The Challenge

The Accounts Payable (AP) team was fighting a losing battle against errors. Invoices were keyed into the ERP, but mismatches with the original PDFs were common: incorrect dates, missing tax, wrong totals. Duplicate invoices occasionally slipped through, leading to costly overpayments.
Manual checking was draining. Staff spent hours comparing line items between systems and source documents, yet errors still reached payment runs. On top of this, compliance auditors flagged the lack of a reliable audit trail. As one AP officer put it: “We’re double-checking everything by hand, but I still go home worried we’ve missed something.”
The inefficiency was costly — in time, money, and stress.

Our Approach
We set out to give the AP team a system they could trust: automation for the heavy lifting, with humans in control of the exceptions.
1. AI-powered data extraction: We deployed OCR/IDP tools to pull invoice data from PDFs, including headers and line items.
2. Automated validation: The extracted data was matched against ERP entries and purchase orders, using configurable tolerance rules to handle small discrepancies like rounding.
3. Duplicate detection: Smart logic flagged invoices that looked suspiciously similar — same supplier, same amount, same date.
4. Exception handling: For mismatches, we built a side-by-side review screen showing the PDF and ERP data together, so staff could resolve issues quickly.
5. Seamless ERP integration: With direct connections to Xero and NetSuite, validated data flowed straight back into the finance system.
6. Audit readiness: Every action was logged, every PDF securely linked to its ERP record, giving auditors complete traceability.

Technology Used
• OCR/IDP engines for structured data extraction from invoices.
• Validation rules engine for line-item and header-level checks.
• Duplicate detection logic for supplier and invoice number matching.
• Exception handling interface with side-by-side PDF vs ERP comparison.
• ERP integration with Xero and NetSuite for automatic updates.
• Audit trail & secure PDF storage for compliance.

The Outcome
• 94% of invoices auto-matched at header level within 2 months.
• Manual workload reduced by 62%.
• Invoice cycle time dropped from 2.3 days to same-day processing.
• $30k+ per quarter saved through duplicate prevention.

But the biggest impact was emotional: the AP team no longer lived in fear of mistakes. One staff member said: “For the first time, the system catches errors before we do — it feels like a safety net.”