Tipalti & Tropic: Supplier Intel Meets Automated Payments

A new partnership between Tipalti and Tropic aims to create a unified procure-to-pay (P2P) system, providing firms with greater control and efficiency at the foundational level of their supply chains.

In an increasingly complex global market, having a streamlined process for procurement and payment is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge.

Tropic’s supplier intelligence and Tipalti’s automated payment system address fragmentation and improve decision-making from initial procurement to final payment.

Working together: Supplier intelligence and payments

The partnership tackles the issue of disconnected processes where procurement contract optimisation and payment execution exist in separate environments. Such fragmentation can lead to data silos and administrative burdens which slow down the entire supply chain.

According to Justin Etkin, Co-Founder and COO at Tropic, the constant switching between systems is a major point of frustration.

"Finance teams are tired of spending their days manually jumping between systems," Justin explains. "Optimise a contract in one tool; process payments in another; track spend in a third. The handoffs are tedious, the data doesn't sync and everyone's frustrated. Tropic connected with Tipalti brings clarity to the chaos."

The partnership combines the distinct specialities of both companies to create a more cohesive P2P workflow. Tropic provides an intelligent procurement function using supplier intelligence to help businesses manage their spending on new purchases and renewals.

Tropic's system is designed to give procurement teams clear action plans to reduce costs and mitigate risks associated with software-as-a-service spend.

Tipalti focuses on automating payables to streamline how businesses pay their global suppliers. The AI-powered finance automation platform enables companies to pay millions of suppliers and payees across 200+ countries and territories in 120 currencies, simplifying a complex part of the supply chain.

By automating manual finance tasks, such as invoice processing and payment scheduling, Tipalti’s system is designed to free up finance teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic work, like financial planning and analysis. The partnership between Tropic and Tipalti enables smart purchasing and efficient payments.

"Now, when you optimise a software contract using Tropic's US$15bn+ in proprietary supplier intelligence, that smart decision flows automatically into Tipalti for payment execution," continues Justin. "No manual anything, no data entry, no wondering if your savings are actually getting realised."

Bolstering supply chain resilience

In a fluctuating economic landscape, where market conditions can change rapidly, businesses often face a difficult choice between investing in immediate operational efficiency to cut costs, or building long-term resilience to withstand future shocks.

Fragmented technology solutions can intensify this challenge. By aligning procurement intelligence with payment execution, the partnership between Tipalti and Tropic aims to serve both objectives, strengthening a critical link in the supply chain without compromise.

"Companies shouldn't have to choose between smart purchasing and efficient payments. Now they don't have to. We want finance teams to focus on strategy instead of busywork; to deliver savings rather than drown in administrative labour," Justin states.

This unified approach has already been implemented by businesses looking to improve their P2P lifecycle. Karl McGregor, Financial Systems Manager at HUMAN, describes how the integration has impacted his company’s operations.

"Using Tropic alongside Tipalti has streamlined our procure-to-pay process from end-to-end," Karl adds. "Tropic keeps our vendor documents secure while its workflows give our back-office teams early visibility into each request."

"This ensures proper due diligence and budget alignment happen upfront. By the time invoices flow into Tipalti for payment approvals, the groundwork is already complete. Using both Tropic and Tipalti gives us the speed, oversight and confidence we need in every purchase."

Tipalti and Tropic's partnership is making procurement more simple, which results in more informed decisions and more efficient supply chains. As a result, the collaboration shows procurement transformation can come without a sacrifice.