55% of SaaS Firms Now Use Spend Management Technology

To better track and manage non-payroll spend, companies need to upgrade their accounts payable functions.

That’s no easy task. In the report “Improving Financial Performance: The Speed Of Spend Management System Adoption,” a PYMNTS and Airbase collaboration, we found that adding new capabilities to an existing AP system can help improve performance, but about 43% of businesses say it can take two weeks or more to actually integrate new software into their systems.

The greenfield opportunity is significant. While the benefits of tech deployments in pursuit of AP efficiencies for on-payroll spend management software can be readily apparent, only about 55% of business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms use those systems.

The interest in using such systems is well-established, as 84% of the companies we surveyed would be at least somewhat interested in using them. Of that tally, 90% of these firms are at least somewhat willing to pay for it.

Larger firms and those providing content management systems are the most likely to use a non-payroll spend management system and are highly interested in utilizing one. As to the expectations of how long it all takes: Most SaaS firm executives surveyed report that their AP teams typically can learn and start using a new software solution within one month.

The data shows that 31% of companies see the integrations as taking up to one month, while 11% say it takes longer than that. The larger the firm, the longer the integration expected, as roughly 45% of companies with 500 to 1,500 staffers say it takes at least a month to integrate new software into an existing AP system.