Report:

Magic Quadrant for Invoice-to-Cash Applications

Top Vendor Products for Invoice-to-Cash Applications in 2024

• Esker
• HighRadius
• Sidetrade

Invoice-to-Cash Applications Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

• Esker - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • AI capabilities: AI and ML are embedded in Esker's cash application, deduction and dispute, credit and collection solutions. Capabilities include remittance and claims data extraction, email triage, smart matching suggestions, intelligent routing, and payment and blocked order predictions. Clients can rely on its dedicated data science center of excellence for continued optimization of its AI and ML models to improve automation and insights in I2C.
  • Customer support: Esker has an experienced, stable and growing workforce with strong employee satisfaction that spans various geographies, and it is well-aligned to support regional customer needs in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific. Clients receive a three-month customer onboarding to learn and optimize the software, three-level options of post-go-live support, robust on-demand training and user community connections.
  • Invoicing compliance: Esker guarantees compliant invoice delivery in over 60 countries for B2G and B2B, as well as invoice clearance support for Latin American countries. Clients operating in countries with complex local requirements may benefit from these capabilities.

  Cons:

  • Innovation focus: Esker has low R&D spend as a percentage of revenue compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. While it will continue to focus R&D on becoming accredited as a Partner Digitalization Platform in France and product enhancements that use GenAI and its data lake, buyers should know product innovation may have slowed, and they should evaluate the vendor's short- to medium-term product roadmap.
  • Automatic software updates: Esker only offers automatic software updates to clients in its collections solution. Although it plans to implement automatic updates for all solutions, clients currently need to coordinate updates with the vendor to avoid any disruptions to their processing.
  • Customer portal: Compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, Esker's customer portal provides limited support for clients to increase their customers' portal adoption and ability to provide differentiated customer views by customer hierarchy, projects or purchase orders without consultant configuration.


• HighRadius - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • AI capabilities: HighRadius has a high number of AI and ML use cases compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Its analytics engine enables prediction of blocked orders and invoice payment dates and has trade promotion automatching capabilities based on customer payment behaviors. It leverages GenAI for sentiment analysis of calls, smart email composition and document scanning.
  • Product strategy: HighRadius has a robust framework and data-driven approach to enhancing its products, enabling it to offer a high degree of out-of-the-box automation and ease of use for product differentiation. Its strategy and investments focus on using data for faster configuration and shorter implementation timelines.
  • Viability and growth: HighRadius has the highest revenue growth rate compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. It achieved profitability in 2023, increasing revenue via its white label, reseller, bank and BPO partnerships. HighRadius has a strong customer retention approach grounded in product improvement and customer connections to address issues, and growth strategies targeted to a mix of geographies, sectors, products and customer segments.

  Cons:

  • Innovation focus: Compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, HighRadius has one of the highest investments in R&D, highest number of U.S. patents issued and pending, and lowest revenue per employee ratio. As HighRadius continues to invest in its I2C product and grows quickly, buyers should assess their need for additional innovative product enhancements against the vendor's short- to medium-term product roadmap.
  • Customer support: HighRadius has a high employee turnover rate compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, and reduced staff in sales, marketing, implementation and customer support. While customer service staff support customers globally 24/7, users of Gartner's client inquiry services indicate a lack of timely response to tickets raised. Clients can help themselves via self-service support capabilities.
  • Implementation: While HighRadius invested in reducing implementation timelines with a data-driven approach to aid product configurations for each client, users of Gartner's client inquiry service indicate some implementation delays. Clients should request implementation preparation support, templates and readiness checks for I2C data and processes, and a governance framework for ensuring consistency in the implementation team.


• Sidetrade - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • AI capabilities: Sidetrade aggregates transactions and payment behaviors between clients and buyers in its data lake. This function provides clients with advanced analytics and automation capabilities for predicting payments for each customer, recommending the best collection action, and providing dispute and risk strategy recommendations.
  • Product strategy: Sidetrade has a client-centric approach to prioritizing product features and functionality that enables product differentiation and ensures support for client I2C needs. It has a robust methodology for sourcing innovation. It launched Sidetrade Connect for greater B2B connectivity, and via the 2023 acquisition of CreditPoint Software, enhanced credit risk monitoring and customer onboarding.
  • Customer support: Sidetrade has a dedicated and experienced customer success team that uses data lake data to inform, support and enhance the customer experience. It has ample customer support via community, live and self-service channels, and a more frequent release cycle compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. This feature enables faster access to system updates, bug fixes and new product enhancements.

  Cons:

  • Pricing structure: Sidetrade's subscription-based pricing model is based on tiers of annual invoice value versus transaction volume, which can be cost-prohibitive to buyers with high value, but low transaction volume. Buyers should assess the cost of such pricing and consider how they compare to the industry benchmarks Sidetrade brings into sales conversations via its direct sales teams and partners.
  • Payments: Sidetrade provides more limited payment integration, monitoring and management capability compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. While it provides clients' customers a payment check-out experience, it requires its clients to bring their own payment service provider or leverage Sidetrade's partnership with Stripe.
  • Online visibility: Sidetrade does not achieve the same levels of participation on its website and social channels compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, which may impact the exposure of its I2C product to potential customers. This issue is despite its increased investment in marketing and growth in certain social media channels. Buyers may not find its product available as an option.


• Billtrust - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Customer invoicing: Billtrust's invoicing solution enables invoice consolidation and includes a diverse number of delivery channels, including procure-to-pay (P2P) portals and B2B/B2G clearance channels. Clients can use its invoice management portal to manage and confirm delivery and rely on its dedicated e-invoicing compliance team to stay on top of regulatory changes. It offers e-invoicing compliance in 20 countries.
  • Payments: With its certified payment facilitator status in the U.S. and Business Payments Network solution, Billtrust offers a full set of tools to optimize payment acceptance costs, such as managing specific buyer-segment payment options, customized and/or optimized interchange rates and buyer surcharging. Clients benefit from the single customer payment environment across multiple use cases, including virtual card capture and pay-by-phone.
  • Geographic and product expansion: Billtrust is prioritizing expansion in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and France, using local resources for sales, marketing and product development. Buyers in these countries may find Billtrust a viable option, particularly since its product supports more than 20 currencies and languages, and can add more languages and currencies if required.

  Cons:

  • Credit monitoring: Billtrust retired its credit solution in 2023 and replaced it with a credit application product, which has a centralized workspace for all application information and life cycle management. While it integrates data from D&B, CreditSafe, Experian and others if needed, buyers seeking an automated process to determine credit risk and credit limits may find this solution limited compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • AI capabilities: Billtrust's solutions have limited AI capabilities compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, aside from customer-specific machine learning (ML) models in cash applications and the use of customer payment behavior to predict cash flow and optimize collections strategies. Buyers interested in predictions of payments to prioritize collector work queues and dispute validity should assess this vendor's short- to medium-term roadmap.
  • Cash flow position: Billtrust is profitable, but not cash-flow-positive as it reinvests heavily in R&D and its product, sales and customer support technology under its ownership by EQT. While it is taking actions to become cash-flow-positive in 2024, buyers should request additional details from the vendor for a more up-to-date view of its financial position.


• BlackLine - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Implementation: BlackLine has a comprehensive implementation methodology with clearly defined roles, activities, timelines, certified implementation partners and strong practices for holding partners accountable. By adhering to BlackLine's structured implementation approach, clients have a clear path and support for implementation success.
  • Customer support: BlackLine's customer success program is structured to provide every client with a well-supported experience from the point of sale to implementation and continuously post-go-live. Clients have clear points of contact in both a customer success manager and account manager who actively manage their success with the product and can expect proactive and robust support through community, live and self-service channels.
  • Product capability additions: BlackLine acquired former partner, Data Interconnect, in 2023, which allowed it to add electronic invoice presentment and payment functionality to its I2C platform. Clients can benefit from vendor-supported e-invoicing compliance capabilities and a customer portal for customers to access and pay invoices.

  Cons:

  • AI capabilities: BlackLine's solutions have more limited AI capabilities compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. However, its credit risk solution does include customer payment predictions to calculate a customer risk score that automatically updates collections strategies. Buyers interested in advanced AI use cases, such as predicting dispute validity, should assess this vendor's short- to medium-term roadmap.
  • Product strategy: BlackLine's product strategy focuses on building some needed features and functionality (e.g., hierarchical dunning, real-time API connectivity for credit, out-of-box rules and line item matching in cash applications) that already exist in the market, in addition to AI and generative AI functionality. Clients may find a different mix of advanced product features from BlackLine than are already available in the market.
  • User experience: BlackLine's product lacks a consistent user interface across modules compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, particularly in credit, collections and cash applications. Clients may have to wait for a uniform user experience (UX) as BlackLine makes planned investments in updating its UI/UX.


• FIS - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • AI capabilities: FIS offers data-driven credit and collections capabilities to identify credit and collections risk, allowing prioritization of customer accounts and collections strategies. Its flexible AI approach gives users the option for transactions to be reviewed for action or automated. Clients can rely on its dedicated data science center of excellence to monitor and optimize AI and ML models and add AI use cases, such as deductions and disputes validation.
  • Fintech experience: FIS is a large organization that has resources and scale in its operations and partner network to leverage with its I2C product. Buyers may value its strong track record in ensuring data security and its ability to offer multiple financial products through a single finance ecosystem.
  • Sales strategy: FIS's sales strategy includes direct and indirect sales channels via partners and BPO deals. It is investing heavily in expanding its I2C sales force presence in North America and Europe, targeting small, midsize and large organizations. Buyers in those target markets may also benefit from FIS's focus on offering competitive implementation costs and making the sales cycle faster.

  Cons:

  • Innovation focus: Compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, FIS's innovation approach is limited and less proactive in building out new and differentiating product capabilities, such as predictions for blocked orders and disputes and GenAI functionality.
  • Pricing structure: FIS offers user-based pricing, while other vendors in this Magic Quadrant primarily offer pricing based on transaction volume and modules. While the FIS pricing model is simple and clear, buyers should assess how pricing aligns with the modules and transaction volume to be processed, their preferences for an established or unlimited number of users, and how they impact collaboration.
  • User experience: FIS's user interface lacks visuals and simplicity in its workspaces when compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. This issue is particularly evident in its customer portal and cash application solution, which requires users to click into lists to process exceptions and open multiple windows to see remittances and data extracted.


• Emagia - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • AI capabilities: Emagia incorporates predictive analytics and digitally assisted automation in more product modules than other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. These capabilities include AI/ML for activities such as cash forecasting, collections and customer invoicing, where each invoice has an embedded digital assistant that can send invoice information, accept promises to pay, log disputes and make payments.
  • Innovation focus: Emagia's business process outsourcing (BPO) partnerships enable it to keep customer acquisition costs low and dedicate more funds to innovation and new product development, resulting in new product capabilities, such as blockchain-enabled technologies. Emagia has the highest R&D spend as a percentage of revenue compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
  • Geographic and product expansion: Emagia is expanding its global presence by targeting the U.S., EMEA, Latin America and Asia/Pacific with region-specific strategies, customer support and local partners and pricing. Buyers in these regions may find Emagia a viable option, particularly since its product supports more than 90 countries, 50 currencies and 25 languages, with configurability options to meet additional local needs.

  Cons:

  • Payments: Emagia provides payments orchestration to its B2B clients supporting a variety of payment methods, integration to multiple payment gateways and credit card surcharging. However, its solution does not support check scanning. Buyers looking for this specific capability may prefer other vendors' products.
  • Customer support: While Emagia is committed to 24/7 email- and web-based customer support for its direct customers, it offers fewer channels, less direct contact and less proactive customer success management compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Buyers should ensure the vendor's ongoing customer support strategies align with their needs.
  • Implementation: Emagia's implementation timeline varies but is generally longer compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Its phased methodology is thorough and Emagia provides dedicated technical support to assist with integrations and data migration if necessary. Buyers should consider their timeline requirements, and request and use Emagia's preparation support, templates and readiness checks for I2C data and processes.


• Quadient - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Operations: Quadient can leverage its broader operations, partner network and wide pool of resources, including shared sales, marketing and product development across multiple products and customers. Buyers may value its commitment and ability to offer a unified back office product, the Quadient Hub, that promises continued investment in its I2C product.
  • Product capability additions: To enhance its product, Quadient displayed agility in its partnerships and merger and acquisition deals in 2023. Its Microsoft Azure partnership introduced GenAI capabilities to generate emails and email replies, while its acquisition of Daylight Automation provided intelligent form building capability, expected to further enhance its credit application functionality.
  • Innovation focus: Quadient invests in R&D as a percentage of revenue at above-average levels compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Its innovation strategy focuses on customer behavioral analytics and introducing AI and GenAI technologies in the form of chatbots and data summarization features to automate and improve the user experience.

  Cons:

  • Cash applications: Quadient's solution relies on configurable rule-based workflows with OCR and ML for automatching of payments to invoices. Its support of unmatched items related to short payments, aside from early payments discounts taken, is limited compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Buyers interested in more automated processing of short payments and deductions and disputes may prefer other vendors' products.
  • Product strategy: Quadient's product strategy focuses on building some needed features and functionality (e.g., real-time API connectivity for credit risk monitoring, out-of-box rules, bank and P2P portal integrations) that already exist in the market, in addition to AI and generative AI functionality. Clients may find a different mix of advanced product features from Quadient than are already available in the market.
  • Implementation: Quadient's implementation approach focuses on custom-designed implementation and integration support and lacks standard templates, accelerators and defined methodology compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Buyers with limited IT resources may value Quadient's custom approach, while other buyers may prefer vendors with established implementation playbooks and tools.


• Versapay - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Customer portal and payments capabilities: With extensive payment acceptance, monitoring and management functionality, and full payment facilitator and ISO-related payment services, Versapay's customer portal has high adoption rates compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Clients may benefit from Versapay's interactive platform, full settlement, bank reconciliation and interchange optimization services.
  • Target customers: Versapay targets small to midsize businesses in the I2C market with a focused value proposition to deliver a consumerlike experience in accessing and paying invoices. It also offers fast implementation, off-the-shelf integrations into ERPs, and customer and payments support. Buyers in the small to midsize segment may value its offering.
  • Customer support: Clients benefit from industry-specific customer success managers via Versapay's focus on customer retention and ability to invest in its customer base. This focus is enabled by the high partnership revenue as a percentage of revenue with ERPs, financial institutions and resellers that also allows Versapay to drive deliberate growth and product attachment.

  Cons:

  • Credit monitoring: Compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, Versapay's credit management solution is limited, as it is restricted to user-defined, rule-based workflows and tagging to request information and send notifications as the customer approaches their credit limit. Buyers in need of an out-of-the-box credit management solution may find this product lacking.
  • Geographic presence: Versapay's customer base and operations are primarily in the U.S. and Canada. Buyers seeking a vendor with global operations, a worldwide partner network, and multicurrency and multilanguage product capabilities may find its lack of geographic support limiting.
  • AI capabilities: Verapay's solutions rely on configurable rule-based workflows to support automation, collaboration and document sharing, with a lack of embedded AI and ML capability in its product, except for cash applications. Buyers interested in the use of payment predictions to prioritize collector work queues or advanced analytics and reporting should assess this vendor's short- to medium-term roadmap for such capabilities.

Reference

• Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Invoice-to-Cash Applications, 06-May-2024, ID G00794794

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