensuring a faster and more accurate reconciliation process. This resulted in:

• Reconciliation time cut from 5-6 hours to under 30 minutes: Automated syncing and approvals reduced manual work
• Faster vendor payments: Approvals were processed seamlessly, eliminating delays in bill payments
• More accurate invoice processing: AI-driven OCR reduced errors, improving AP efficiency

“The auto-population that happens with Ramp has been pretty phenomenal. I feel very confident that when I upload a bill into Ramp, it’s going to line up with what the bill says.” — Fahem Islam, Accounting Associate, Snapdocs

When AP software makes sense for your team

When you're processing 50+ invoices a month and your team is growing, spreadsheets start breaking down. You need software that can handle multi-level approvals without slowing everyone down.

Ramp Bill Pay is built for this stage. It connects to QuickBooks, NetSuite, or Xero, so you're not managing invoices in one place and reconciling in another. Your AP team can see what's pending, what's approved, and what's paid without switching tabs.

As your invoice volume grows, the system scales with you. You can set approval rules once, then let the software route invoices automatically. And when audit season comes, everything's already documented and categorized.

Get started with Ramp Bill Pay.