Accounts payable automation RFP template: What to include & example

Accounts payable automation is quietly one of the most consequential technology decisions a finance team makes. Get the tool right, and invoice processing drops from weeks to hours, duplicate payments disappear, and early-payment discounts are actually captured. Get it wrong, and you've layered expensive software on top of the same manual chaos it was supposed to replace.

An RFP is how you avoid that second outcome. It forces internal clarity on what you actually need, gives vendors enough context to propose real solutions, and creates the objective comparison framework that keeps procurement honest. But AP automation RFPs carry specific risks that generic technology RFPs don't. The requirements are deeply process-driven, the integration surface is wide, and the gap between what a vendor demonstrates and what they actually deliver in your environment can be significant.

This guide covers what belongs in an AP automation RFP, the questions that actually matter, an example template structure you can adapt, and how to evaluate the responses.

What to include in your AP automation RFP

1. Executive summary and project scope

Open with a concise summary of what you're buying and why. Include your organization size, invoice volume, number of vendors, and the business outcomes you're targeting. Be specific about scope boundaries. Are you automating end-to-end from receipt to payment, or focusing on a specific stage like capture and classification? State your timeline and budget range here as well. Vendors who can't hit your parameters should self-select out early rather than wasting everyone's time through evaluation.

2. Technical and integration requirements

AP automation tools don't work in isolation. They connect to your ERP, accounting software, document management system, and payment rails. Your RFP must make these connections explicit. List every system the new tool needs to integrate with. Specify whether you need native connectors or whether API-based integration is acceptable. Detail the information that needs to flow in each direction and how frequently. Include infrastructure constraints: cloud-only deployments, on-premise requirements, SSO mandates, and security certifications your vendors must hold.

Functional requirements by process stage

Structure functional requirements around the actual AP workflow. This maps to how vendors will implement their solution in your environment.

• Invoice ingestion and capture: Input channels, document formats, accuracy thresholds, exception routing.
• Classification and coding: Automatic GL coding, three-way matching, target automation rate.
• Approval routing: Approval tiers, dollar thresholds, department or category-based routing, escalation rules.
• Payment execution: Supported payment methods, target payment cycles, early-payment discount capture, GL reconciliation.
• Reporting and compliance: Audit trail depth, applicable compliance frameworks, and payment reporting frequency.

Pricing structure requirements

AP automation pricing models vary widely, making comparisons difficult unless you standardize them. Require vendors to break out costs into consistent categories: platform licensing, per-invoice or per-transaction fees, implementation and onboarding, integration development, annual support, and add-on modules. Ask vendors to quote your current invoice volume and two growth scenarios: a 50% increase and a 2x increase. This reveals how costs scale and whether a tool that looks affordable today becomes punishing at growth.

RFP template example: structure at a glance

The table below outlines a proven RFP structure for AP automation. Each section maps to a specific evaluation dimension. Customize sections based on your environment, add where your situation is complex, simplify where it isn't.

Questions that actually separate good vendors from the rest

Most vendors will claim they can do everything your RFP asks for. These questions force them to demonstrate rather than assert.

1. "Walk us through exactly how a new invoice type we've never seen before gets handled end to end." This reveals whether their system genuinely learns and adapts or whether every new scenario requires manual configuration.
2. "What's your false positive rate on duplicate detection across your customer base?" Vendors with real deployments have this number. Vendors who are guessing will hedge.
3. "Show us what happens when your system gets it wrong." Every automation tool makes mistakes. The difference between good and bad vendors is what happens next. Watch for anyone who can't demonstrate a clear exception-handling workflow.
4. "How do you handle a vendor who changes their invoice format without warning?" This is a scenario that happens constantly. It exposes the brittleness or resilience of their capture system.
5. "What percentage of your customers achieve full ROI within the first year, and what does that group have in common?" This separates vendors who track outcomes from those who only track deployments.

How to evaluate and compare responses

Evaluating vendor proposals is where most procurement processes lose discipline. Everyone has opinions, executives have preferences, and the evaluation drifts from objective criteria to subjective gut feel.

Counter this by defining your scoring weights before proposals arrive. A reasonable starting framework for AP automation:

• Functional fit: 30% — Does the tool actually handle your invoice-to-payment workflow?
• Total cost of ownership: 25% — licensing, implementation, integration, and support over 3 years.
• Integration capability: 20% — how cleanly does it connect to your ERP and payment systems?
• Vendor reliability and support: 15% — track record, references, and support responsiveness.
• Implementation approach: 10% — methodology, timeline realism, and resource requirements.

Have each evaluator score independently before any group discussion. Score divergence is information; when one person rates a vendor's integration approach a 4 and another rates it a 2, that disagreement reveals a priority difference worth surfacing before you move forward.

One signal worth watching when comparing proposals: response depth and accuracy. Vendors with dedicated bid and proposal teams tend to produce responses that directly mirror your requirements structure, address edge cases you raised, and avoid generic filler. 

Thin, template-like responses that don't engage with your specific scenarios often predict implementation quality as well. Some vendors now use an AI RFP platform like SiftHub to accelerate the response process. SiftHub auto-fills entire questionnaires by pulling verified product information, pricing, and compliance documentation from across connected sources (eg, Drive, Confluence, Zendesk, SharePoint, etc.). Faster turnaround isn't inherently better, but accuracy and specificity are.

Shortlist your top two or three vendors and require proof-of-concept testing with your actual invoice information. Not a demo, a real test, with your real documents, against your real matching rules. This is where vendor claims meet reality, and the gap is often larger than expected.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Skipping internal alignment: Before you send an RFP to a single vendor, finance, IT, and procurement need to agree on what success looks like, the non-negotiables, and what the budget actually covers. RFPs drafted without this alignment produce requirements that conflict internally and confuse vendors externally.
• Treating integration as an afterthought: AP automation lives or dies on how well it connects to your existing systems. If your ERP integration is fragile, nothing downstream works reliably. Give integration requirements the same weight as functional requirements.
• Focusing only on speed: Speed matters, but so does accuracy, compliance, and the ability to handle exceptions gracefully. A tool that processes 90% of invoices in seconds but fumbles the remaining 10% creates more work than it eliminates.
• Ignoring the total cost of ownership: The platform license is rarely the highest cost. Implementation, integration development, and ongoing support routinely exceed licensing over a three-year horizon. Require vendors to price everything.
• Rushing the timeline: Giving vendors a week to respond to a detailed AP automation RFP produces thin proposals. Two to three weeks is standard for complex procurement. The time investment in quality responses pays back in better vendor selection.

Making your final decision

After evaluation, proof-of-concept testing, and reference checks, you should have enough information to make a confident selection. The right AP automation tool doesn't just automate your current process; it creates the foundation for a more scalable, more accurate, and more financially disciplined accounts payable function.

Your RFP is the document that makes that outcome achievable. The more specific, honest, and structured it is, the better the tool you'll end up with. Use the template structure above as your starting point, adapt it to your environment, and resist the temptation to rush. AP automation is one of those investments where the procurement process directly determines the outcome.