When Gartner® released its Magic Quadrant™ for Accounts Payable Applications report, something remarkable happened that nobody is talking about. The industry ERP titans – Oracle, SAP – were nowhere to be found. Gone. Vanished. Completely absent.
Wait, what? The companies that have dominated enterprise software and procurement technology for decades didn't even make the cut for one of the most critical financial processes?
This isn't just an analyst oversight. It's a seismic shift that signals a new reality: the AP automation game has fundamentally changed, and the legacy ERP giants are being left behind.
I've watched the ERP landscape evolve from the days of clunky on-premise deployments to today's equally as time consuming and expensive cloud-first "upgrades." But what's happening now is different.
The accounts payable market has matured into something that demands specialized expertise in 3 critical areas where generalist ERP solutions simply can't compete:
Let me take you behind the scenes of this transformation.
Picture this: Your AP team is drowning in invoices. Your suppliers are threatening to cut you off for late payments. And your CFO is demanding better cash flow forecasting – yesterday.
What's your ERP vendor's solution? Typically, a costly upgrade, years of implementation, and customizations that break with every update.
This scenario plays out daily across enterprises worldwide, costing businesses an astounding $45 million annually in supply chain disruptions alone. No wonder finance departments are turning to specialized AP solutions that can be deployed in weeks, not months, and integrate seamlessly with existing systems.
Unlike those monolithic ERP systems (which I've implemented and struggled with myself), modern invoice automation solutions offer open architectures that slot into your tech stack like the perfect Tetris piece. This best-of-breed approach enhances rather than replaces your existing investments.
The specialists bring a depth of expertise in Invoice Lifecycle Management that generalists simply can't match. When your entire business is focused on making invoices flow seamlessly from receipt to payment, you innovate faster, respond to market needs quicker, and stay ahead of the compliance curve. Meanwhile, ERP vendors are busy updating their CRM modules while their AP innovation stagnates.
Let's be honest – most "AI" in legacy ERP systems is really just glorified pattern matching. That might have impressed in 2010, but today's finance teams need technology that genuinely thinks.
I've watched AP specialists spend years fine-tuning algorithms that can tell the difference between a legitimate invoice change and a potential fraud attempt. Their systems automatically detect anomalies, flag duplicates, and protect against increasingly sophisticated fraud – all while improving compliance.
Take all the data we have at Basware: 40 years, 2.4 billion invoices, $10.1 trillion in invoice spend processed. It’s a lot of data. And as these AI systems continuously learn from historical data, they get smarter and more accurate.
The results speak for themselves. Our customers are seeing touchless rates increase and invoice processing times drop from 11 days to less than 24 hours.
Legacy ERP vendors are still playing catch-up, with technical debt weighing down their ability to innovate and AI investments spread thin across multiple business functions.
This is why analysts increasingly recognize that true AP innovation comes from specialists who live and breathe invoice processing – not from generalist ERP platforms built for a different era.
If you're a CFO trying to navigate today's regulatory environment without specialized AP tools, I have two words for you: good luck.
With electronic invoicing and tax reporting rolling out across Europe, Latin America, and Asia, finance departments face a compliance minefield. In fact, 28% of CFOs now cite regulatory challenges as their biggest barrier to finance transformation.
Here's the reality: Legacy ERP systems were designed decades ago for a simpler regulatory world. They weren't built to adapt quickly when Germany, France, Poland, and Spain all implement different e-invoicing requirements within months of each other. The leading AP automation solutions, on the other hand, were born for this challenge. They provide real-time audit trails and can adapt to evolving mandates. When a new country announces its e-invoicing requirements, specialists can react within weeks, not quarters.
I've seen firsthand how AP teams using legacy systems scramble to comply with new regulations, while those using specialized tools simply receive an update and continue business as usual. The contrast couldn't be more stark.
The absence of legacy ERP giants from analyst recognition isn't just an interesting footnote – it's a wake-up call for enterprises still relying on these systems for accounts payable.
Today's business environment demands specialized, AI-powered automation that delivers 100% touchless, 100% protected, and 100% compliant processing throughout the entire invoice lifecycle. The stakes are simply too high to settle for the "good enough" AP functionality that comes bundled with your ERP.
As someone who's lived in both worlds – both implementing large ERP systems and leading a specialized AP provider – I can tell you unequivocally: the market has spoken, and the analysts have confirmed what progressive finance leaders already know.
The future of accounts payable belongs to the specialists.
The question isn't whether you need specialized AP automation – it's how much longer you can afford to wait while your competitors gain the advantage.
The ERP giants may have gone missing from Gartner's analysis, but the real concern is whether your business is missing out on the transformative power of true AP automation. Now's the time to make sure you don't disappear from the competitive landscape too. Make the smart choice in AP Automation.
Basware is a Leader in the latest 2025 Magic Quadrant™ for Accounts Payable Applications from Gartner. It’s the ‘Triple Crown’ following what we achieved with IDC and Forrester last year. And I’m proud of our customers, partners and Baswareans for making it happen!