For growing companies, finance processes often mature faster than the systems that support them. Procurement↗ and accounts payable (AP)↗ should be connected, but many teams still treat them as separate functions. That gap creates confusion around ownership and spend visibility↗, especially as transaction volume increases.
Understanding procurement versus accounts payable helps clarify who controls spending, who pays for it, and how both teams contribute to a healthy procure-to-pay (P2P) process. When procurement and AP align, finance teams benefit from fewer errors, stronger compliance, and better forecasting without adding unnecessary complexity.
Learn what each function does, where responsibilities differ, and how they work together inside a modern P2P workflow. Plus, discover why automation plays a central role in keeping procurement and accounts payable connected as companies scale.
What are procurement and accounts payable?
Procurement and AP support different parts of the same P2P flow. One controls how spending starts, while the other makes sure it finishes correctly. Below are the differences between the two.
What is procurement?
Procurement oversees how a company chooses suppliers and approves purchases before any money goes out the door. The work involves reviewing purchase requests, negotiating terms, and creating purchase orders, all while maintaining vendor relationships.
Defining a solid procurement process↗ early on means growing teams won’t become overwhelmed with increasing pre-purchase needs. Clear rules and early approvals keep spending aligned with budgets and policies before issues appear, especially as more departments begin submitting requests.
What is accounts payable?
Accounts payable picks up once a purchase has already happened. The AP cycle↗ involves managing supplier invoices, verifying amounts and approvals, and issuing payments on schedule. Procurement starts the spend, and AP closes the loop.
Maintaining a consistent AP system means reports are accurate, payments are timely, and records are compliant. Small businesses sometimes use spreadsheets and other manual processes to track AP, but this quickly gets out of hand as they scale. That’s why automated software is essential — it gives hours back to finance teams and ensures accuracy at every step.
Main differences between procurement and AP
Although procurement and AP are both part of the P2P workflow, they’re different parts of the process. It comes down to who owns each task, when they step in, and what they’re responsible for. Below is a chart to highlight these differences.
Area | Procurement | AP |
Primary responsibility | Sourcing and approving spend | Paying and recording spend |
Workflow stage | Before purchase | After purchase |
Core goal | Control and value | Accuracy and compliance |
Key documents | Purchase requests, purchase orders | Invoices, payment records |
Decision makers | Budget owners, procurement teams | Finance and accounting teams |
Focus, goals, and decision makers
Procurement works up front. The team looks at suppliers, sets purchasing rules, and approves spend before making commitments. Decisions usually sit with budget owners and procurement leads who focus on keeping spend intentional and aligned with company policies.
AP teams step in later. They focus on whether the paperwork checks out, when payments should go out, and how to record transactions. Their work directly affects cash flow↗ and reporting accuracy.
Where procurement ends and AP begins
The shift from procurement to AP usually happens once teams create a purchase order↗ (PO). Procurement issues the PO after locking in pricing, quantities, and terms. From there, that document becomes the reference point AP uses when invoices arrive.
AP reviews invoices against the PO and uses three-way matching↗ to confirm the company received listed goods or services. This structure ensures the business only pays for approved purchases and keeps unnecessary back-and-forth to a minimum.
How procurement and AP work together in a P2P workflow
Procurement and AP connect during procure-to-pay, meaning the two processes encompass everything from purchasing requests to invoice payments.
When both teams work within the same system, information moves smoothly from one stage to the next without reentry or manual checks. That consistency reduces errors, improves budget tracking, and strengthens audit readiness across departments. It also supports P2P accounts payable processes that scale as transaction volume grows, without requiring additional headcount.
The importance of matching (PO, invoice, goods received)
Matching protects companies from overpayments and compliance issues. Two-way matching compares the invoice to the purchase order. Three-way matching adds confirmation that companies received the goods or services they requested.
Misalignment often causes delays, manual investigations, and strained supplier relationships. Consistent matching reduces these issues and gives AP teams confidence in every payment they release.
Data consistency and budget visibility
Unified systems provide a single source of truth, helping finance teams track commitments, prevent duplicate purchases, and generate accurate reports. Strong alignment also supports broader business spend management↗ strategies across cards, invoices, and reimbursements.
Common challenges when procurement and AP work in silos
Siloed workflows tend to cause problems fast. For instance, procurement approves a purchase, but AP can’t match the invoice because something is missing. In other cases, invoices show up without POs, which turns into email follow-ups and late payments.
When tools don’t connect, spend commitments slip out of view. Finance teams struggle to see what’s coming next, and forecasting turns into guesswork. Manual P2P tasks slow everything down and make small mistakes easier to miss, especially during reviews or audits.
Most of these issues come from using fragmented tools instead of integrated P2P software that supports the full workflow from request to payment.
How Moss unifies procurement and AP
Moss brings procurement and AP together into a single platform built for modern finance teams. Instead of managing approvals, invoices, and credit cards in separate tools, teams operate from one connected system↗.
Moss brings procurement and AP into one place by applying configurable approval rules across invoices and purchase requests, so the right people are asked to approve at the right step. Moss’ Approval Rules Builder routes invoices (and other spend) for approval based on configurable rules, while built-in tracking and audit logs provide visibility into who did what and when. These controls reduce manual steps and support audit readiness with built-in tracking, downloadable audit logs per expense, and configurable CSV exports for accounting and reporting.
Finance teams can issue virtual and physical Moss cards↗ and apply spend controls like merchant category restrictions and time-based limits, alongside invoice workflows. Centralised approval policies apply across departments, teams, and cost centers, giving leaders clearer visibility into company spend and the approval status behind it.
With supported accounting integrations and export options, Moss helps reduce manual handoffs between procurement and AP. This ensures that teams can keep approvals, documentation, and spend data aligned, while supporting accounts payable automation↗ and accounts payable services that scale. Teams manage key P2P workflows without juggling separate point solutions, making alignment the default rather than the exception.
Bringing procurement and AP into focus
Procurement decides when and how spending begins. AP makes sure it wraps up properly. To be effective, finance teams need to understand who owns which part of the process, without breaking the connection between them.
When procurement and AP work from the same automated system, spending is easier to track, and reporting is cleaner. Tools like Moss bring the full P2P workflow into one place, which helps teams stay aligned without adding extra systems or complexity.
Learn how to simplify your workflows with Moss’ AP automation↗ tool.
