New innovations delivered include Risk Aware, Sourcing Optimisation and Community Intelligence for Travel and Expense Management

Coupa Software (NASDAQ:COUP), a leader in cloud-based spend management, today announced that its next generation cloud platform continues to set the innovation agenda for the industry. Coupa’s Release 19 (R19) is available now, and it modernises risk management, redefines sourcing optimisation, adds travel and expense community intelligence, and enhances the platform with more than 70 new capabilities.

The R19 comprehensive platform update helps customers reduce operational risk to avoid disruptions and make smart, safe supplier decisions, track travel and expense program performance and maximise the value of every pound spent.

“Coupa’s rate of innovation continues to set the industry bar,” said Jimmy LeFever, director, research and consulting at PayStream Advisors. “To see sourcing optimisation transformed, a new supplier risk application, and more than 70 features across more than 15 applications in a single platform update is simply unparalleled in this space.”

As with past Coupa platform releases, R19 was designed through a collaborative approach that involves extensive customer input. Key elements of the release include:

Coupa Risk Aware

Risk Aware is a new application that delivers a modern approach to operational risk management. The application bridges the gap between legacy supplier risk applications and spend transactions. Risk Aware uses Coupa community intelligence and third party data to enable supplier risk scoring. These risk scores are surfaced in real-time across the platform so users have instant visibility and can take action while sourcing, or working with contracts, invoices, requisitions, or purchase orders.

“We started using Risk Aware in the early access program and were surprised to find both unacceptable risks and that some of our most often used suppliers had high risk. We simply didn’t have that kind of visibility before,” said Ramona Moritz, procurement manager at Zuora Inc. “Coupa’s innovations with community intelligence will help us improve decisions and reduce risk in ways never this easy in our industry.”

Coupa Sourcing Optimisation

R19 delivers a step change for supply chain sourcing with powerful new functionality and radically simplified processes. The optimisation application is used for sourcing goods and services in all sectors, helping identify solutions to the most complex strategic sourcing projects.  Its flexibility, mathematical optimisation and ease-of-use make it possible for organisations to minimise costs without compromising quality by evaluating multiple factors, not just price, when making sourcing decisions.

This makes Coupa Sourcing Optimisation power accessible to all users regardless of skill level. The new capabilities make it even easier for organisations to evaluate many options and select the best.

“The flexibility to source in any sector from logistics to raw materials, and powerful analysis that allows you to consider multiple criteria, along with price, will deliver customers great value,” said Garry Mansell, general manager of Coupa Sourcing Optimisation. “This is the sourcing application that organisations have been dreaming about.”

Community Intelligence for Travel and Expense (T&E) Management

R19 adds community intelligence to T&E. Customers can track key performance indicators, compare their performance with benchmarks informed by the intelligence of the Coupa community, and view recommendations for improvements in areas such as corporate card adoption, expense audit rate, expense compliance rate, and more.

e-Invoicing Expansion

R19 extends its e-Invoicing capabilities with full data control plus digital signatures for six additional countries: Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Malaysia, Romania and Serbia, which brings the total number of compliance-enabled countries to 37.

70 Additional Platform Features

R19 also adds more than 70 new features including synergy across sourcing optimisation and improved visibility and control over projects, project timelines, and associated Spend Management transactions.

“The breadth and depth of Coupa Release 19 shows what is possible when a platform is designed for the cloud from day one,” said Raja Hammoud, senior vice president of products at Coupa. “The application synergies delivered in this release simply would not be possible without that solid foundation and a constant focus to deliver innovation that creates value.”