.svg)
Most AP content is written for QuickBooks. Manufacturing and multi-entity construction aren't.
A finance team running Sage Intacct dimensions, NetSuite subsidiaries, or IES job cost structures reads the same AP automation marketing everyone else does, written around QuickBooks classes and a single-entity chart of accounts. A bill has to land against the right dimension, the right subsidiary, the right job, at the line level, or someone is still fixing it by hand after the "automation" ran. A platform that reads a bill's total and posts it to the right subsidiary doesn’t cut it.
Sage Intacct: what dimensions require
Sage Intacct's structure runs on dimensions layered underneath the GL: department, location, class, project, and custom dimensions a business defines itself. A bill that spans two departments or two locations means several coding decisions, all attached to the same document. MakersHub reads each line on a bill and codes it to the dimensions that line belongs to, not the dimension of the bill as a whole. A single subcontractor bill covering two departments' worth of work gets split correctly the first time, without a manual journal entry after the fact.
Take a $12,000 bill from an electrical subcontractor covering work at two sites in the same week: $7,500 for a job coded to the downtown location and $4,500 for a job coded to the suburban location, both under the same department. A platform reading at the bill level posts one $12,000 line to one dimension set, usually whichever job it guesses first, and someone has to go back in, split it, and re-code the difference by hand. MakersHub reads the two lines separately and codes each to its own location and job from the start.
NetSuite: subsidiaries and the intercompany problem
NetSuite's multi-subsidiary structure is common in mid-size manufacturing operations running multiple plants or divisions under one legal umbrella, which is exactly where AP automation for manufacturing gets tested hardest. For organizations that run intercompany processing without defined processes or owners, a bill that belongs to one subsidiary but touches another needs to route to the right entity and the right approver without becoming a manual entry. MakersHub assigns a bill to the correct subsidiary automatically, based on vendor, bill-to, ship-to, or PO number, and keeps coding and approvals consistent across every subsidiary on one login.
IES: construction-specific, and where the connection story matters
IES is built for construction and job-based accounting specifically. The AP conversation here runs on jobs, phases, and cost codes carrying through correctly, not departments or subsidiaries. The differentiator is what happens after the bill lands: line-level automation depth that codes to the job and cost code a line belongs to.
A framing subcontractor's bill covering both the foundation phase and the framing phase of the same job needs to split the same way: the foundation portion hits one cost code, the framing portion hits another, even though it's one vendor, one bill, and one job number. Software that codes at the bill level assigns the whole amount to whichever phase happens to be open when the bill arrives, and the cost report for the phase that's already closed understates what it cost.
PO matching, at the line level in all three
A bill that references a purchase order needs that PO matched at the line level too, not just the header. Sage Intacct, NetSuite, and IES can each hold PO data, but matching a bill against it usually still means someone confirming that each line on the bill lines up with each line on the PO, and again against the receipt if the business runs three-way matching. MakersHub does this automatically as the bill is read, line by line, in whichever of the three systems the business runs, the same way it handles dimension, subsidiary, and job-cost coding.
Why this matters more as a business adds entities
The pattern across all three systems is the same: software built around a single company treats additional dimensions, subsidiaries, or jobs as extra accounts rather than as dimensions of one workflow. That's an architecture decision, and it's why adding a location or an entity often means adding manual work instead of removing it.
Where MakersHub doesn't fit
MakersHub isn't a general ledger or an ERP itself, and it doesn't replace Sage Intacct, NetSuite, or IES. It sits on top of whichever one a business already runs. A business still evaluating which ERP to adopt in the first place is solving a different problem than the one this guide addresses.
How to choose
Start with which ERP your accounting already runs, and what's breaking. If bills are landing at the header level instead of the dimension, subsidiary, or job phase they belong to, and someone is still splitting that by hand afterward, an AP layer built to read at that level, like MakersHub, is the direct fix.
If you're still deciding which ERP to adopt in the first place, that's a different decision than this guide addresses, solve that one first. One test cuts through most of it: pull a bill that spans two dimensions, two subsidiaries, or two job phases, and see whether it lands correctly the first time or whether someone fixes it by hand afterward.
Capability comparison
A finance team evaluating this closes the guide with one test: does a bill spanning two dimensions, subsidiaries, or jobs land correctly the first time, or does someone fix it by hand afterward?