Comparisons between invoice capture solutions concentrate on extraction quality, where the products have largely converged. The variable that still decides whether a capture project works is much simpler: does every invoice actually arrive in the system. An excellent engine fed by three of your four channels performs worse than a mediocre one fed by all four, and the fourth channel is nearly always invoices emailed to individuals.
Enumerate the channels honestly
A shared email address, post, supplier portals that must be logged into, photographs from sites, and invoices sent directly to individuals. The last is the one nobody counts and the one that generates the surprise calls from suppliers. Before choosing a product, count a month of invoices by how they arrived; the result usually reorders the priorities.
Portals are the awkward case
Some suppliers will only present invoices in their own portal, which means somebody has to log in and fetch them on a schedule. This is genuinely annoying, rarely automated well, and worth naming as a task with an owner rather than leaving to whoever remembers. A missed portal invoice looks exactly like a supplier who never billed you.
Then, and only then, compare engines
Once every channel lands in one queue, extraction quality matters, and the differences are at the edges: line items, poor images, unfamiliar layouts and confidence handling. Test on your own worst documents. The engine comparison is the second question, not the first, and treating it as the first is why capture projects underdeliver.
Questions people ask about invoice capture solutions
How do we stop invoices going to individuals?
Tell suppliers a single address and enforce it politely but consistently, returning or redirecting what arrives elsewhere. It takes a quarter and it fixes a permanent leak.
Can portal invoices be automated?
Sometimes, with connectors for the larger portals. Where it cannot, make it a scheduled task with a named owner rather than an informal habit.
Does capture handle credit notes?
It should classify them separately. A credit note processed as an invoice reverses the sign of a correction, which is worse than a field-level error.