The final analysis

Analyst recognition gives you one view, while customers offer another.

Hearing from other teams who were experiencing similar problems can help you understand what actually changes once the platform is in use. Their experience can show where they saw the biggest gains and whether the experience lines up with what you heard during the sales process.

Quadient has hundreds of customer reviews on G2, with users calling out benefits across invoice processing, approval workflows, ERP integration, collections automation and ease of use.

“The automation capability saves us from having to manually enter data, while also minimizing the number of errors that could occur. The configuration of the approval flows is not complicated, and it is easy to track the status of these processes.”

— G2 Customer Review

Another reviewer highlighted the connection with Sage 100, along with the impact on the finance team’s workload and close process.

“Our workflow processes have improved and gave us more time to focus on other areas within finance. We have been able [to] reduce our number of days in our closing process with the help of this software.”

— G2 Customer Review

“I really like the automation capabilities of Quadient Accounts Receivable, particularly the automated emails, follow-ups, reminders, and task management. This significantly reduces manual effort and helps maintain consistent communication with customers.”   — Associate Accounts Receivable Specialist, Mid-Market company

“I can just send them a link to their statement, and everything is easy for both customers and internal employees.”   — Mid-Market user

“I like the visibility it provides into the customer experience... The automation has also significantly helped us reduce our DSO.”   — Mid-Market user

These reviews look at what analyst recognition can’t, how the platform actually helps everyday users.

When the customer feedback starts echoing the same things you have already identified as important, it adds another piece of evidence to show the platform holds up outside the demo.

Look at the measurable outcomes

Case studies are a great way to see not just how the platform has helped but also what it changed in the environment.

Looking at the problem before implementation, what changed afterward and the outcomes that followed gives you a stronger basis for judging what may be possible in your own environment.

Lush, the global cosmetics brand known for inventing the bath bomb, partnered with Quadient to streamline accounts payable processes across its UK finance teams. The finance team was processing thousands of invoices across its UK entities while moving between multiple systems for invoice processing and approvals. Approved invoices still had to be posted manually.

After implementing Quadient AP, Lush now processes more than 4,000 invoices per month, while non-PO invoice processing dropped from 10 minutes to 4 minutes and PO invoices can be processed in 2 to 3 minutes.

"Quadient has allowed us to pull a report off of invoices that are still in processing much easier than our older systems, so now we can give more accurate cash flows over our next 12 weeks because we have more visibility over the invoices within the system." said Vikki Aldworth, Digital Systems Accountant at LUSH .

The Star Pipe Products team faced a different problem on the receivables side, but the value was the same, connecting information that had previously been fragmented.

The team was working across fragmented processes and wanted a single account view for short payments, overpayments, statements, reminders, and disputes. After integrating Quadient AR with its existing ERP, customer statements that previously took 15 minutes were produced in one minute, customer aging work fell from a day or more to a few hours or less and reports that had taken seven days were produced in two. Operational improvements are useful, but eventually they have to show up in business performance.

• Lush reduced non-PO invoice processing from 10 minutes to 4 minutes and now processes PO invoices in 2 to 3 minutes.

• Cheetah Digital reported a 25-day reduction in DSO and a 40% reduction in overdue AR after implementing Quadient AR.

• WS Audiology reported a 27% reduction in DSO and eliminated the need for a collection agency.

• Mammoth Carbon Products reduced DSO by 10 days and lowered working-capital requirements by at least $1 million.

You don’t need one customer story that mirrors your business perfectly. You are looking for a pattern of evidence that the platform can improve different parts of the collect-to-pay environment under different operating pressures, whether that means higher transaction volume, more entities, more complex approvals, slower collections, or a finance team trying to remove manual work without adding another layer of complexity.

Make sure it fits

Strong results do not automatically mean a platform is the right fit for your organization.

The final test is how well it works within the financial environment you already have. Your ERP, payment systems, banking relationships and surrounding technology are not going away simply because you modernize with finance automation.

Test what implementation requires, how the platform exchanges information across your existing systems, whether context can move with that information, how much routine change finance can manage without IT, and whether the operating model can accommodate greater volume and complexity.

The right platform should fit the way your business needs to operate, not force your business to fit the platform.

Decision time

Every vendor can tell you what its platform is designed to do. The decision becomes clearer when you look at proof outside the vendor’s control.

Analysts have evaluated the technology. Users have shared what it is like to work with the platform every day. Customer results show what changed after implementation.

Now compare that evidence with the problems you need to solve across collect-to-pay and the environment the platform will need to support. Because when the promises begin to sound the same, proof is what separates them.