Customers who switched from Zip to Ramp

Procurement intake tools solve the approval problem but not the spend management problem. If you're using Zip, you probably know the feeling: vendor data, contract history, and invoices all live in different systems, and you're stuck pulling it all together manually at month-end.

When Advisor360° and Foursquare outgrew their fragmented procurement stacks, they consolidated onto Ramp to bring everything into one platform. Both teams cut their intake-to-pay cycle times dramatically and eliminated rogue spend entirely.

Why finance teams outgrow procurement intake tools

Approval workflows are only one piece of the spend management puzzle. Tools like Zip capture purchase requests and route them for approval, but everything after that (POs, vendor onboarding, invoices, reconciliation) still falls on you.

That's where things get messy. Vendor data ends up in one system, contracts in another, and invoices somewhere else entirely. You spend hours pulling it all together manually, often in spreadsheets, just to close the books. The approval workflow might run smoothly, but the rest of the process stays chaotic.

If you started with Zip, you're probably juggling multiple tools:

• Intake tool: Captures and routes purchase requests
• AP software: Processes invoices and manages payments
• Card program: Handles employee spending
• Travel platform: Books and tracks business travel
• Contract repository: Stores vendor agreements

Each tool works fine on its own. Together, though, they create blind spots, duplicate work, and no single place to get a complete picture of your vendor relationships. You want to see everything you've spent with a vendor, every transaction, invoice, and contract. But you're pulling data from four or five different places to get it.

You solve the approval problem. The spend management problem stays.

What teams look for in a unified platform

You need a platform that connects the entire spending process, not another point solution. That means approvals flow directly into payments and reconciliation without manual handoffs between systems.

These capabilities matter most:

• Centralized vendor management: One place to see every transaction, invoice, and contract for each vendor
• Automated invoice coding: AI-powered categorization that eliminates manual data entry
• Integrated procurement and AP: Approvals that flow directly into payment workflows without re-keying information
• Direct ERP sync: Real-time data flowing to your accounting system without manual imports
• Clear spend visibility: A complete view of all company spending, including cards, bills, and reimbursements

The goal isn't just saving time. It's knowing exactly where every dollar goes. When everything lives in one system, you can enforce policies consistently, spot anomalies faster, and give stakeholders the visibility they've been asking for. You're not chasing down information across five different platforms when someone asks a simple question about vendor spend.

Advisor360°: from fragmented systems to a single source of truth

The challenge

Advisor360° had built a procurement stack that looked good on paper. They used a dedicated intake tool for purchase requests, a separate bill pay solution for invoices, and contract management software for vendor agreements. In practice, though, the systems didn't communicate with each other.

Vendor onboarding required duplicate approvals across platforms. If you wanted to see a vendor's transaction history, you had to check one system. For invoices, you went somewhere else. Contracts lived in a third place. No single view existed.

The downstream effects were significant:

• Invoice processing: more than two minutes per bill for manual coding
• AP workload: required a full-time dedicated role just to keep up
• Month-end accruals: manual reconciliation across multiple systems
• Approval turnaround: ten days on average from request to approval

How Ramp solved it

• Unified vendor management with every transaction, invoice, and contract in a single vendor profile — eliminating the need to check multiple systems
• AI-powered invoice coding that automates categorization and eliminates manual data entry
• Single approval flow from purchase request through payment, removing duplicate approval steps across tools
• Direct ERP sync replacing manual imports at month-end
• Full-time AP role freed up for higher-value work through automation

The results

• Intake-to-pay cycle: 50% reduction
• Approval turnaround: 10 days → 5.5 days
• Invoice processing: 2+ minutes → 10 seconds per bill
• Monthly accruals: 80% reduction
• 4x ROI in less than one year, $40K+ in cash back earned in the first year

"With Ramp, everything lives in one place. You can click into a vendor and see every transaction, invoice, and contract. That didn't exist in Zip." — Ryan Williams, Manager of Contract and Vendor Management, Advisor360°

Read the full Advisor360° story

Foursquare: bringing 40% of spend under management

The challenge

Foursquare's procurement setup had grown organically over time. Different teams used different tools for intake, AP, cards, and travel. The result was a maze of disconnected systems that nobody fully understood.

Employees faced a 20-page onboarding guide just to figure out how to submit a purchase request. Once they submitted, approvals stalled with no visibility into where requests stood. Some contracts bypassed procurement entirely because the process was too cumbersome.

• 40% of company spend had no oversight
• No way to enforce policies or catch rogue purchases before they happened
• Approvals stalled with no status visibility
• Contracts bypassing procurement entirely due to process friction

"I had to go from procure to pay with no playbook. It wasn't smooth, it wasn't efficient, and nobody knew where their requests stood." — Michael Bohn, Head of Business Operations, Foursquare

How Ramp solved it

• Unified intake-to-pay platform replacing separate tools for procurement, AP, cards, and travel
• Spend controls that require purchases to go through Ramp before payment — eliminating rogue contracts
• Real-time approval status visible to everyone, replacing the black-box workflow
• Full vendor visibility in one place across all subsidiaries
• Consolidated 30%+ of tools and software stack into a single platform

The results

• Spend under management: 60% → nearly 100%
• PO and invoice processing: 4x faster
• Tools consolidated: 30%+ reduction in software stack
• Team capacity: 2x+ increase without adding headcount
• Zero rogue contracts

"We chose Ramp because it replaced several disparate tools with one platform our teams actually use — if it's not in Ramp, it's not getting paid." — Michael Bohn, Head of Business Operations, Foursquare

Read the full Foursquare story

Common challenges and what teams look for instead

The patterns across Advisor360° and Foursquare are ones you've probably seen in your own procurement setup. The tools are different, but the challenges are usually the same.

The common thread is fragmentation. When procurement, AP, cards, and travel all live in separate systems, you end up doing the integration work manually. Every month-end close becomes an exercise in pulling data from multiple sources and reconciling it by hand.

A unified platform eliminates that manual reconciliation. Approvals flow into payments. Payments sync to your ERP. Vendor history accumulates in one place. The data you need is already connected.

How Ramp connects procurement, AP, and spend management

Ramp brings together corporate cards, accounts payable, procurement, and accounting automation in a single platform. Instead of managing separate tools for each function, you get one system where approvals flow directly into payments and every transaction syncs automatically to your ERP.

The platform covers the full spend lifecycle:

• Procurement intake: Capture purchase requests with customizable forms and route them through approval workflows
• Vendor management: See every transaction, invoice, and contract for each vendor in one profile
• Automated AP: AI codes invoices, matches them to POs, and routes them for approval
• Corporate cards: Issue physical and virtual cards with built-in spend controls
• Accounting sync: Real-time integration with NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, and other ERPs

When everything connects, you eliminate the manual work that eats up hours every month. Your team spends less time on data entry and more time on analysis and forecasting.

The difference between a point solution and a platform becomes clear at month-end. With separate tools, you're exporting data, matching records, and reconciling discrepancies. With a unified platform, reconciliation happens automatically as transactions occur.

See how Ramp works for your team

If you're ready to move beyond point solutions and bring your entire spending process into one platform, Ramp can help. Whether you're managing a growing vendor base, trying to close the books faster, or looking to cut manual invoice processing, you can see how it all works in one place.

Try an interactive demo to see the platform in action, or explore more customer stories to learn how teams like yours have made the switch.