How to find the best automated reconciliation software

Automated reconciliation isn't just a nice to have — it can quickly become the dividing line between finance teams that drive business growth and those merely keeping up with paperwork. But with so many competing providers and offerings on the market, where and how do you start to look for the best-fit reconciliation solution for you?

Reconciliation in the age of automation

Accurately reconciling your accounts is an essential part of financial reporting and management.

You know that matching internal records with bank statements is necessary to maintain regulatory compliance, spot discrepancies, and ensure financial integrity. You also know it's a time-consuming, manual, and error-prone process.

That's where automation comes in. Automation removes the administrative burden of manual reconciliation, meaning reconciling bank transactions, invoices, and expense data is effortless, and data flow is seamless. This becomes more important the bigger your organisation grows, the more entities you manage, and the more staff expenses you manage.

As everything scales, you need reliable, real-time reconciliations. At Payhawk, our native ERP and accounting integrations and templates allow you to remove bottlenecks, giving your finance teams back their valuable time without compromise.

Just ask the art fabrication company MDM Props, which now saves four whole days by using automated reconciliation via Payhawk. Uchenna, Finance Manager at MDM Props, says:

With the old bank system, we didn't know what we were paying, which was bad for cash flow… We had to download a PDF statement, then physically get the receipts and attach them to the statement, and it would take days or even weeks to reconcile. Now with Payhawk, we get to see our spend in real-time... we have a true reflection of where the business is at.

What to look for in automated reconciliation software

When choosing automated reconciliation software, the right features can make or break your finance workflow. To help you cut through the noise, here’s a rundown of the capabilities that really matter.

Ease of use for finance and non-finance users

When software is intuitive, people use it — and that’s half the battle.

Look for a user-friendly interface, smart menus, and built-in controls to help employees stay compliant. That includes auto-receipt chasing, OCR that extracts the data automatically, and auto-matched expenses and transactions.

The result? A tool employees love, fewer rekeying errors, stronger policy compliance, and a faster, smoother reconciliation process.

Visibility across spend categories and entities

What’s the point of real-time reconciliation if you can only do it for half your business? With complete visibility and control across every entity, you can ensure transactions are automatically tagged to the right spend categories — no matter the department, location, or team.

From e-commerce logistics to marketing campaigns, every expense flows through the same system, with cardholders selecting pre-set categories in the app. That means finance gets cleaner data, faster reconciliations, and zero surprises at month-end — even across multiple entities.

Audit trails and documentation

Documentation and audit trails give teams transparency and accountability throughout the entire transaction lifecycle — from initiation to approval, with timestamps.

The comprehensive log records dates, transaction types, amounts, modifications, and user actions. These logs help prevent fraud, ensure compliance with accounting and tax regulations, and help auditors quickly track transactions and review supporting documentation.

Real-time reconciliation

Imagine your CFO needs accurate cash flow figures for tomorrow's emergency board meeting. With traditional manual reconciliation, you'd be working overtime tonight.

With a solution like Payhawk, however, reconciliation happens instantly.

The moment someone swipes a company card or submits an expense, the transaction automatically matches with your accounting records. No more "approximate" financial positions or last-minute scrambles, just accurate, up-to-the-minute data that empowers confident decision-making any day of the month.

Integrations with accounting and ERP tools

To speed up your month-end processes, your payment information must be automatically transferred to your accounting or ERP system. You also need a system that supports seamless ERP integration to effortlessly import VAT codes, department information, projects, and charts of accounts and export expenses, transactions, and more to ensure you always have data synced.

So, choose software that connects natively with tools like Microsoft Dynamics 365 and NetSuite, including PO sync. For more complex needs, look for robust APIs that support custom integrations.

Capabilities to support use cases for different industries

Let's say you're in transport and logistics; you'll face some very different expense management challenges from those in the tech industry, for example.

You have a fleet, many drivers, and travelling salespeople, so you need a solution that manages corporate cards at scale and allows you to set individual or team spending limits.

Finding a solution that has a proven track record of adding value to your specific industry is a must.

How Payhawk simplifies reconciliation with real-time automation

Tired of chasing receipts and untangling mismatched data at month-end? At Payhawk, we make sure that reconciliation isn’t a painful afterthought — it’s built into the way your team spends, submits, and approves expenses.

From direct ERP integrations to real-time syncing and category automation, here’s how we take the manual work out of reconciliation and give you complete control over your financial data across every entity.

• Two-way sync with transactions and receipts through direct and real-time integrations with ERPs like Exact Online, Microsoft Dynamics Finance, and NetSuite. It imports info from your ERP to Payhawk and reports it back to your ERP, too.
• Our system automatically matches payments with invoices and general ledger coding using both two and three-way matching (with and without a goods received note), ensuring all details align before processing payment.
• Instant push of approved expenses into accounting tools with documents attached. This removes unnecessary manual data entry tasks, reduces errors and ensures all approved expenses are instantly documented and accounted for.
• Ability to adjust cost centres with immediate reflection, giving finance teams and budget owners access to spending data by project, department or custom categories.
• A centralised dashboard to help you track reconciliations across entities and currencies. In Payhawk, you can instantly view upcoming spend by entity to give you unparalleled insight into your entire organisation’s finances. Then, by keeping all spend visible on the same platform, you can enforce standardised processes more easily and boost efficiency across entities.

Customer outcomes: Real results from real businesses

Wondering whether AI and automation truly deliver on their promises?

Our real-world results speak volumes. Here's how different companies transformed their reconciliation processes with our solution:

Reclaiming 10+ hours weekly for strategic finance

Magdalena Velikova, Finance Manager at AIOPSGROUP, says the finance team save a significant amount of time:

“Since switching to Payhawk, we save approximately two hours daily and up to two days in terms of resolution time. This allows me to focus on more important tasks.”

After payment is approved, it’s right there in Exact Online

A flawless accounting integration helps Esma Güzel, Finance and Operations Manager at Cognito Media, feel like she’s working within just one system:

“The Payhawk integration with Exact works flawlessly. It’s fast, and it feels like I am working in one system. So, the moment you approve a payment, it is immediately in Exact Online. It works very easily, efficiently, and it saves a lot of time.”

Over 25,000 monthly expense notes processed error-free

Before Payhawk, Discordia managed all expense notes manually, but now, after embracing digital reconciliation software, employee productivity is significantly faster, with over 2,000 drivers feeling empowered, as Tsvetomir Uzunov, CFO of Discordia, explains:

We've boosted employee productivity by over four times and expect even greater impact as our fleet grows. Payhawk's automation has significantly cut processing time and reduced the errors that came with manual expense handling.

Effortless spend tracking across the UK, the US, and Europe

If you’re an organisation with many entities looking for a scalable solution, like the GDS Group, Payhawk helps deliver essential global spend tracking:

“At GDS Group, we work with the UK, the US, and Europe, so we need a product compatible with multiple regions. Payhawk was one of the few solutions that operate in these (and more) regions, so that was a key win for us.”

Other automated reconciliation software

Wondering what else is out there? Here's a breakdown of other solutions you can explore.

Spend and expense management platforms with reconciliation features

If you're looking for a spend and expense management solution but you'd like a side helping of reconciliation features, these platforms might be worth considering:

• Expensify. Scan receipts and automate your expense reports.
• Brex. Automatically sync to your ERP and take advantage of their card-first platform.
• Ramp. An expense management platform with reconciliation features like AI expense categorisation suggestions and accounting and bookkeeping integrations.
• Pleo. Collect and match receipts, invoices and petty cash with accounting records.
• Spendesk. Offers customers invoice and expense reconciliation features.

Bank feed and ERP-focused reconciliation tools

If you’re looking for a tool that focuses more on the reconciliation side, here are five to consider:

BlackLine. This is enterprise-grade continuous accounting and automated reconciliation.
Trintech. High-volume financial close and reconciliation workflows.
FloQast. Manage all reconciliations in one place, grouped reconciliations help support enterprise needs.
QuickBooks Online. Payhawk has a native integration with QuickBooks Online, so you can enjoy the best of both worlds. Standing alone, QBO offers basic reconciliation workflows for small and medium businesses.
NetSuite. Native ERP bank feeds require more manual checks, but Payhawk has a native integration, so you can enjoy both NetSuite and Payhawk features simultaneously.

The future of reconciliations: Continuous close with Payhawk

The era of month-end is an outdated concept because with software like ours, you enjoy real-time reconciliation or continuous close.

At Payhawk, we also leverage automation powered by AI and machine learning to generate unparalleled financial visibility and speed up reporting cycles. You spend less time on admin, more time on strategising, and you unlock the possibility of more informed decisions, as George Kutnerian, CEO and co-founder at Wellpointe Inc., explains:

Payhawk's continuous close capability means that our financial data is always up-to-date, letting us make more informed decisions!

Remove the reconciliation headache for good

The right reconciliation software makes your life easier, empowers you to make financial decisions with confidence, reduces risk, improves visibility, and delivers an intuitive and smooth user experience.

Explore Payhawk's real-time reconciliation features or book a personalised product demo and see how much time your team can save in reconciliation.