Lightyear
Description
Lightyear is a cloud-based accounts payable and purchasing automation platform used for processing supplier invoices, managing purchase orders, and routing approval workflows for finance teams.
The platform uses optical character recognition and machine learning to extract line-item data from supplier invoices and bills, reducing manual data entry for finance administrators. Users can configure approval workflows based on organisational hierarchies, with notifications routed to designated staff for review and authorisation.
The system supports purchase order creation, three-way matching between purchase orders, goods received notes and invoices, and integrates with accounting software packages such as Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and NetSuite. In educational settings such as schools, multi-academy trusts, and further and higher education institutions, finance teams use Lightyear to digitise paper-based invoice processing and centralise supplier documentation.
The platform provides audit trails for compliance purposes, supplier statement reconciliation, and reporting on accounts payable activity. Documents can be submitted via email forwarding, a mobile application, or direct file upload, and processed transactions can be exported to general ledger systems.
The service is delivered through a web browser interface with role-based permissions allowing budget holders, approvers, and finance staff to interact with the documents relevant to their responsibilities.
