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Finance · Accounts Payable · UK
📄 Intelligent Document Processing

AI Invoice Processing —
94% Touchless Rate, 28 Hours Per Week Saved

A UK business with 400 supplier invoices per week moves from full manual AP processing to 94% touchless — month-end close accelerated from day 5 to day 1.

94%
Touchless processing rate within 60 days
28h
undefined
4.2s
Average processing time per invoice
Day 1
Month-end close — vs day 5 previously
— The Situation

The challenge and the solution

// The Challenge

A 400-invoice-per-week AP function running entirely on manual data entry, taking 3 staff 28+ hours per week.

A UK professional services company received approximately 400 supplier invoices per week from over 120 active suppliers. Every invoice was processed manually — a team member reading the PDF, typing the data into Sage, matching against the PO in a separate system, chasing the approver, and logging the payment. The process was slow, error-prone, and consumed 28+ hours of AP staff time every week.

  • 400 invoices/week processed entirely manually — data re-keyed into Sage from PDF
  • PO matching done manually in a separate system — time-consuming and error-prone
  • Approval routing via email — invoices sitting in inboxes for days
  • Month-end close on day 5 — three days of reconciliation work
  • Error rate of approximately 4% — discovered at month-end when it was too late
// The Solution

AI reads every invoice, validates against the ERP, routes exceptions, and posts automatically.

We built an end-to-end AI invoice processing pipeline. Supplier invoices arrive by email. AI reads each invoice using GPT-4V, extracts all fields, validates against the Sage PO database, applies approval routing rules, and posts clean invoices automatically. Only the 6% of invoices with genuine discrepancies reach a human — with the specific issue highlighted and a suggested resolution pre-filled.

  • Email monitoring — invoices detected and queued for processing automatically
  • GPT-4V reads invoice: vendor, invoice number, date, line items, VAT, totals
  • Sage API validation — PO match check, vendor master check, pricing validation
  • Auto-approve invoices below threshold with clean PO match — post directly to Sage
  • Exceptions routed to AP team with discrepancy highlighted and suggested resolution

— What We Built

Six components of the solution

Every piece designed to solve a specific part of the problem — integrated into one system that works end-to-end.

📧

Email Monitoring & Intake

Automated monitoring of the AP email inbox. New invoices detected, attachments extracted, and queued for processing within 60 seconds of receipt.
🧠

AI Extraction (GPT-4V)

GPT-4V reads invoice images and PDFs — extracting vendor, date, invoice number, all line items, VAT breakdown, and totals. Works on any supplier format without templates.
🔗

Sage ERP Integration

Real-time validation against Sage — PO matching, vendor master check, pricing validation, and duplicate detection. Clean matches posted automatically. Discrepancies flagged.

Automated Approval Routing

Invoices below £500 with clean PO match auto-approved. Invoices above threshold or with anomalies routed to the designated approver with one-click approval.
⚠️

Exception Management

6% of invoices requiring human review routed with: the specific discrepancy highlighted, the PO shown alongside, and a suggested resolution. AP team resolves in seconds.
📊

AP Dashboard & Reporting

Live dashboard showing invoices processed, touchless rate, exceptions outstanding, and time saved. Month-end close pack assembled automatically on day 1.

— Results

What this delivered for the client

The numbers — measured outcomes

94%
Touchless rate — 376 of 400 weekly invoices processed and posted without any human involvement
28h
Per week returned to the AP team — redirected to financial analysis and supplier relationship management
Day 1
Month-end close — finance team receives draft close pack on day 1, signs off same day
0.3%
Error rate — down from 4% manual processing error rate, caught at extraction not at month-end
AP team completely transformed

The AP team went from spending 28 hours per week on data entry to spending 3 hours reviewing exceptions. The remaining 25 hours were redirected to supplier relationship management, cash flow analysis, and strategic finance work.

Month-end close moved from day 5 to day 1

With invoices processed same-day rather than batched, the month-end reconciliation that previously took 3 days was reduced to a half-day review on day 1 of the new month.

Works with every supplier format

Unlike template-based OCR, the AI reads invoices in any format — regardless of supplier. 120 different supplier layouts processed without a single template created or maintained.

"The invoice automation has saved our AP team an entire working week every month. The accuracy is better than manual processing — and the month-end close went from a 3-day ordeal to a same-day review. Exceptional work."
F
Finance Director
Professional Services · UK
— Delivery Timeline

How we delivered it

From the initial audit to live deployment — every stage designed to minimise risk and maximise speed to value.

Week 1–2
🔍
Process Audit & Invoice Sampling
Analysed 3 months of historical invoices. Mapped 120 supplier formats. Identified the top 10 causes of manual exceptions. Designed the validation ruleset for Sage integration.
Week 3–4
🧠
AI Pipeline Build
GPT-4V extraction pipeline built. Sage API integration for validation and posting. Exception flagging logic implemented. Tested against 200 historical invoices — 91% accuracy on first run.
Week 5–6
⚙️
Approval Engine & Dashboard
Approval routing rules implemented. AP team exception interface built. Dashboard deployed. Two-week parallel run — AI and manual side by side. Touchless rate: 88% at parallel run end.
Week 7
🚀
Go-Live
Full deployment. Manual processing officially retired. Touchless rate reached 94% by day 30 as AI learned remaining supplier format variations through exception feedback.
— Technology stack
OpenAI GPT-4VSage APIPython · FastAPIEmail ParserApproval EngineAzure Hosting

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