What finance needs from modern vendor management

Key takeaways

• Manual vendor management slows down finance teams, increasing errors, compliance issues, and fraud risk.

• A good vendor management solution can save hours, reduce errors, and ensure vendor payments are accurate and compliant.

• Efficiency comes from centralizing vendor information, automating bill creation, and syncing directly with your accounting software.

Manual vendor management wastes time, increases risk, and stalls growth. Here’s what modern finance teams need to manage vendors at scale and how to do it faster and smarter.

Picture this: It’s the first Monday of the month, and your finance team discovers three duplicate vendor payments totalling $18,000. Cue a week of reconciliation, awkward vendor calls, and another close that runs late.

Your finance team spends hours chasing down vendor details buried in spreadsheets, digging through old email threads, and fixing preventable errors. By the time invoices are paid, much of the day is already gone.

Inefficiency is only half the problem. Managing vendors manually also puts you at risk of duplicate payments, missed approvals, compliance errors, and fraud. These hidden costs quietly eat into your margins. And when every dollar and decision matters, these inefficiencies aren’t just operational, they directly impact your ability to forecast, control spend, and scale with confidence.

Vendor management isn’t just a back-office task, it’s a key part of how money moves through your business. When it’s disorganized and clunky, the cost shows up in wasted hours, costly errors, and unnecessary risk. When it’s done well, it gives more time back to your team, keeps your records clean, and protects your business. 

If this sounds familiar, read on. Here’s how to transform vendor management from manual burden into strategic advantage.

The pain points of legacy vendor management

Legacy vendor management slows teams down and introduces risks. Let’s look at some common pain points:

Scattered vendor information

When vendor records live across spreadsheets, ERP records, and endless email threads, finding the right details can take hours. Every time you need a tax ID or payment details, you’re stuck sifting through files. This fragmentation creates friction, slows down month-end close, and undermines financial accuracy.

No clear audit trail

Vendor details change often. When a vendor record is changed, you should know who made the change, when, and why. Legacy systems often don’t provide this transparency. Without clear audit trails, approvals fall through the cracks, audits get messy, and fraud risk increases. For finance leaders, that means less confidence in your data and more time spent untangling mistakes instead of planning for growth.

Manual vendor onboarding

If you have to re-key vendor details for every new bill, invoice, or purchase order, you’ll end up with a process that drains time and creates room for error. As vendor networks grow, this becomes a scalability blocker, with every manual step adding risk and delay.

Risk of errors and fraud 

Manual entry errors, missed approvals, or outdated information often cause late or incorrect payments, compliance breaches, and fraud risk. Even a single compromised vendor record can expose your business to reputational and financial damage.

Difficult to scale across regions

Vendor management often looks different in every region. If your business spans multiple entities or regions, it’ll be hard to manage vendors consistently, or scale reliably without a centralized system. For global finance teams, fragmented processes mean delays, extra work and uneven compliance which is the opposite of the control you need to scale confidently.

Taken together, these pain points don’t just slow finance down, they erode accuracy, trust, and efficiency across the business.

What modern businesses need to manage vendors at scale

Modern finance teams need speed, accuracy, and visibility in one place. Here’s what that looks like: 

Centralized vendor records

A single source of truth that keeps all vendor details in one place will ensure that everyone on your team works with the same, accurate data. Look for solutions that sync vendor details with accounting software to avoid duplicate entries and outdated records. Airwallex integrates with Netsuite, Xero, and Quickbooks to sync up-to-date vendor data from your accounting software.

Built-in approvals and audit trials

Approval workflows make sure that every change made is reviewed before it goes live. It’s equally important to have a complete audit trail that tracks what changes were made, when, why, and by whom. That way, you have full visibility and smooth audits. This gives finance leaders the confidence and control to stay audit-ready and compliant at all times.

Automated invoice creation

Some platforms use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate bill creation, pre-filling vendor details so you can generate invoices faster and more accurately. Airwallex Bill Pay uses OCR and AI to extract invoice data instantly to help you move from receipt to payment in minutes, not hours.

Pre-saved vendor details

Verified vendor details removes the need for re-entry. Payments can be made safely in one click. Some systems can even select the best payment method automatically – for example, choosing to send a payment via available local rails, instead of through SWIFT which can be expensive. And once the payment goes through, vendors get an automatic notification, so they don’t need to chase you to confirm if or when they’ve been paid.

Multi-entity management 

Managing vendors across multiple regions doesn’t have to be messy. A strong, flexible system should let you standardize certain rules globally (e.g. KYC, tax, and approvals), while allowing each entity to set local preferences – from currencies to tax fields to approver chains. This balance keeps you compliant, consistent, and efficient at scale.

Together, these capabilities transform vendor management from reactive admin into a proactive system of control. This means you can accelerate payments, improve accuracy, and reduce risk across your operations.

Manage and pay vendors efficiently with less errors

Growing businesses can’t afford to manage vendors with scattered spreadsheets and bolt-on tools. Finance teams need a modern solution that consolidates vendor management in one place – from keeping vendor details accurate to creating invoices and making payments on time.

Airwallex Bill Pay lets you manage all vendor details and changes on one platform. You can import vendor details directly from Xero and other accounting software, ensuring your records are always up-to-date. Set approval flows to review changes to vendor details and maintain a full audit trail for each vendor, reducing risk and ensuring compliance  

Pay bills faster on our platform, with OCR technology that extracts all relevant data from your receipts – no more manual entry or errors. You can also set vendor-level accounting rules and pre-fill details, such as chart of accounts, tax rates, and saved payment details for each vendor.

With a modern vendor management solution, your finance team can spend less time firefighting, and more time driving growth. 

Ready to modernize vendor management? Explore how Airwallex Bill Pay helps finance teams move faster, stay compliant, and pay vendors on time, every time.