Autonomous AP
What will you do with the extra time?
AppZen Expense Audit processes your expenses so you don’t have to
Outperforming other providers
Don’t take our word for it — see for yourself how the top
expense audit solution rises above the competition.
Finance AI for auditing expenses using unstructured receipt data
AppZen Expense Audit
Expense Audit is a purpose-built, AI-first platform for finance that audits expenses using unstructured receipt data.
It provides an advanced AI solution using computer vision, natural language processing, as well as contextual and content understanding, along with 30+ AI-powered audit models and 80+ expense checks. It delivers 10x the risk detection of other approaches and can automate processes based on AI decisions.
Concur Verify
Built on Leonardo, this is a generic machine learning platform that is used for analytics (IOT, supply chain, etc.) and is not purpose-built for expense auditing or finance. As a result, Leonardo performs very narrowly-focused tasks that are hard to orchestrate when attempting to provide an advanced expense auditing solution.
This platform also uses optical character recognition from Expensit, which is tuned for entering receipt data, not for understanding purchase information from receipt line items.
Oversight
This solution does not provide any AI to extract, understand, or make decisions on unstructured data in merchant receipts or on invoices. It offers analytics based on only structured expense data.
Mature and proven AI trained on 100s of millions of transactions over 6 years
AppZen Expense Audit
Our AI has been repeatedly tested and proven, and was trained by auditor feedback across 100s of millions of expense transactions, from more than 1000 customers, over 6 years. Our customers realize rates of up to 95% or more autonomous approval of their expenses.
According to a TechValidate Survey, 80% of AppZen customers reported saving 2-10% of unauthorized expenses.
Concur Verify
This AI platform is nascent and unproven. It launched in July, 2021, and does not have the benefit of extensive auditor feedback.
Early adopters are reporting “it does not work” and turning instead to AppZen’s proven AI solution.
Oversight
Analytics are provided only on structured data in expense claim forms.
There is no AI, so there is no learning involved nor any predictions using unstructured expense receipt data.
Rein in foreign expenses with foreign language receipt verification
AppZen Expense Audit
Translate receipts written in over 40 languages into English and check them for unauthorized spend. Validating the compliance of Chinese fapiao receipts can also be automated.
Concur Verify
There is no translation of any non-English language receipts, leaving all your international spend and risks unaddressed.
Oversight
Receipt information cannot be read, foreign languages cannot be translated, and translations cannot be overlain on receipt images, leaving all your international spend and risks unaddressed.
Audit all spend across T&E, AP, and P-Cards, prior to payment
AppZen Expense Audit
Easily audit 100% of spend prior to payment, across not only T&E, but also AP and P-Cards. Expense Audit does this in-line as expense claims and invoices are submitted for processing.
These checks are based on matching images, unstructured data extracted from receipts and invoices, and electronic data from all ERPs and P-Card providers.
Concur Verify
This solution does not perform a full prepayment audit for T&E, let alone across AP and P-Cards.
For example, post-payment audits of duplicate receipts and transactions, fictitious meals, and suspicious vendors are performed through MCC and checks for unreasonable amounts.
Duplicate checks use only basic image patterns and electronic data, and only in SAP Concur.
Oversight
Duplicate detection is not based on AI-driven, visual image matching or understanding of unstructured receipt data, but instead on basic analysis of structured data.
This is, effectively, a post-payment analytics solution, despite claims to the contrary.
It does not intercept the pre-approval expense workflow in Concur like AppZen does. Instead, it tries to detect a few issues within the first two days after approval and prior to the release of payment in the ERP. This results in delayed payments and a majority of undetected issues.
AI model extension and customization
AppZen Expense Audit
Customers can easily extend and customize AI models to meet their unique compliance needs, in a low-/no-code environment.
Custom AI models that have been deployed are standardized as part of our Finance AppStore to benefit all customers. This reduces time-to-value, as well as the effort and cost to meet your complex compliance needs.
Concur Verify
This solution’s AI is very basic, as it uses Leonardo, a generic ML platform that is built for very narrow use cases. None of the machine learning models provided can be changed or customized to meet enterprise policies or compliance requirements.
Customers do not have the ability to implement new AI models, increasing manual work and reducing compliance effectiveness.
OversightThis is a post-payment analytics solution for structured data. It does not provide any out-of-the-box AI models for unstructured data.
There is no AI model creation or customization capability. Customers needing AI capabilities would be required to buy and build them using another vendor.
Regulatory compliance checks for each transaction, prior to payment
AppZen Expense Audit
Expense Audit checks 100% of your transactions for regulatory compliance, prior to any payment.
Our AI models include industry- and country-specific compliance checks for all companies, such as HCP compliance for medical and life sciences, US FCPA compliance, UK Financial Sanctions Targets, or checks for government attendees.
Thousands of online and social media sources are used to detect suspicious merchants.
Concur Verify
In-line compliance checks are not performed on all transactions prior to payment.
There are no industry- or country-specific AI compliance models.
Identification of suspicious merchants relies solely on high-level and often unreliable MCC codes. There is no search that uses thousands of online sources or databases.
Oversight
There are no regulatory compliance models for industry- or country-specific compliance checks. A transaction’s compliance is only confirmed AFTER payment has been reimbursed to employees or paid to suppliers, putting you at risk of penalties.
Identification of suspicious merchants relies solely on high-level and often unreliable MCC codes. There is no search that uses thousands of online sources or databases.
Next-step automation based on accurate and confident AI predictions
AppZen Expense Audit
Our AI platform provides decision making for specific models, so any manual action that would have been taken upon detection of the risk can also be automated. For example, AI models look for personal expenses and automatically take the next step of emailing the employee regarding the upcoming payroll deduction, in order to recover the personal expense on a card.
AI-first automation maximizes speed, touchless processing, and policy consistency.
Concur Verify
There is no automation capability based on AI model decision making. This AI is very basic and merely recommends or predicts outcomes. It ALWAYS requires manual review. It does not always make accurate predictions and so cannot be trusted to execute autonomous next steps.
Further, it does not provide an AI-first process engine that is integrated with AI-powered audit models.
Oversight
There is no AI or AI-first process engine provided that can automate next-steps based on predictions made from unstructured expense data.
This is purely a post-payment analytics solution using structured data.
Actionable analytics for unstructured expense data
AppZen Expense Audit
Front-line team managers are empowered with actionable compliance and risk dashboards, as well as email alerts, with information about their employees’ spending. This enables managers to collaborate with employees to change behavior at the source.
Included is a full-fledged analytics and visualization application that analyzes data derived from structured, unstructured, and AI model results. Finance auditors are empowered with both pre-built and flexible, ad-hoc executive dashboards to answer evolving business questions.
AppZen is the only expense AI provider that provides and analyzes productivity, spend, and risk benchmarks for specific industries so that you can shape your expense program.
Concur Verify
This system is purely reactive. It does not empower front-line team managers with actionable dashboards or email alerts about employee spending.
It does not provide clients with pre-built or customizable executive dashboards. Clients must license other SAP products to create analytics and dashboards.
Verify does not create or provide industry benchmarks for risk or compliance.
Oversight
Predictive analytics and anomaly detection analytics are sourced from structured expense data. This is purely reactive — it does not offer front-line team managers either pre-built or customizable dashboards, or email alerts on employee spending. It only produces a list of static reports with limited actionability.
No industry benchmarks are provided.