Use case
Incoming invoices are the process where automation pays off fastest - because the volume is high, the rules are clear and the price of an error is measurable.
The process that pays for itself fastest
The difference
A person does itThe system does it
How it runs today
How it would run with us
What it gets you
Where it does not fit
With very small document volumes the effort does not pay. Below roughly 300 documents a month the saving is smaller than the upkeep.
More specific
The process is sector-independent, the fit is not. These pages show the systems, the formats and the rules that actually apply there.
In trade, invoice checking is not an accounting topic but margin protection. Which is why the bar here is the hit rate of the matching, not the processing speed.
ViewIn transport you check against a tariff, not against an order. Invoice checking here is an arithmetic task - and that is exactly what scales best.
ViewIn a practice the pre-check is worth more than the posting. Spot the incomplete early and you gain days; spot it late and you lose a filing date.
ViewIn the trades, invoice processing is the way into post-costing. Without matching to the building project, nobody knows which job actually paid.
View3 to 5 weeks, depending on the number of document formats. Building it is usually the shorter half - the time goes into access, coordination and test cases.
A mailbox or folder where the documents arrive - email, scan, portal. Read access to orders and delivery notes; without them there is nothing to check against. The posting logic in writing, once: which cost centre applies when. Nothing more is needed to start.
From verifiable criteria agreed before the build: Across 200 real documents, supplier, purchase order and cost centre are matched correctly in at least 95 %. Every discrepancy between invoice and order ends up in the clarification loop, not in the ledger. No posting without a reference to the document it came from.
The unambiguous part runs through. Anything with a discrepancy, a missing order or an unusual amount goes to a person - together with the reason why.
With very small document volumes the effort does not pay. Below roughly 300 documents a month the saving is smaller than the upkeep.
In our experience particularly Wholesale, Logistics, Tax advisory, Trades. The process itself is sector-independent, though - what matters is whether it repeats.
You tell us where your time goes. We put it in writing: what is worth automating, and roughly what that costs.
