6 best spend management platforms in Malaysia (2026)

Key takeaways:

• Spend management platforms replace manual spreadsheets with one place to manage corporate cards, expenses and bill payments, giving Malaysian businesses real‑time visibility over where money is going.

• When comparing options, focus on support for MYR, multi‑currency cards, local bank integrations, and sales and service tax (SST) ready reporting.

• Airwallex combines spend management with multi‑currency accounts and global payments, giving Malaysian businesses MYR accounts, interbank FX and ASEAN‑ready local payment rails as they scale.

Managing company spending across multiple teams, currencies and tools gets messy fast. Spend management platforms solve this by bringing corporate cards, expense tracking and bill payments into a single system. You get real‑time visibility of where money is going, clearer approval rules and cleaner data flowing straight into your accounting software.

This guide looks at six spend management platforms that work for Malaysian businesses. We focus on MYR support, local banking connections and ASEAN‑ready features, and highlight how Airwallex combines these in a single, modern spend and payments platform.

What is a spend management platform?

A spend management platform is software that brings corporate cards, expense tracking, accounts payable, and budget controls into one system. This means you manage all company spending from a single dashboard instead of juggling multiple tools and banking relationships.

Unlike basic expense management software that only handles employee reimbursements, spend management platforms cover the entire spending lifecycle. 

You can issue corporate cards with spending limits, process invoices automatically, and track budgets in real time. For Malaysian businesses, you’ll be able to manage your MYR expenses alongside other regional currencies, without switching between systems.

Which spend management features matter in Malaysia?

If you’re running a business in Malaysia, your spend platform needs to work for day-to-day operations and regional growth. The goal is simple: less manual work, clearer visibility, and fewer compliance headaches as spending scales.

Multi-currency corporate cards and spending controls

You’ll want support for MYR alongside regional currencies like SGD, THB, and IDR. Physical and virtual corporate cards should let you set limits by department, merchant type, or transaction size.

Integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay makes everyday payments more convenient. Proper multi-currency support also helps you avoid unnecessary conversions, especially if the platform offers interbank FX rates instead of marked-up retail rates.

Smart expense management 

With AI-powered receipt capture, your employees can simply snap a photo and upload it. They don’t need to fill in the details themselves, because the system extracts these automatically.

Instead of discovering policy issues during audits or at month-end, expenses are checked against your rules as they’re submitted. This reduces back-and-forth with employees, keeps SST records clean, and makes audits far easier for your finance team.

Accounts payable automation and procure-to-pay automation

With a spend management platform, your team no longer has to enter invoice details manually. The system can automatically read and extract information from invoices, match it with purchase orders and delivery receipts, and flag any discrepancies for review.

You can check that each purchase stays within budget before approving it, rather than realising you’ve overspent after the fact. Plus, instead of switching between multiple tools, you can manage both local payments and international supplier payments from one platform.

Accounting and ERP integrations 

When your spend platform connects directly to tools like Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, and SAP, transactions flow straight into your books. That reduces reconciliation time and removes duplicate data entry.

Global payments, FX, and like-for-like settlement

Cross-border payments get expensive fast when you’re paying retail FX rates and SWIFT fees. This isn’t common, but some spend management platforms like Airwallex support global payments with interbank pricing and local payment rails. 

Airwallex also offers like-for-like settlement, which means you can collect revenue in SGD and pay Singapore suppliers in SGD, without converting everything back to MYR in between.

Security and compliance

At a minimum, you should expect SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification, encrypted data, multi-factor authentication, and full audit trails. Just as importantly, the platform should align with Malaysian financial regulations, so every approval and transaction is properly recorded for reporting and compliance.

6 best spend management platforms in Malaysia

Here’s an overview of six spend management platforms that Malaysian businesses can use to manage spend. 

The table below highlights their key features at a glance, and we’ll dive into the details for each platform in the next section:

The information in this table has been reviewed to be accurate as of 11 February 2026.

1. Airwallex Spend

Airwallex combines spend management with multi-currency accounts and global payments in one platform. You can hold and pay in MYR from Malaysia, and open local currency accounts with bank details in 20+ other currencies. This eliminates the need for multiple banking relationships as you expand regionally.

You can issue corporate cards with real-time budget tracking, manage expenses with AI-powered tools, and automate bill payments. Transactions sync automatically with Xero, QuickBooks, and NetSuite. On top of spend management, you also get smooth multi-currency operations with interbank FX rates.

2. SAP Concur

SAP Concur focuses on travel and expense management for large organisations. It handles complex travel bookings, policy enforcement, and expense reporting, with local MYR processing and integration with Malaysian HR systems, and its key strengths include automated expense report generation and comprehensive travel booking with negotiated rates.

SAP Concur is mainly suited for large Malaysian corporations with significant travel and entertainment expenses. For smaller companies or those with limited travel needs, the platform can feel overly complex and heavy.

3. Spendesk

Spendesk provides a user-friendly platform for spend management with strong procurement capabilities. Its key strengths include intuitive approval workflows, integrated budgeting, and real-time spending visibility. It combines corporate cards, expense management, and invoice processing into one system, making it easy for finance teams to maintain control while keeping employees empowered.

While Spendesk is a simple and accessible solution for companies looking to streamline procurement and spend control, it lacks advanced multi-entity reporting, complex approval routing, or detailed analytics for businesses with multiple departments. Companies with heavier cross-border operations might need additional tools to cover these gaps.

4. Payhawk

Payhawk combines corporate cards, expense management, and accounts payable in a single platform. Its key strengths include multi-entity management, a mobile-first design for easy expense submission and approvals, and real-time spending insights that help finance teams catch issues early.

However, Payhawk’s multi‑entity support is limited to Europe and North America⁶, so Malaysian businesses would only be able to use it for foreign entities, rather than their Malaysia‑registered parent.

5. Coupa

Coupa is an enterprise-focused platform that blends spend management with advanced procurement capabilities. Its key strengths include strategic sourcing, supplier management, contract lifecycle management, and analytics to track spending patterns and identify savings opportunities.

Coupa works well for companies with complex procurement requirements and dedicated procurement teams, such as large manufacturers, multinational distributors, or enterprise-scale retail chains in Malaysia. For businesses with simpler purchasing needs, the platform may feel overly complex and feature-rich.

6. Aspire

Aspire focuses on Southeast Asian markets, offering local banking partnerships, MYR support, and regional payment capabilities. Its key strengths include easy-to-use corporate cards, expense management, bill payments, and support for local payment methods across Southeast Asia.

However, as your business grows and spending becomes more complex, you may eventually find Aspire’s advanced spend management features limited, since it’s designed primarily for SMEs and startups that prioritise simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

How to roll out your spend management platform

A clear, staged rollout helps you tighten control over spend without disrupting day‑to‑day operations or overwhelming your teams. Here are four steps to get started:

Step 1: Plan and align

Start by defining clear requirements and getting the right stakeholders involved:

• Involve finance, IT, procurement and key department heads early.

• Map current workflows and pain points, and define success metrics (cycle time, compliance, cost savings).

• Confirm ownership, policies and approval logic before you configure any tools.

Step 2: Integrate and test

Next, connect the new platform to your existing systems and validate it in a safe environment:

• Integrate with accounting / HR systems, map your chart of accounts and set user roles.

• Run a small pilot across finance and a few teams to test expenses, invoices and payments end‑to‑end.

• Clean and migrate only essential data (vendors, employees, open items).

Step 3: Roll out and train

Roll out in stages so teams can adapt and issues are caught early:

• Use a phased rollout by team or location and fix issues between waves.

• Provide role‑based training for finance, managers and employees.

• Set up super‑users and a help channel as the first line of support.

Step 4: Measure and improve

Track outcomes and keep tuning workflows as the business evolves:

• Monitor cycle times, error rates, compliance and savings against your baseline.

• Review workflows and limits quarterly to remove friction and reflect new policies.

• Use spend data and feedback to refine categories, rules and budgets over time.

Simplify your global spend with Airwallex

Airwallex brings your spend management, Global Accounts, foreign exchange, and payments together in one platform, so you don’t have to juggle multiple banks or fintech tools as your business grows.

You get a Malaysian‑regulated account to send and receive MYR, local support, and seamless connectivity into Malaysia’s banking system, plus multi‑currency accounts in 20+ other currencies.

Multi-currency features make regional expansion easier. Pay suppliers in their local currency at interbank FX rates, and collect revenue in the same currency your customers pay in to avoid conversion costs. If you do have to convert, we offer competitive FX rates that help you save up to 80% on FX fees.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Do spend management platforms in Malaysia support MYR transactions and local bank reimbursements?

Some of the platforms in this guide can support MYR reimbursements via local rails or via integrations with your existing Malaysian bank and accounting system. When you evaluate vendors, check whether they can either pay out directly to Malaysian bank accounts in MYR or plug cleanly into your payroll and banking stack so reimbursements can run automatically instead of being processed manually.

Can I issue corporate cards in Malaysia that work with Apple Pay and Google Pay?

Several platforms in this guide offer physical and virtual corporate cards, and some support Apple Pay or Google Pay in selected regions. For example, Airwallex issues multi‑currency corporate cards that Malaysian businesses can use for local and overseas spend, and supports digital wallet tokenisation (such as Apple Pay and Google Pay) in eligible markets.

How do spend management platforms handle foreign exchange fees for cross-border payments?

Spend management platforms help businesses reduce FX fees on cross-border payments by offering multi-currency accounts, competitive FX rates, and direct payment to overseas suppliers. With these features, companies can pay in the supplier’s currency without unnecessary conversion, avoiding high bank markups and hidden fees. 

Airwallex takes this further by letting you hold balances in 20+ currencies and choose when to convert at interbank rates, giving you more control over costs and timing.

Which accounting software integrates with spend management platforms in Malaysia?

Popular integrations include Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, and SAP. Many platforms offer custom API development for local Malaysian systems and legacy software.

What security certifications should Malaysian businesses look for in spend management platforms?

Prioritise platforms with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications demonstrating commitment to data security. Ensure proper audit trails for Malaysian regulatory requirements including SST tracking and financial reporting.

How long does implementation take for a Malaysian business with multiple entities across ASEAN?

Implementation typically requires two to four weeks per entity. Parallel setup is possible for experienced teams with simple configurations, reducing total timeline for multi-entity rollouts.

Do spend management platforms include full procure-to-pay capabilities or just expense management?

Most comprehensive platforms include full procure-to-pay capabilities from purchase requests through vendor payment. Some platforms focus primarily on expense management and accounts payable without procurement features.

How do spend management platforms capture and categorise SST for Malaysian tax compliance?

Modern platforms use OCR to extract key fields from receipts and invoices, and can tag expenses with tax codes based on your configuration. For Malaysian SST, you’ll typically need to set up the correct tax codes and mappings in the platform and your accounting system, then use reports to support SST filings and audits.

Sources: 

1. https://www.concur.com.sg/

2. https://www.spendesk.com/

3. https://payhawk.com/

4. https://www.coupa.com/

5. https://aspireapp.com/ 

6. https://payhawk.com/en-us/supported-countries

This publication does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice from Airwallex nor substitute seeking such advice, and makes no express or implied representations / warranties / guarantees regarding content accuracy, completeness, or currency. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [[email protected]]. Airwallex (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd is licensed in Malaysia as a MSB Class B (remittance business only) licensee and is regulated by Bank Negara Malaysia (licence number 00318).