The Ardent Partners analyst team recently attended the 2024 Ivalua NOW: Procurement Re-Imaged conference in Miami. This event came on the heels of the company’s slightly larger EMEA conference held in Versailles, France (our own Magnus Bergfors, VP of research, wrote about his attendance at the event). Ivalua is known for selecting unique venues for its user conferences and it didn’t disappoint in 2024.
Today’s dispatch from the conference continues with coverage from the “Innovation Showcase & 2024-2025 Product Roadmap” session, featuring Ivalua’s vice president of product and customer marketing, Vishal Patel, and chief product officer, Pascal Bensoussan. Patel and Bensoussan discussed exciting Ivalua offerings and innovations currently available as well as those that lie on the horizon.
The session focused on three themes: 1) Source-to-Contract, 2) Procure-to-Pay, and 3) Platform & AI. Within each theme were three topic areas:
Source-to-Contract
- Automated Supplier Data Management
- Sourcing Efficiency & Direct Sourcing
- AI-Powered Enterprise Contract Management
Procure-to-Pay
- External Workforce & Catalog Management
- Global Tax Compliance & AP Automation
- Payments & Working Capital Management
Platform & AI
- Intake Management & Orchestration
- Robust Platform & Easier Integration
- Actionable & Pervasive Generative AI
Our dispatch today focuses on the Procure-to-Pay theme and its three related topic areas. What follows is Patel and Bensoussan’s overview and discussion of the offerings and trends within Ivalua’s procure-to-pay strategic roadmap.
External Workforce Management & Catalog Management
Workforce dynamics have shifted significantly over the last several years. Patel and Bensoussan spoke on critical aspects of external workforce management that customers rely on for their unique needs. In late 2023, Ivalua made the decision to go full on with a complete end-to-end solution that caters to hiring managers, staffing agencies, talent acquisition teams, and talent marketplaces — beginning with sourcing candidates to onboarding new hires.
Patel cited an Ardent Partners statistic that says up to 49% of the average company’s total workforce is comprised of external talent. This significant proportion highlights the importance of an effective external workforce management solution.
According to Ivalua, its external workforce management platform:
- Provides customers with the ability to choose the right talent, at the right cost, at the right time.
- Enables the acceleration of the external worker onboarding process while meeting regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Delivers on key milestones by executing within budget, planning, and quality expectations and standards.
As the reliance on external talent continues to grow, Ivalua’s platform aims to provide the tools and capabilities needed to manage this critical segment efficiently.
Global Tax Compliance & AP Automation
In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficient financial operations are crucial for success. Patel and Bensoussan said Ivalua’s platform has seen significant investment over the past two to three years and is now recognized as a market leader in tax compliance and Accounts Payable (AP) automation.
They provided a deep dive into the innovative features and enhancements that make Ivalua’s platform indispensable for modern enterprises.
Comprehensive tax compliance solutions. A standout achievement is the development of tax compliance packages for 40 different countries (available as add-ons in the Ivalua store). These packages provide automated tax compliance alerts for invoices from countries such as Italy, Mexico, and Denmark. However, the goal is to expand this coverage to 60, 70, or even 80 countries, continuously enhancing the offering based on customer feedback.
A significant advancement in tax compliance is continuous transaction control. In countries like Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Poland, and France, governments mandate that invoices between buyers and suppliers go through government gateways to ensure taxes are declared and paid. To address this, Patel and Bensoussan said the company developed a solution for the dematerialization of invoices, where the solution serves as a routing mechanism, ensuring invoices are created, circulated, validated by the government, and then shared with invoicing and automation solutions like Ivalua’s.
Advanced AP automation. AP automation has also seen extensive improvements. One key feature addresses the common scenario where no purchase order (PO) exists. Ivalua’s solution allows suppliers to create invoices directly from contracts, pulling line items and prices from negotiated contracts seamlessly. This feature ensures a smooth and efficient invoicing process.
Patel and Bensoussan noted the focus on automating invoice allocation using various templates. By collaborating with banks and leveraging the expertise of Ivalua’s professional service organization, it incorporated numerous configurations into a standard application. This aims to achieve straight-through processing of invoices with minimal human intervention. While the ultimate goal is to have 90% of invoices processed automatically, Patel and Bensoussan said a realistic target of 70% still represents a significant efficiency gain.
Enhancing mobile and digital capabilities. To further streamline processes, Ivalua invested in invoice data capture (IDC) technology. This AI-driven solution enables the capture of scanned invoices and travel expense receipts via mobile devices. Additionally, Patel and Bensoussan said Ivalua is introducing digital wallets and virtual solutions, allowing approved virtual cards to be integrated for specific expenses or trips.
Advancing Financial Efficiency: Ivalua’s Evolving Payments Solution
In the ever-evolving landscape of financial technology, Ivalua’s payments solution has been quietly transforming, steadily gaining traction and adoption among its customers. Patel and Bensoussan announced a groundbreaking partnership with Visa on virtual cards. The collaboration means that any bank on the Visa commercial network can now seamlessly integrate with Ivalua’s virtual card capabilities.
Building on a strong foundation. Since its launch in late 2022, Patel and Bensoussan said Ivalua has been diligently enhancing its payments platform, integrating a variety of payment methods and engines. Currently, the platform supports a wide range of standard payment methods, including:
- ACH (Automated Clearing House)
- Wire transfers
- International transfers
- Traditional checks
- Electronic checks
- P-cards and V-cards (procurement cards and virtual cards)
One of Ivalua’s primary goals is to create efficiency in the payment process. To achieve this, it is focusing on several key areas:
Managing payment schedules: Finance teams often pay suppliers on predefined schedules. By automating these payment batches, Ivalua can streamline the entire process, ensuring timely and accurate payments.
Batch approval processes: Batch approvals enhance system reliability, ensuring that payments are reviewed and approved systematically, reducing the risk of errors and fraud.
Bank integration for enhanced cash management: Integration with banks allows a comprehensive view of account balances. This feature offers several advantages, such as accurate cash balances, early discounts, and trade finance options.
Looking ahead, Patel and Bensoussan said Ivalua is committed to further enhancing its payments solution, which means further bridging procurement and finance. By providing a seamless, integrated platform, Ivalua makes it easier for these departments to work together, ensuring smoother operations and better financial outcomes.
Our next (and final) dispatch continues coverage of the Innovation Showcase & 2024-2025 Product Roadmap, with a focus on the Platform and AI theme and its three topic areas: Intake Management & Orchestration; Robust Platform & Easier Integration; and Actionable & Pervasive Generative AI.
