Manufacturing · Agentic Automation · RPA · Development
An AP agent that reads invoices, posts to SAP, and escalates only the 8% it can't resolve.
We replaced a legacy AP process (OCR plus manual work) with an agentic automation that reads unstructured invoices, applies PO-matching and GL-coding rules, posts to SAP, and routes only true exceptions to humans.
92%
Straight-through processing
3×
AP throughput
< $0.40
Cost per invoice
The challenge
A 9-person AP team processed 30,000 invoices a month from 40+ vendors with inconsistent formats. The legacy OCR performed well on structured invoices but failed on free-form PDFs, forcing manual rework on 40% of the volume. Finance leadership needed to scale AP throughput without adding headcount as the business grew.
The approach
Instead of upgrading the OCR, we designed an AP agent: an LLM-powered agent with tool access to SAP, the vendor master, the general ledger, and the purchase-order system. The agent extracts line items, applies PO-matching and GL-coding rules, posts the invoice to SAP, and escalates to a human only when confidence falls below threshold. We paired it with UiPath for the deterministic parts (SAP posting, PDF routing, the ERP inbox) and built a review UI for exceptions.
The solution
Claude Sonnet as the reasoning engine with function calling into internal tools. UiPath bots for deterministic SAP posting and PDF handling. A Next.js review UI for exceptions with keyboard-first UX. An evaluation pipeline with 500 golden invoices. Observability in Power BI.
The outcome
Straight-through processing reached 92% in month 2 and stabilised at 95% by month 6. AP throughput tripled with the same headcount. Cost per invoice fell below $0.40. The exceptions that do reach humans are resolved in under a minute thanks to the review UI.
Lessons
The review UI mattered more than we expected: AP teams are fast when the tool is fast too. We also learned to pin prompt and model versions quarterly for auditability.
“It's not just faster — it's more accurate than we are.”
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