Stop vendor chaos before it reaches AP with ZoneProcure for APAC

Many of the problems AP teams manage begin long before an invoice arrives. Vendor information is often collected through disconnected emails, spreadsheets, forms, and internal messages, leaving finance teams to chase missing documentation, approvals, banking details, and status updates. The result is inconsistent vendor data, processing delays, extra rework, and greater compliance and audit risk.

This ZoneUnplugged session explores how ZoneProcure creates a structured vendor onboarding and procurement process connected to NetSuite. The team demonstrates configurable intake forms, a secure vendor portal, conditional workflows, approvals, document management, AI-assisted reviews, duplicate detection, contract tracking, and synchronization with NetSuite. The session also covers bank validation, international vendors, vendor record updates, onboarding time savings, procurement visibility, and expanded use cases for managing spend.

Why vendor problems begin before AP

Haley Ashe

Hello, everyone, and welcome to ZoneUnplugged: Stop Vendor Chaos Before It Hits AP, ZoneProcure Vendor Management in Action.

I’m Haley Ashe, Director of Customer Marketing at Zone & Co. I help bring our customers and prospective customers resources such as ZoneUnplugged, our monthly customer newsletter, The Zone, and more. I’ll be your host today alongside Rose and Beth.

Rose, would you give us a quick introduction?

Rose Punkunus

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us.

I’m Rose Punkunus, VP and Head of Procurement Innovation at Zone & Co. I’m excited to join Beth and the team to demonstrate our vendor onboarding and procurement capabilities.

Beth, over to you.

Bethany Nyberg

Thanks, Rose. I’m Beth Nyberg, and I lead the APAC region for Zone & Co.

Haley Ashe

Today, Beth will provide a brief introduction to the Zone ecosystem and ZoneProcure, formerly Sudozi. Rose will then demonstrate how ZoneProcure supports vendor management, followed by an audience Q&A and a closer look at customer use cases and broader procurement capabilities.

Bethany Nyberg

For anyone unfamiliar with Zone & Co, we build software that helps finance teams operate more efficiently on NetSuite. Our solutions support processes including AP automation, vendor management, subscription billing, payroll reporting, and reconciliation. They help teams reduce manual work, improve visibility, and scale their operations with greater control.

Today, we’re focusing specifically on how finance teams can improve vendor onboarding and approvals before problems ever reach AP.

We began the session by asking attendees about their biggest challenge when getting vendor information into NetSuite. The options included incomplete or missing information, chasing approvals across teams, collecting and organizing documents, limited visibility into request status, and the lack of a secure, structured method for collecting vendor data.

Haley Ashe

The leading responses were incomplete or missing vendor information and chasing approvals across teams.

Bethany Nyberg

Those results were not surprising. Many of the biggest challenges finance teams face do not actually begin in AP. They begin much earlier.

Before an invoice reaches AP, teams must manage vendor onboarding, intake requests, approvals, document collection, and stakeholder coordination. For many NetSuite finance teams, these processes are still highly manual.

Information may arrive through email, Slack, spreadsheets, and forms. Requests are frequently incomplete, and teams must chase documentation and approvals across departments. There is often limited visibility into a request’s status or who is responsible for the next step.

By the time the information reaches NetSuite, finance teams are reacting instead of operating proactively and with control. That creates downstream friction, including processing delays, inconsistent vendor data, additional work for AP teams, and increased compliance and audit risk.

We consistently heard this pattern from customers across the NetSuite ecosystem. As we continued working with finance organizations, it became clear that customers did not only need help with AP. They needed a better way to manage everything that happens before AP.

That need led to the acquisition of Sudozi and the evolution of what is now ZoneProcure Vendor Management. Customers needed a more structured and secure way to collect vendor information, manage intake requests, coordinate approvals, and maintain clean vendor data before anything entered NetSuite.

ZoneProcure brings those workflows together into one coordinated process. Instead of relying on disconnected emails and manual follow-up, teams can standardize vendor onboarding, centralize approvals and documentation, and improve visibility across stakeholders from the beginning of spend.

With capabilities such as AI-powered document summaries and workflow automation, teams can reduce manual effort, move faster, and improve data consistency at the source. The result is cleaner vendor data, faster onboarding and approvals, and less downstream friction for AP.

Rose will now show how that works in practice.

Building a more structured vendor onboarding process

Rose Punkunus

Before I begin the demonstration, I want to share some context on how someone with a finance background came to build a vendor onboarding and procurement tool.

I joined Uber in 2013, when the company was launching Uber Black globally and beginning to introduce UberX in certain markets. Two aspects of that business exposed me to the challenges behind vendor onboarding and procurement.

The first was onboarding contractors and drivers, which involved workflows similar to onboarding vendors and other third parties that a business needs to pay and maintain documentation for. The second was approving spend, including standard payments and rider or driver promotions.

Finance remained responsible for aggregating that data and storing it in a central location, even though the process involved many people outside finance.

I later served as CFO of two other technology companies and faced the same challenge. My teams, along with colleagues in compliance and IT, regularly came back to accounting and finance to understand the status of a vendor onboarding request, how much had been paid to a vendor, or where specific information was stored.

ZoneProcure is designed to bridge the gap between gathering vendor information and maintaining NetSuite as a robust system of record. It provides a vendor portal where teams can define requirements for documentation, fields, and banking information, with the ability to customize those requirements for different subsidiaries and countries.

The goal is to enrich the information in NetSuite while giving AP, finance, and operating expense teams a better process for collecting and managing it.

Everything a company has already entered into NetSuite for its vendors can be synchronized into ZoneProcure. The onboarding experience then takes place through an external vendor portal because vendors need an accessible place to submit information without receiving access to NetSuite itself.

For this demonstration, I’m logged in as an AP manager. The platform is connected to NetSuite and already contains the vendors that have been onboarded.

Imagine that I receive an invoice from an unfamiliar vendor, or a colleague sends me a Microsoft Teams message saying that we need to onboard a new vendor. From the ZoneProcure home screen, I can see my existing onboarding review tasks, previous submissions, and their current statuses.

I can then send a vendor onboarding form directly from the platform.

In this demonstration environment, I have created two forms. Each form can use conditional logic, and the language can be customized. For this example, I do not need extensive security and compliance information, so I’ll select a straightforward payment onboarding form.

If I needed updated information from an existing vendor, I could select that vendor and initiate an update workflow. In this case, I’m creating a new vendor using a company name and an email address that might have come from an invoice or an internal colleague.

Once I send the form, I can see that it is awaiting a response. I can also see the statuses of other forms I have sent. At that point, I do not need to track the request through a separate email thread.

The vendor portal experience

Rose Punkunus

Now I’ll switch to the supplier’s perspective.

The vendor receives a customizable email containing the onboarding form. The message can include the customer’s company name and any relevant instructions.

The vendor accesses the portal using a magic link authenticated through their email inbox. Once logged in, they can see that a customer has asked them to complete onboarding information.

One feature customers find particularly useful is the vendor’s ability to add colleagues. The first email address found on an invoice may not belong to the correct person. Rather than asking the customer’s finance team to redirect the request, the vendor can add another member of their organization to help complete the form.

The questions in the form are configured by the customer. Additional fields can appear based on the vendor’s country or other responses through conditional logic.

For example, once a vendor selects its country, the form can display the appropriate address, tax, registration, or banking fields. Validation rules can also be configured based on regional requirements, such as the expected number of digits in an identification number.

The vendor enters its own information, including banking details. This changes the traditional process in which a finance team receives documents and then manually enters the information into NetSuite.

The form can also collect supporting documents so that everything remains organized in one place. Selected documents can later be synchronized with the NetSuite file cabinet.

Once the vendor submits the form, the portal remains active. The vendor can view the submission status, see relevant dates, leave comments, and attach additional documents when requested.

This creates two-way communication that is not trapped in one employee’s email inbox. The information and conversation remain connected to the vendor record and can be synchronized with NetSuite.

Notifications are also configurable. When a vendor completes a form or a task requires attention, the appropriate person can be notified by email, Microsoft Teams, or Slack.

Reviews, approvals, and NetSuite synchronization

Rose Punkunus

Returning to the AP manager’s perspective, I can now see the completed form, the vendor’s contact information, all submitted fields, and the uploaded compliance document.

The workflow can include an optional AI review. AI is not required, and customers decide whether and where it belongs in the process.

In this example, the platform is generating a summary to support a vendor assessment. Because I created a fictional company for the demonstration, the report will not find much. For a real company, however, the workflow could conduct a brief news review before the organization proceeds with onboarding or procurement.

The instructions and prompts used for the report are editable. A team can modify them and regenerate the report. Customers use these AI reports for several purposes, including vendor assessments and vendor comparisons.

The workflow can also include approvals and other controls before any information is written to NetSuite.

For example, certain vendors or entities may require approval from a specific person. Those conditions can be configured directly into the workflow. Approvers can receive notifications through email, Teams, or Slack and open the relevant task from there.

In this example, I’ll approve the request on behalf of accounting. The workflow also includes a finance task. A team member could leave instructions about the appropriate general ledger account or other coding details before the vendor is fully onboarded.

Anyone with the appropriate permissions can view that context within the request.

I can also respond to the supplier’s comment from the platform. Because the supplier initiated the conversation, my reply can be delivered to the supplier’s email inbox.

The platform separately supports internal-only comments. Those comments are visible to authorized colleagues but are not shared with the supplier. This allows teams to collaborate on individual fields or on the overall submission without mixing internal discussion into the vendor communication.

Together, these capabilities help standardize information gathering and improve collaboration during vendor onboarding.

Before creating the NetSuite vendor record, ZoneProcure can also check for potential duplicates. In this demonstration, the platform detects that the email address resembles an existing record. It does not show a complete match, but it flags the potential overlap so that the reviewer can evaluate it before continuing.

Once the request is approved, the vendor information is mapped into NetSuite. Customers can determine where submitted information, including banking details, should be stored based on their NetSuite configuration.

The submission can also pass through an additional approval process for ERP changes. This creates another layer of control before the record is written into NetSuite.

After approval, the new vendor appears in the NetSuite vendor list. The record includes the information provided by the vendor, including payment and banking details.

Uploaded documents can also be sent to the NetSuite file cabinet. Customers do not have to synchronize every document. They can choose which document types should be stored in NetSuite.

At that point, the organization has a clean, validated set of vendor data and an auditable history of the approvals that occurred before onboarding. That information can then support other Zone products and processes, including ZoneCapture, approvals, and Zone AP Payments.

The vendor portal remains available after onboarding. If the vendor’s information changes, the vendor can initiate an update or receive a new form. The updated information must pass through the same internal controls before it is written back to NetSuite.

The synchronization is two-way, so information pushed into NetSuite remains visible to the team within ZoneProcure as well.

Contract management and renewal visibility

Rose Punkunus

As organizations expand their vendor management process, many begin uploading contracts during onboarding.

Once a contract is in the platform, ZoneProcure can generate AI summaries and extract structured metadata. That may include start and end dates, renewal terms, negotiated conditions, and information about multiple purchased products or SKUs.

The extracted data can be displayed in a table and exported for activities such as accrual calculations or other financial processes.

The platform can also generate a calendar view showing upcoming contract starts and end dates. From there, teams can create reminder rules.

For example, when a vendor contract approaches its renewal date, ZoneProcure can automatically email the appropriate internal stakeholders. The message can be customized to ask whether the contract should be renewed or canceled, or whether additional documentation is required.

This allows the organization to continue automating vendor management after the initial onboarding process is complete.

Audience Q&A

Haley Ashe

How can a team confirm that the bank account details provided by a vendor are legitimate? Some organizations currently require verbal confirmation with the supplier.

Rose Punkunus

Bank account validation is being added through a partner that will be announced separately. The validation can be configured within the workflow, and the partner provides a guarantee related to confirming that the account is not fraudulent.

Customers can also create a manual validation task. If the organization still wants someone to call the vendor or complete another form of authentication, that step can be assigned, completed, and time-stamped within the workflow.

I do not want to suggest that vendor onboarding will never require a manual step. The value is that the process becomes more structured and can incorporate additional automation for compliance and bank validation.

Haley Ashe

Instead of asking finance team members to leave an unstructured comment about how a vendor should be coded, can the workflow include a form where they select the general ledger account, cost center, or other coding details?

Rose Punkunus

Yes. The workflow shown in the demonstration was intentionally simple, so some of the information was entered as an unstructured comment.

ZoneProcure can also embed additional forms within the workflow. A finance-specific form could include structured fields or dropdown menus for the general ledger account, cost center, or other required information.

The vendor onboarding form itself can also use conditional logic. For example, the same form could be sent to vendors in Australia and the United Kingdom, while each vendor sees a tailored set of questions based on its country.

After the vendor submits the form, the workflow can apply additional conditions. A business verification step might run only for vendors in the United States, even though all vendors began with the same overall workflow.

A customer could create a separate finance form and insert it as an additional step, ensuring that coding information is collected in a consistent and structured format.

Haley Ashe

Is the goal for the AP team to avoid editing the vendor directly in NetSuite, with changes instead made through ZoneProcure?

Rose Punkunus

That can be the outcome.

We would configure the process so that the fields required for ZoneCapture or another invoice-processing workflow are collected through ZoneProcure. The accounting team can enter information there, or the vendor can provide the relevant fields during onboarding.

Every organization has different circumstances, so I would not claim that no one will ever need to touch a vendor profile in NetSuite. However, we do have customers that can run their AP process without regularly editing vendor records because the required information has already been gathered through onboarding.

Haley Ashe

What happens when an existing vendor needs to update its bank account information?

Rose Punkunus

The vendor can use the secure portal to submit updated information, or the customer can send the vendor a new form.

The workflow can be configured either to create a new vendor or update an existing vendor. That is one of the reasons we use an external portal. The vendor does not need direct access to NetSuite, but still has a secure place to submit and update information.

Any update must pass through the customer’s internal controls before it is pushed into NetSuite. That could include a phone call, an automated validation, coding requirements, or another approval step.

Haley Ashe

Will the bank validation workflow support international vendors?

Rose Punkunus

Yes. I do not have an exact number of supported countries and banks to share today, but the plan is to provide broad coverage aligned with Zone AP Payments.

The workflow will support international vendors and international bank accounts. We will be able to provide a more detailed coverage list similar to what is available for AP Payments.

Haley Ashe

On average, how much onboarding time can teams save with ZoneProcure Vendor Management?

Rose Punkunus

We have seen teams save weeks and, in some cases, months. The exact result depends on the organization’s compliance requirements.

A vendor may need to gather information from several people inside its organization. Internally, finance is often not the buyer. The buyer may sit in marketing, engineering, or operations. That creates multiple handoffs where information can be delayed, lost, or left without a clear status.

A typical onboarding process may take one to two weeks while the company gathers the required information and compliance documentation. Larger vendors with more extensive requirements may take one or two months.

We have seen those timelines reduced to a day or two for simpler onboardings, or approximately a week when extensive documentation is still required.

The organization also retains the supporting documents and auditable comments. A team member can return a year later and review the decisions and communication associated with the onboarding.

I am comfortable saying that teams can save well over 50% of the time required for vendor onboarding. In some cases, the reduction can be closer to 90%.

Haley Ashe

Can suppliers send invoices directly to ZoneProcure?

Rose Punkunus

The ZoneProcure Vendor Management module demonstrated today does not currently process invoices. Invoice capture would take place through ZoneCapture.

ZoneProcure Enterprise supports more complex internal approval workflows, and its vendor portal has expanded capabilities for receiving purchase orders and uploading invoices, including for organizations that do not use purchase orders.

A vendor can upload a document through the portal today, including an invoice. However, that document would not automatically enter the invoice capture workflow in NetSuite through the Vendor Management module.

Haley Ashe

Beyond saving time, what is the most common value ZoneProcure brings to finance teams?

Rose Punkunus

The greatest value is visibility into what is coming and how money is being spent.

Once employees understand that vendors should be onboarded before payment, one or two additional questions during onboarding can unlock meaningful information for forecasting and liquidity planning.

Ideally, the vendor is onboarded before the first invoice arrives. Even when onboarding begins with the first invoice, finance gains earlier visibility into the relationship and expected spend.

For a contract uploaded during onboarding, the system can capture information that supports accruals, vendor reporting, and renewal planning.

This becomes particularly valuable for annual, prepaid, or recurring contracts. Accounting and finance teams cannot be responsible for managing every conversation about whether a vendor should be renewed or terminated.

The platform can use its AI and workflow capabilities to track spend commitments, contract dates, and other important details. That supports more accurate financial reporting and gives finance a clearer view of upcoming obligations.

Expanding from vendor onboarding to procurement

Rose Punkunus

ZoneProcure Enterprise extends these capabilities into broader purchasing and procurement workflows. This is where organizations can begin connecting the process to larger cost savings.

The platform captures information at the point where a company is considering an investment or preparing to spend money. The more information finance has at that stage, the more opportunity it has to evaluate how resources are allocated and to engage department leaders before a contract is signed.

ZoneProcure can be tailored to the organization’s purchasing experience. A workflow can evaluate whether a request aligns with the budget and determine which teams must approve it based on the request’s circumstances.

The person making the purchase request may not know every approval or policy requirement. Those rules can be configured in the background through a no-code workflow.

The vendor onboarding workflow shown earlier begins with a request to onboard a supplier. A broader procurement workflow could begin earlier, such as when an employee is still comparing several vendors.

ZoneProcure can use the information submitted by the buyer to generate an AI-assisted vendor comparison report. This can be useful for organizations that do not have a dedicated procurement team to arrange demonstrations, negotiate with suppliers, or evaluate every alternative.

The AI workflow can also provide negotiation strategies. For example, if the team needs to reduce a proposed contract to a particular price or negotiate different terms, the employee can continue interacting with the AI to support the purchasing decision.

Because ZoneProcure integrates with NetSuite, it can also retrieve transactions associated with selected general ledger accounts. A team could review its historical transactions with vendors such as Zoom or Datadog directly within the procurement workflow.

That actual spend data can then inform a new request. If an employee submits a request for another product, the organization can compare the request with its existing budget, previous purchases, and related financial data before approving it.

The platform can also connect with other cloud-based systems. For example, a procurement request could automatically create a Jira ticket when IT, compliance, or data security teams need to review a new technology purchase.

Those reviews can be built into the procurement workflow before the organization creates a purchase order or sends the vendor onboarding form.

Vendor onboarding is often the first and most immediate pain point. Once that process is in place, organizations can gradually expand the maturity of their purchasing process and give finance greater visibility into upcoming spend.

Customer examples

Rose Punkunus

I’ll close with two customer examples.

Ergonext Insurance, a financial technology company, has used the platform for approximately two years. Its internal employees use the system to submit new purchase requests, confirm whether a request has budget approval, gather IT approvals, and collect relevant IT documentation.

Tripadvisor uses the platform to support its global internal procurement approval workflows across multiple subsidiaries.

Both organizations have IT teams, but their procurement, finance, and accounting teams are relatively lean. Those teams can manage many configurations and small workflow changes themselves.

IT is generally involved at the beginning to support implementation. Once the platform is running, our teams primarily work with finance, accounting, and procurement rather than relying on ongoing IT involvement.

Zone Control Center and Zoe by Zone

Haley Ashe

To close the session, we also shared an update on Zone Control Center and Zoe by Zone.

Sarah Shaffer

We’ve heard about Zone Control Center and Zoe, but what are they, and why is Zone building them?

Billie Miric

The ERP is a system of record. It is a digital filing cabinet, and that foundation remains critical.

But in 2026, finance teams do not only need a place to store data. They need a system of agency that helps them act on it.

Zone Control Center is a platform where people can engage with their core financial workflows through one continuous, intuitive experience.

Within that unified platform, we built Zoe, our agentic orchestration layer. Zoe allows customers to engage directly with their NetSuite data through a conversational interface.

One analogy is to think of NetSuite as the hull of a ship. Zone solutions are the engine, Zone Control Center is the user-friendly cockpit, and Zoe is the copilot.

Sarah Shaffer

“Agentic orchestration layer” can mean many things. What does that look like for a customer?

Billie Miric

Consider a finance manager who wants to understand why subscription churn increased last quarter.

Today, that may require pulling five different reports, cross-referencing data, and spending half a day assembling the full picture.

With Zoe, the finance manager can ask the question directly in plain language and receive a synthesized answer in seconds, supported by the complete data trail.

Zoe is not a single agent. It is an orchestration layer made up of multiple skills working together. Each Zone solution will have a Zoe skill designed for that solution’s specific context.

ZoneBilling customers will interact with Zoe through Subscription Intelligence, while ZoneCapture customers will use Zoe through AP Intelligence. It is the same underlying AI, purpose-built for each workflow.

Sarah Shaffer

There is a lot of noise around AI in the market. What is the main message customers should take away?

Billie Miric

Zone is building a cohesive financial platform designed to drive better business outcomes.

With Zoe, we provide in-app conversational capabilities built on deterministic AI, offering trusted and explainable insights from each customer’s own NetSuite and Zone data.

Zone Control Center and Zoe will be introduced across Zone’s NetSuite solutions, but availability will not occur simultaneously across every product. Customers should watch for availability within the individual solutions.

Resources for Zone customers

Haley Ashe

What we shared today is only the beginning.

With Zone Control Center and Zoe, Zone is building toward something larger than automation alone. We believe the future of finance is intelligent orchestration, where finance teams move beyond disconnected workflows into coordinated systems that can reason, adapt, and act.

We are working to define what finance as a system of agency can look like in practice.

Zone customers also have several resources available throughout their journey.

ZoneUniversity provides on-demand product training and educational content for both new users and experienced teams looking to deepen their product knowledge.

Zone Support is available through the support portal, along with a technical support agent that provides instant answers. Customers can also use the Zone knowledge base to find searchable articles, how-to guides, and best practices built around real customer use cases.

The Zone, our monthly customer newsletter, shares product updates, customer stories, upcoming events, and other company news.

Finally, the Zone Insider program gives customers an opportunity to help shape the future of finance technology while earning recognition and rewards. Customers can choose how they participate, including sharing a testimonial, completing a survey, leaving a review, or contributing to a customer spotlight.

The program is flexible, allowing customers to participate as much or as little as they choose.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this episode of ZoneUnplugged. We hope the session provided a clearer understanding of how ZoneProcure can help finance teams create a more structured, visible, and controlled vendor onboarding process.

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