Accounts payable automation

Accounts payable automation, from the first request to the supplier paid.

Unibuild automates accounts payable, from the purchase request to the remittance advice: approvals, orders, deliveries, supplier invoices read and matched, and payment runs. Every step sits on the job it belongs to, with unlimited users and no monthly quota on orders or invoices.

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A trade counter worker in a hard hat and apron holding a clipboard and a parcel beside a laptop till showing a total

One invoice

One supplier invoice, from request to remittance.

An illustrative example at a mechanical contractor: the firm, supplier, values and people are examples. The steps are the ones Unibuild runs.

One supplier invoice through Unibuild (illustrative)
Stage	Who	Unibuild
Request	Site manager, on the phone	Budget shown before it is sent
Approve	Contracts manager, from the email	Approved by name and time
Order	Nobody	Emailed to the supplier at the agreed price
Receive	Site manager, on the phone	Part delivery recorded
Invoice	Nobody	Read, matched, short delivery flagged
Pay	Finance director	Paid in Friday’s approved run
Remit	Nobody	Remittance advice emailed

Requested: The site manager picked copper fittings from the supplier’s approved price list and saw the job’s materials budget before sending the request.
Approved: The request was above the first value band, so it went to the contracts manager, who approved it from the email without signing in.
Received: Two lines arrived short. The site manager recorded the delivery on the phone at the gate.
Matched: The invoice reached the firm’s invoice address, was read line by line and matched to the order and the delivery. The two short lines were held; the rest went for approval.
Paid: The approved amount joined Friday’s payment run, the finance director approved the run, and the supplier received a remittance advice listing what was paid.
Posted: The invoice, its coding and its approvals went to the accounts package, and the cost sat on the job from the moment the order was approved.

The rule One record, request to remittance Nothing retyped, nothing paid unchecked

Problems we solve

Nine accounts payable problems. All nine solved.

From the invoice paid unchecked to the supplier ringing to ask whether they have been paid.

The invoice was paid. Nobody checked what arrived.

Solved Every invoice is matched to its order and its delivery before it is approved.

The same invoice, paid twice.

Solved A duplicate is stopped when it arrives, not found at the year end.

An email asked us to update a supplier’s bank details.

Solved Bank details change only on the supplier portal, and every change is approved before use.

Every invoice keyed in by hand.

Solved Invoices are read automatically, down to the line items.

The invoice has sat in a manager’s inbox for a week.

Solved Approvals go to the right person, with reminders and escalation.

The budget was overspent in week two. We found out at month end.

Solved The budget is checked when the order is raised, not when the invoice lands.

Month end, and three regular invoices have not arrived.

Solved Goods received but not invoiced show as accruals, by supplier.

The payment run is built in a spreadsheet every Friday.

Solved Approved invoices drop into a payment run that a named person approves.

Suppliers ring to ask whether they have been paid.

Solved A remittance advice is emailed to every supplier in the run.

9/9Solved in one module

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What it does

Accounts payable software that covers every step.

Purchase requests
and orders

Requests are raised in the office or on the phone, from approved suppliers at agreed prices, and become numbered orders once approved.

Approved catalogues and price lists
Budget shown at the request
Orders emailed to the supplier
Recurring and one-off orders

Purchase ordersLive

Approval
workflows

Orders, invoices, expenses and payment runs follow approval routes built around your rules, simple or detailed.

By value, job, department or supplier
Any one of a group, or all of them
Approve from email, phone or portal
Reminders, escalation, delegates

Approval workflowsLive

Goods received
notes

Deliveries are recorded against the order on the phone at the gate, with quantity and condition, so short and damaged deliveries are on the record.

Recorded on site
Part deliveries
Invoice held until received
Received, not invoiced, listed

The middle of the three-way matchLive

AI invoice
processing

Supplier invoices arrive at your firm’s own email address and are read automatically, from the supplier and totals down to every line.

Your own invoice address
Read to the line items
Coded and matched on arrival
Clean invoices straight through

Invoice processingLive

Three-way
matching

Each invoice is matched to its purchase order and its goods received note, line by line, before anybody approves it.

Price against the order
Quantity against the delivery
Differences flagged by name
Two-way where there is no delivery

Paid for what arrivedLive

Fraud and
duplicate checks

Every invoice is checked against the supplier record and the invoices already held, before it can be approved or paid.

Duplicate invoices stopped
Bank detail changes flagged
Approved invoices locked
Every action on record

Money stays where it belongsLive

Supplier
payment runs

Approved invoices are grouped into payment runs by due date, approved by a named person, and paid to suppliers at home and abroad.

Grouped by due date
Run approved by name
Supplier currencies
Early payment discounts seen

Friday, without the spreadsheetLive

Remittance
advice

When a run is paid, each supplier receives a remittance advice by email listing every invoice and credit note the payment covers.

Emailed automatically
Every invoice listed
Edited where you want to
Kept on the supplier record

Fewer calls asking about paymentLive

Supplier
portal

Suppliers onboard themselves, keep their own details up to date, upload price lists and invoices, and see where each invoice stands.

Self-service onboarding
Bank details validated
Price lists and catalogues
Invoice status and remittances

Supplier portalLive

Budgets and
committed spend

Budgets by job, department, cost centre or nominal code, checked when an order is raised, with committed spend live on every job.

Project and department budgets
Flexible budget periods
Ring-fenced project spend
Overspend flagged to approvers

Cost controlLive

Expenses
and mileage

Staff photograph receipts in the app and the AI reads them. Claims are checked against your expense policy and approved by your rules.

Site purchases asked for first
Receipts read automatically
Mileage and CO2
Policy checks and limits

Expense managementLive

Ask
Unibuild

Ask a question in plain English and the AI answers from your live records, showing each person only what they are allowed to see.

What is waiting, and with whom
Invoices not yet received
Budget left before buying
Reminders sent for you

Answers without running a reportLive

The process

How purchase-to-pay works, stage by stage.

Eight stages from the request to the remittance. Free to use in your own finance procedures.

Flow diagram of purchase-to-pay in eight stages: ask to buy, approve the spend, send the order, record the delivery, read the invoice, match it three ways, approve the payment run and tell the supplier with a remittance advice — How purchase-to-pay works: eight stages of accounts payable from the request to the remittance advice.Free to use, copy, change and share, with no conditions. Download the PNG

Metered against unlimited

Unibuild compared with standalone accounts payable software.

Standalone accounts payable software is often sold on a metered plan: users, orders and invoices a month, and gigabytes of storage, with a bigger plan when you outgrow it.

Accounts payable automation: a metered standalone plan compared with Unibuild
The question	A metered accounts payable plan	Unibuild
Who can raise and approve	A set number of users, extra users charged	Unlimited users, everyone included
Purchase orders a month	A monthly quota, top-ups when exceeded	No quota
Supplier invoices a month	A monthly quota of invoices read	No quota
Document storage	A few gigabytes, more bought in blocks	Unlimited, synced to your own cloud drive
Companies, divisions, suppliers	Capped by plan	As many as you run
Approval routes	Configured from the vendor’s options	Built around your process, inside the fee
The job behind the invoice	Finance only	Same record as timesheets, job costs and subcontractors
The app your site team uses	The vendor’s app	Your own app, under your company’s name
The price as you grow	Moves with users and volume	One figure, fixed for three years

Control and audit

Every request, approval and payment
on one audit trail.

These are the controls finance directors and auditors ask about, and they are on from the first day.

Audit trail: Every request, approval, rejection, query, edit and payment is recorded with a name and a time, and records are kept for seven years.
Separation: Nobody approves an order they raised, and an approved invoice is locked against editing before it is paid.
Permissions: Who sees purchase prices, budgets and supplier bank details is set per person, with the role as a starting point. Access and permissions.
Sign-in: Single sign-on with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and two-factor authentication enforced for everyone or for named users. Accounts lock after repeated failed attempts, and strong passwords are enforced.
Hosting: Your data is held in London, does not leave the UK, and is encrypted when stored and when sent. Unibuild holds Cyber Essentials Plus.
Your data: Export everything as CSV, XML, JSON or PDF at any time, including every invoice document.

A monitor on a site office desk showing financial charts and reports

Built around your firm

Your approval rules, your suppliers,
your accounts package.

Accounts payable is set up the way your firm already buys and pays. Any change you ask for is built for you, inside the monthly fee. That is how bespoke software works here.

Your structure: Several companies, business units and divisions on one system, each with its own base currency, with orders and invoices in any currency. More than one company.
Your approval rules: As many steps and conditions as your controls need, from one sign-off for small spends to a board-level route for capital purchases.
Your suppliers: Onboarded through your supplier portal, with insurance and compliance documents on the supplier record.
Your site team: Requests, deliveries and approvals happen in your own branded staff app, published on the App Store and Google Play under your company’s name and icon.
Your accounts: Your accounts package stays. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, and any other system is connected on request. Integrations.
Your jobs: Every order and invoice lands on its job, beside labour from timesheets and subcontract costs, so job profitability is live.

Questions

Asked by finance directors
and accounts teams.

What is accounts payable automation?

Software that takes the manual steps out of paying suppliers. It raises and approves orders, captures and checks invoices, routes approvals, builds payment runs and tells suppliers what was paid. In Unibuild every one of those steps sits on the job the money belongs to.

What is purchase-to-pay?

Purchase-to-pay, or P2P, is the whole process from somebody asking to buy something to the supplier being paid: request, approval, purchase order, delivery, invoice, matching, approval, payment and remittance. Unibuild runs all of it on one record.

Does Unibuild read supplier invoices automatically?

Yes. Suppliers email invoices to your firm’s own invoice address and Unibuild’s AI reads each one, including the line items, then matches it to the order and the delivery. Invoice processing.

Does it do three-way matching?

Yes. Each invoice is matched line by line to its purchase order and its goods received note. A price or quantity that does not agree is flagged to a named person, and an invoice can be held until the goods are received.

How are invoices and orders approved?

Through approval routes you set: by value, job, department, supplier, cost code or company, with as many steps as you need. Approvers act from the email, the phone or the office portal, and reminders, escalation and delegates keep things moving. Approval workflows.

Can Unibuild run supplier payment runs?

Yes. A named person approves each run, and every supplier in it is emailed a remittance advice. Finance is alerted as invoices are approved and become ready to pay.

How does it stop duplicate payments and bank detail fraud?

Duplicates are held on arrival, before an approver sees them. Bank details change only through the supplier portal, with approval, and an invoice carrying different details is flagged.

Can suppliers manage their own details?

Yes. On the supplier portal suppliers onboard themselves, keep their contact and bank details up to date, upload price lists and invoices, and see the status of every invoice and remittance.

What else can Ask Unibuild do?

Beyond approvals and missing invoices, it compares suppliers and prices, searches the catalogue by category and drafts a purchase order for approval. It also reports month-end progress, adds ready invoices to the next payment run, produces reports to download and explains how to do something in Unibuild.

Does it handle month-end accruals?

Yes. Everything received against an order but not yet invoiced is listed by supplier, job and nominal code, ready to accrue. Committed spend, invoiced spend and budget sit side by side for every job and department.

Can we approve on the phone?

Yes. Approvals arrive as a push notification in your own branded staff app on iOS and Android, on a phone or a tablet, where approvers view, approve, reject or comment. They can also approve straight from the email without signing in.

Can we take early payment discounts?

Yes. Invoices that offer an early payment discount are shown apart, so they can be paid inside the discount window. Other invoices are paid on their due date, and the discounts taken are reported.

What reports does finance get?

Spend by supplier, job, department, division and category, month on month. Committed, invoiced and budget side by side, approvals waiting and how long they take, and accruals at month end. Reporting data can also be connected to Power BI.

Can we keep a full copy of our data?

Yes. Every order and invoice line exports as CSV, XML or JSON at any time, ready to load into your own database, with every invoice document. If you leave, a clean dataset is handed back within five working days.

Does it work with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage?

Yes. Your accounts package stays. QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50 sync as standard. Sage 200, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, NetSuite and any other system are connected on request. Approved supplier paperwork can also go to Dext.

Does it handle several companies and currencies?

Yes. Several companies, business units and divisions run on one system, each with its own base currency. Orders and invoices can be in any currency, and international suppliers are paid in theirs.

Is there a limit on users, orders, invoices or storage?

No. Users are unlimited, there is no monthly quota on orders or invoices, and file storage is unlimited. One monthly figure covers everything, fixed for three years. The cost of AI is bespoke: everyday AI is included, and heavier AI work is paid only as used, at the AI provider’s own cost.

What is the best accounts payable automation software for UK trade businesses?

For a trade or specialist contractor, the one that connects the invoice to the job. Unibuild runs requests, approvals, orders, deliveries, AI invoice reading, three-way matching, payment runs and remittances on the same record as timesheets and job costs. Unibuild is bespoke business software for UK trades and specialist contractors, in daily production since 2016.

How long does it take to go live?

Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases, with a sandbox first. Your programme is agreed after scoping. Configuration of your approval routes, supplier import, training and data migration are included. Implementation.

By trade