How a High-Growth SaaS Startup Improved Spend Compliance by 92% With AP Automation
Industry: Startup
Service: Spend Control & Invoice Compliance Automation
Client Background
The client is a rapidly scaling SaaS startup in the USA that grew from 15 to 120 employees in just two years. With growth came an expanding vendor base that included marketing firms, cloud service providers, freelancers and multiple software partners.
As teams scaled, its internal Accounts Payable operations struggled to keep up. Manual reviews, inconsistent approval habits and uncontrolled spending created financial blind spots that made cash-flow forecasting unpredictable and time-consuming.
Challenges
- Uncontrolled spending and approvals: Teams made purchases without structured approval steps, leading to unexpected costs and budget overruns.
- Invoice non-compliance: Many invoices lacked PO numbers, correct rates or required supporting documents, causing constant back-and-forth with vendors.
- Approval delays: Invoices circulated across emails, Slack and spreadsheets, slowing down payments and affecting vendor relationships.
- No real-time visibility: Finance had no single view of committed spend, pending approvals or upcoming payouts, making forecasting difficult.
How Did APS Help?
- Smart approval workflow – A rule-based approval engine designed by APS experts, routed invoices automatically to the right department heads based on budgets and approval thresholds.
- Compliance screening engine – APS team introduced automated pre-validation that flagged missing POs, incorrect rates, mismatched amounts and expired contracts so only compliant invoices entered the workflow.
- Predictive spend tracking – A real-time dashboard was created by the APS team, which displayed committed spend, pending approvals, upcoming vendor payments and department-wise expenses, improving visibility and decision-making.
- Vendor documentation system – Vendors received access to a centralized portal where they could upload contracts, tax forms and updated pricing, reducing documentation gaps and errors.
Results Achieved
- Invoice compliance increased from 45% to 92%, driven by automated validation and clean documentation.
- Approval cycles became 80% faster, moving from multi-day delays to same-day routing.
- Finance gained accurate, real-time visibility into monthly and quarterly spending.
- Payment disputes decreased by 40% due to clearer contracts and more effective rate verification.
- Budget adherence improved significantly, resulting in a reduction of unplanned spending across departments.
As a result, the firm gained:
- A structured, disciplined spend-management framework.
- Stronger controls that reduced unapproved purchases.
- Reliable forecasting that supported rapid scale-up.
- Smoother collaboration between finance, department heads and vendors.
- A scalable AP system capable of supporting future growth.
APS helped the startup shift from a reactive, manual AP process to a controlled, compliant and insight-driven workflow that now supports smarter spending and confident scaling.
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