01 the business
Building materials distributor
110 staff, 1,500 invoices a month
Accounts staff tick invoices against purchase orders and delivery notes by hand. Short deliveries, price rises and duplicate invoices slip through. Approvers sign off without the detail.
02 before
The problem
Accounts staff tick invoices against purchase orders and delivery notes by hand. Short deliveries, price changes and duplicate invoices slip through. Approvers sign off without the detail, and suppliers get paid for goods that never arrived.
- Three-way matching is manual and partial.
- Price differences are missed.
- Suppliers are paid for goods that never arrived.
03 the build
What the AI does
- Step 1: Reads supplier invoices from the accounts inbox or Dext, including multi-page PDFs.
- Step 2: Finds the matching purchase order and goods receipt in Cin7, Unleashed, NetSuite or SAP Business One.
- Step 3: Compares quantities, unit prices, freight and tax line by line within your tolerances.
- Step 4: Posts clean matches to Xero or QuickBooks ready for the next payment run.
- Step 5: Sends mismatches to the buyer with the exact difference and a draft query to the supplier.
paused: waiting for a person to approve
How it was put together
- Read supplier invoices, including multi-page PDFs.
- Found the matching purchase order and goods receipt in the inventory system.
- Compared quantities, prices, freight and tax line by line within agreed tolerances.
- Posted clean matches and sent mismatches to the buyer with the exact difference.
04 human in the loop
Where a person stays in charge
The buyer resolves every mismatch before the invoice is posted. The finance lead approves the payment run as usual.
- Buyers resolve every mismatch before posting.
- The finance lead approves the payment run.
- Tolerances are set by finance and reviewed quarterly.
05 rollout
From kickoff to live in 5 weeks
- Weeks 1–2Connect purchasing and accounting systems; agree tolerances.
- Weeks 3–4Match in parallel and review every mismatch.
- Week 5Auto-post clean matches; route mismatches to buyers.
06 after
What changes
Clean invoices flow straight through and the accounts team works only on real differences. Overpayments and duplicates get caught before the money leaves.
Assume 1,500 invoices a month, 2% with an overcharge or short delivery averaging $180.
1,500 × 2% = 30 invoices × $180 = $5,400 a month, or about $65,000 a year at risk of being overpaid.
What to measure
- Invoices matched without manual work.
- Overpayments prevented.
- Time from invoice to approval.
- Supplier queries raised and resolved.
07 evidence
What the research says
In 1,921 fraud cases, expense reimbursement schemes made up 13% of cases with a median loss of $50,000, and frauds at organisations with under 100 staff had a median loss of $141,000.
Gartner research put the average cost of poor data quality at $12.9 million a year per organisation.
Gartner, Data quality: why it matters and how to achieve it (opens in a new tab) · 2020
08 lessons
Mistakes to avoid
- Tolerances too wide. Small differences add up.
- Goods receipts entered late. The match needs them on time.
- Ignoring freight lines. Freight is where surprises hide.
09 questions
Common questions
- What if we do not record goods receipts?
- Then the match is two-way, invoice to purchase order. Adding receipts is usually the first improvement.
- Does it work with Dext?
- Yes. It can read invoices that Dext has captured.