Your complete guide to understanding your prospects' needs from day one.
After establishing that a client or prospect is interested in improving their purchasing and invoice management process, we recommend that you ask them the qualification questions below before pitching iCompleat to them. These will help you to further assess and understand their businesses requirements, as well as their suitability for iCompleat. Detailed qualification is also necessary preparation before moving forward to the product demonstration and price quoting stages.
You’ll notice that some of the questions below have a star next to them. These questions are essential in order to provide a quote for the software because they affect the subscription cost.
Make sure you check out our Qualification FAQs so you're ready to tackle any questions a prospect throws at you.
*What accounting software do you use, and which version?
This will determine the integration method, and also the pricing category. iCompleat offers real-time integrations to a variety of software. Click here for an up-to-date list of the integrations available.
If there isn’t an existing integration available for your client’s accounting software, then there are two available options:
- iCompleat API can be used by any third party to develop an integration into another accounting software. This is known as an API-Powered Integration.
- iCompleat can be used as a standalone solution using iCompleat’s Universal Connector. This lets you upload accounting software reference data such as suppliers, delivery sites, tax codes, and accounting codes. It also lets you export approved invoice/credit note data for manual upload into any accounting application.
*This question is essential for quoting a subscription cost.
General business overview questions
- Do you have multiple locations/offices?
- Are you based in one country, or are you a global business?
- Are you a one company entity, or do you have multiple entities? Is this reflected in your accounting software setup?
How does the company currently purchase with suppliers?
- Who raises orders with suppliers across the business?
- How are orders raised with suppliers? (eg. phone, email, raising a PO)
- If formal POs are being raised, what system is being used? (eg. paper order book, accounting software)
- Do you buy any goods online? If so, which supplier websites are frequently used? (eg. Amazon Business, Lyreco)
- Do you have many repeat suppliers and/or purchases?
- Do you have any agreed prices or contracts in place with suppliers?
What’s your company’s current invoice management process?
- Are invoices received centrally by finance, or throughout the business?
- What’s the percentage of emailed documents received versus paper documents?
- Have you considered asking your suppliers to email invoices instead to speed up the process and remove manual steps?
- What steps are involved in processing purchase invoices? Is the Invoice registered, coded by finance, sent straight for approval, or keyed into the finance system?
- How do you decide where invoices need to be coded and sent for approval? Is it based on the supplier, invoice data, or a matching PO reference?
- Is your coding structure driven by department, location, or projects?
- Is all coding is done centrally by finance, or do approvers allocate codes?
- What are your approval structures, and how are they decided? (eg. Single-step, senior approvals, value-based)
- Are multi-site approvals a consideration?
- How are approvals currently carried out? (eg. paper signed, approved via email, online document storage tool)
- How is this information input into the accounting software? (eg. re-keyed, uploaded)
*Approximately how many invoices does your company process per month?
This will determine the best transaction credit bundle that they need to purchase in iCompleat.
*This question is essential for quoting a subscription cost.
*Approximately how many users do you require for purchasing and AP automation?
This will determine which user bracket they will fit into for their use of iCompleat.
A user is anyone who would require login access to iCompleat. This is anyone throughout the business who will be doing one of more of the following:
- Raising purchase orders with suppliers.
- Processing invoices (coding and submitting them for approval). This is typically Finance or AP.
- Approving orders or invoices.
You should also consider if there are additional users, such as senior finance users, who want to be able to log in to access the reporting area and gain a general business insight into spending commitments and spending history.
*This question is essential for quoting a subscription cost.
What are your immediate business priorities, and biggest pain points?
Suggested pain points to question your prospects about could include:
- Duplicate invoices, including duplicate payments.
- Too much paper/filing.
- Lost invoices.
- Delayed approvals (eg. approvers busy/out of the office).
- Late payments putting a strain on supplier relationships.
- Lack of visibility over company commitments and outstanding approvals.
- Lack of control over company spend.
- Laborious manual data entry.
- Lack of audit trail.
- Inaccurate accruals.