Lightyear
AP automation platform that digitizes purchase orders and invoices.
About Lightyear
Lightyear automates the full purchase-to-pay cycle: suppliers submit invoices through a vendor portal, the platform extracts line-item data, codes it against your chart of accounts, and then matches each invoice against the originating PO and goods receipt before routing it for approval. That three-way match — PO, receipt, invoice — is where Lightyear earns its keep. Most AP tools process invoices after the fact; Lightyear enforces procurement discipline at the point of coding, flagging quantity and price variances before they reach the approval queue. It fits best at companies with 20 to 200 staff where purchase orders drive most of the spend — manufacturing, wholesale distribution, construction, and multi-site retail. If your team raises POs in a spreadsheet and manually cross-references supplier invoices, Lightyear replaces that entire workflow. It connects to QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and NetSuite, so the approved bill syncs to your ledger without rekeying. The weaknesses are real. There is no free tier or meaningful trial, so you are committing $75 per month before you have tested it against your supplier base. The approval workflow builder is functional but rigid — multi-entity or project-based approval hierarchies require workarounds. Businesses where most spending happens on credit cards or expense claims will find the PO-centric model a poor fit and should look at Airbase or Spendesk instead.
Best for
Growing businesses wanting to automate purchasing and AP with PO-based invoice matching
Key Features
- Automated three-way matching of POs, receipts, and invoices
- Purchase order management and approval workflows
- Digital invoice processing and coding automation
- Supplier portal for streamlined vendor communication
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Three-way matching between POs, receipts, and invoices catches price and quantity discrepancies before payment, not after.
- Supplier portal lets vendors submit invoices directly, cutting email chasing and manual data entry for your AP team.
- Line-item coding automation applies GL codes and cost centres based on PO data, reducing per-invoice handling time.
- Approval workflows route invoices by supplier, amount, or cost centre and create a timestamped audit trail for each bill.
- Direct integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, and NetSuite push approved bills to the ledger without duplicate entry.
- Purchase order management sits inside the same platform, so procurement and AP work from one record rather than emailing PDFs back and forth.
Cons
- No free tier or trial period — you pay from day one, which makes it hard to validate fit against your actual supplier mix before committing.
- Approval workflow rules are relatively basic; complex multi-entity or project-code hierarchies hit the edges of what the builder can handle without manual workarounds.
- Purpose-built around PO-driven spend, so businesses that run most purchases through corporate cards or employee expenses will need a separate tool alongside it.
- Smaller user community than category leaders like Bill.com or Coupa means fewer third-party guides, community answers, and accountant-to-accountant knowledge to draw on.
- Pricing scales with usage volume or users depending on the plan, so fast-growing businesses should model total cost at 12 months, not just the $75 entry price.
- OCR accuracy on non-standard invoice layouts still requires manual correction, which limits the automation gain when suppliers use bespoke PDF formats.
Ledger Brief Take
Lightyear tackles the specific pain point of PO-based invoice matching that trips up growing companies — three-way matching between POs, receipts, and invoices is genuinely complex automation that goes beyond basic OCR invoice processing. Unlike general AP tools that bolt on purchase order features, this appears purpose-built around procurement workflows, making it most valuable for businesses where purchase orders drive the majority of their spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions accountants ask about Lightyear.
What does Lightyear cost and what does the entry plan include?
Lightyear starts at $75 per month. Entry-level plans cover core invoice processing and PO matching, but document volume limits and the number of users vary by tier. There is no free plan. Request a demo before buying to confirm your invoice volume fits the base tier without triggering an upgrade.
How does Lightyear integrate with Xero and QuickBooks?
Lightyear connects natively to both Xero and QuickBooks Online. Once an invoice is approved in Lightyear, it syncs to the ledger as a coded bill with the supplier, GL codes, and line items intact. The sync is one-directional for bills; chart of accounts and supplier lists pull from the accounting platform into Lightyear.
How does Lightyear compare to Bill.com for AP automation?
Bill.com is broader — it handles both AP and AR, works well for service businesses without POs, and has a larger accountant network. Lightyear is narrower and deeper on procurement: if purchase orders drive your spending and three-way matching is the core need, Lightyear's workflow is purpose-built for it. Bill.com treats PO matching as an add-on.
What size business does Lightyear suit?
Companies with 20 to 200 employees that raise purchase orders for most of their spend — wholesale, manufacturing, construction, and multi-site retail are the clearest fits. Below that size, the overhead of a supplier portal and formal PO workflow often outweighs the gain. Above it, larger businesses usually need the more configurable approval logic of Coupa or Precoro.
How does Lightyear handle data security and document storage?
Lightyear stores invoice documents and PO records in the cloud with encryption at rest and in transit. The platform retains documents for audit purposes. For specific certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, confirm directly with Lightyear before onboarding, particularly if your clients have contractual data-residency requirements.
Does Lightyear work without purchase orders?
Lightyear can process invoices without a matching PO, but that removes the three-way match, which is its primary automation advantage. If a significant portion of your supplier invoices arrive without POs — such as utilities, subscriptions, or ad hoc purchases — you will process those manually or rely on basic OCR coding, the same as any general AP tool.