Airbase reviews: What real AP departments think

Airbase is an expense management platform that provides businesses with spend management capabilities, corporate cards, and payment processing. Its automated financial management platform is designed to help businesses control non-payroll spend, manage bill payments, and simplify expenditure management processes. While it has traditionally focused on helping businesses manage employee expenses, Airbase recently added Accounts Payable and procurement automation functionality to its portfolio.

Airbase has earned a solid reputation for managing employee expenses. With the addition of AP automation, it may be a viable solution for businesses looking for an all-in-one expense management solution. However, what do Airbase customers really think about their services?

In this article, we’ll explore Airbase reviews from real customers to help you evaluate how well the platform supports business growth and optimizes AP and spend management processes. We’ll summarize the pros and cons to help you decide if Airbase is a good fit for your accounting team or if you should look elsewhere.

Let’s start with a quick look at Airbase’s services.

Airbase’s services and features

Airbase’s cloud-based expense management software focuses on simplifying business and accounting processes for medium-sized tech businesses. It offers comprehensive spend management capabilities, including:

• Expense report submission via desktop and mobile apps.
• Automated expense report processing, approval workflows, and expense reimbursement.
• Enforcement of expense policies to prevent out-of-policy spending.
• Corporate credit cards.
• Business travel management.
• Guided procurement, accounts payable automation, and payment processing.

Airbase combines software modules for guided procurement, corporate card solutions, expense tracking, and accounts payable in three service tiers:

• Standard (up to 200 employees): Basic functionality with limited access to special features.
• Premium (up to 500 employees): Enhanced functionality without enterprise-level features.
• Enterprise (up to 5,000 employees): Full functionality and all features.

Certain features, like purchase order management, multi-subsidiary support, and customizable approval workflows, are only available at higher service tiers. Airbase customizes pricing for each tier according to customer needs.

Airbase customer feedback

In March 2024, we looked at Airbase reviews on G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra rating sites. Our discussion will include both positive and negative customer reviews.

User feedback was generally positive. Customers remarked that Airbase was user-friendly and a great tool for managing employee expense reports. They also liked Airbase’s virtual credit card program. On the negative side, customers complained about Airbase’s reporting capabilities, technical glitches, and the requirement to pre-fund corporate credit cards.

Positive Airbase reviews

Airbase users identified the following top three strengths.

User-friendly interface 

“Airbase is very user friendly,” said one Airbase customer. “I was able to learn the system fairly quickly and easily.”

Other customers found Airbase a simple and easy-to-use platform, leaving comments like, “We really like the simplicity of Airbase. It’s very user-friendly and we like that our employees only have to use one system for all spend-related tasks.”

Many reviewers commented on Airbase’s user interface, calling it “straightforward,” saying it “looks like it was designed with purpose.” Others highlighted Airbase’s “intuitive flow from creation to payments,” saying that “expense reports are easy to create and route,” and Airbase’s “OCR technology is lightning fast and mostly accurate.”

Employee expense management

Several users said Airbase’s employee expense management capabilities were the best thing about the platform. One commented, “Airbase serves as a one-tool-fits-all approach to our expense tracking and management, particularly as it relates to corporate cards and travel.” The same reviewer mentioned features like employee reimbursement management, integration with AMEX, and approval workflows as strengths.

Additional favorable reviews included a comparison to other expense management platforms by one customer who said that Airbase, “is better at bills than Bill.com and better at expense reports than Expensify.”

Another customer praised Airbase’s comprehensive spend management functionality: “Airbase is great for smaller companies who don’t need a heavy procurement-based product.” However, they did comment on the platform’s limitations, mentioning it “would be less beneficial for large companies that have complicated POs and procurement needs.”

Virtual credit cards

Many customers commented on Airbase’s virtual credit cards. Users cited the cards’ versatility for managing employee expenses, with one customer saying, “The ability to issue virtual cards is another added bonus as it enables us to allow for employee spend to happen more easily without having to issue a physical card.” A small business customer said the cards were made “for a more controlled and simplified expense manager” and mentioned the cards’ workflow capabilities and Airbase’s card cashback program.

Some customers were more critical of the credit cards. One customer complained of “unclear dispute transaction options and lack of protections provided from traditional credit cards,” and said Airbase provided a “Lack of details typically found on a credit card statement or online banking when using a physical or virtual card.”

Negative Airbase reviews

Here are the negatives Airbase users mentioned in their reviews.

Reporting functionality

Several users expressed dissatisfaction with Airbase’s reporting capabilities. One user said, “Reporting could be more robust.” Although they said the current reporting functions were sufficient, they would like “more options for in depth analysis of overall spend by category.”

Other reviewers mentioned the lack of reporting made it difficult to reconcile accounts, like in this example of a customer struggling to reconcile accounts in NetSuite: “[W]e were using the Airbase prepaid module until we enabled NetSuite and there was nothing that we could use to help us reconcile the accounts. Additionally, there are no ending statements for balances held by Airbase that we have funded.”

A second reviewer also mentioned challenges reconciling accounts in NetSuite for Accounts Payable, saying, “Reporting functionality is very limited, and performing routine AP functions.” The user continued, “NetSuite AP Aging Recon to Airbase [is] difficult [and] cannot quickly export all open invoices for a single vendor.”

Technical issues

In other Airbase reviews, customers reported several technical issues with the web platform and mobile app. One reviewer said they had difficulty integrating Airbase with their business systems: “Initial setup took awhile to finally get integrations to work as they should. Support team generally can’t answer any questions.” Another reported similar integration challenges with Xero: “G/L Integration is the real issue. Reconciling with Xero, our accounting system, has been a bear. Makes any benefits to the entire system hardly worth it.”

Customers were critical of the mobile app, which one reviewer described as the “[b]iggest area for improvement.” Users complained that uploading receipts could “make the mobile application to buffer mainly when using mobile data,” and that Airbase is sometimes “not as smooth when using it on mobile devices, pages may not fully load when kicked off through an action in an email. SSO-based login sometimes takes a few tries as well.”

Credit card pre-funding

Some users complained about Airbase’s pre-funded corporate credit card, which, as one user pointed out “is something to consider if your organization has cash flow concerns.” Another user made the cash flow management case more bluntly: “[A] pre-funded approach is not good for us when cash is King.”

A different reviewer also mentioned that Airbase will “only notify you when you run out of funds,” and said that they faced declined charges because of the delay in adding funds to their card.

The bottom line

User reviews say the Airbase platform is a suitable expense management tool that is flexible and easy to use but may face limits with more complex spend management tasks such as reporting. If you want to manage employee expenses and accounts payable spending on a single platform, consider looking into a solution offering advanced accounts payable processing, deep reporting, and analytics capabilities.

Stampli: The most comprehensive Airbase alternative for AP

Stampli is the only AP automation solution designed for Accounts Payable teams. It leverages machine learning and AI technology to optimize and simplify critical AP processes and manage spend. With Stampli, businesses can eliminate time-consuming and error-prone manual procedures while gaining full control over vendor payments, employee expenses, corporate cards, and cash flow management.

Why AP departments choose Stampli

Only Stampli offers an AP automation solution built by AP professionals for AP professionals. If you’re searching for a reliable, intuitive, and flexible AP solution that doesn’t require any changes to your ERP, then Stampli is the ideal choice. “Stampli has been a game changer with automating our AP process,” says one customer. “It’s so helpful to have all invoices, comments, approvals, reporting, and more in one place that also integrates with our accounting system and it’s used on a daily basis. Our Stampli team have [sic] been nothing short of supportive with getting us set up for success!”

Stampli offers industry-leading customer support, automation capabilities, industry expertise, seamless integration with business systems, and proven results.

Payment-neutral (and vendor-friendly) payment processing

Stampli Direct Pay streamlines your payment processing and allows your finance team to pay vendors however you want. One Stampli customer called Direct Pay a “deciding factor for our company in choosing Stampli over a competitor,” citing that it’s “free to vendors without being expensive for us, either.”

Stampli Advanced Vendor Management solution also helps you manage vendor relationships and communications through a central portal. “The vendor management portal has also been very helpful to our vendors in updating their information with us and asking us questions on specific invoices,” said one customer.

Here’s how Stampli Direct Pay simplifies B2B payments automation:

• Payment agnostic: Pick the electronic payment type you and your vendors prefer.
• Simplified payment approvals: View payment information and supporting information to make payment approvals easy.
• Centralized vendor management: Advanced Vendor Management automatically collects vendor information, lets vendors choose their payment type, and checks payment status via an online portal.
• Flexible international payments: Save on transaction fees, manage currency risk, and pay overseas suppliers quickly and securely.

Comprehensive spend management

Billy the Bot™, Stampli’s AI assistant, simplifies and streamlines accounts payable workflows and helps companies take complete control of spending. Billy helps with manual tasks such as data entry, invoice capture, GL coding, approvals, and fraud detection to help you reduce errors, realize cost savings, and pay suppliers on time. With Stampli, “Managers can view invoices and expenses any time,” commented one customer. “Nothing gets paid without their quick approval through Stampli.”

“We can also monitor all the expenses that the department carries, supervising that they are always under control and within the limits,” says another user about Stampli’s spend management capabilities. “This is one of the best accounting software that we have used in the department.”

Other Stampli customers report how Stampli makes their accounts payable process more efficient and effective. One reviewer said that by “streamlining communication and information about expenses through our company,” Stampli is helping them “to be more effective in certain decisions.”

Control spend with Stampli Card

Get total control of spending by taking advantage of Stampli Card, the credit card built for accounts payable. You can use Stampli Card without needing to pre-fund the card or a spending account, and you earn cash back on every expenditure — turning AP into a profit center.

“I like the Stampli Card the most,” said one Stampli Card customer. “Being able to track business expenses without having to chase down every employee for physical forms saves a ton of time…Stampli is solving credit card expenses.”

Another Stampli client likes that Stampli Card lets them “track each department’s spending separately while using a single, all-encompassing line of credit,” and with no obligation to pre-fund the card or a spending account.

Get a free demo and experience how Stampli transforms spend management by turning accounts payable operations into a seamless, powerful process.