Late payments affect vendor relationships. Invoice processing delays is one of the key contributors to the late payment challenge. According to IFOL, more than 68% of companies still manually enter invoice data into their ERP or accounting software. Businesses that handle a large volume of invoices often experience frequent delays due to manual invoice capturing. 

Automating the invoice capture process reduces the burden on employees, speeds the payment process and improves your relationship with suppliers with autonomy and scalability. AI agents automatically extract the data you need from invoices and reduce the need for manual reviews. 

In this blog, we will focus on how AI agents can transform invoice capture with the use of automation and improve overall accuracy in your system. 

What is automated Invoice capture? 

Automated invoice capture is the process of using AI agent tools to extract, validate and process invoice data without manual data entry. AI agents autonomously automate your invoice capture with continuous learning and adaptability. 

AI agents capture invoices from several channels like email, EDI, scan, share drives or APIs. They also support several formats (like PDF, XML, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and others), both structured and unstructured. 

They use ML and IPD to identify and extract key fields, perform automatic line detection and categorisation of data. 

Barriers in Manual Invoice Capturing 

Lack of visibility and control 

Manual data entry into the system becomes difficult as your volume of invoices increases. Tracking every single invoice and tracking outstanding amounts can be time-consuming. 

Increase errors 

In manual invoice capturing, human error is a major bottleneck while matching POs, receipts and invoices. Finding and fixing errors might lead to further duplicated invoices or a need for resubmissions.  

Delayed Payments 

Errors and insufficiencies in manual invoice capturing cause payment to be overdue. The longer the time for invoice capturing, the further it delays payment approvals for the invoice. 

Poor supplier management 

Untimely payments can impact your supplier relations. It leaves your organisation with the burden of sourcing new suppliers and disrupting the current flow. 

Wasted resources and inefficiencies 

In a legacy invoice capturing system, any error can waste time and cost to track down the root cause. 

How can AI agents help overcome the barriers? 

Fewer errors 

AI agents can reduce errors with intelligent data capture, automated 3-way matching and using specialised agents for compliance and validation, making invoice processing faster and more reliable.  

Handle variations 

New vendors or a new system can bring a unique invoice format without any pre-configuration. AI agents can make your invoice capturing process intelligent so that your system can adapt to new layouts and predict where to find specific data fields without templates. 

Scalable 

Bringing scalability to your invoice capturing system is one of the core functions of AI agents. Even with the increasing volume of invoices, AI-powered systems can easily handle data entries with precision and speed. 

Reduce data entry errors. 

As per APQC, fixing an invoice error takes up to four days in a legacy system. Automated invoice capture helps you to become proactive with ML and AI tools, reducing overall errors in the process.  

Cost and time-efficient 

AI agents transform your invoice capturing from endless PDF, paper and electronic invoices into a secure, autonomous process. It saves time by automating approval routes and ultimately achieving timely payments. You can also save storage costs by digitalising your invoices from paper to cloud based. 

Improve supplier relations 

With limited delays and faster data capturing, the invoice cycle time is shortened by 33%. This enables you to make timely payments since unnecessary back-and-forth updates can be avoided in automated invoice capturing. 

Implementing automated invoice capture in your organisation  

Assess your current process 

Map your existing invoice capturing process and pinpoint the issues you are facing, like high volume manual data entry, delay in approval/payment process or compliance risks. 

Select & Integrate the Right Solution  

Choose a system that supports diverse invoice formats and smoothly integrates with your accounting or ERP systems. Platforms like Digital ClerX offer plug-and-play integration and accelerate the adoption process.  

Set up Intelligent Data Capture 

Employ Agents developed by Digital ClerX based on OCR, ML and AI capabilities to accurately key information and detect line items, even across unstructured formats. 

Smart Validation with 3-Way Matching 

3-Way Matching by Digital ClerX provides automated invoice matching through invoices, POs and GRNs. Driving accuracy up to 70% and three-times faster exception handling.  

Automate Workflow Approvals 

After invoice capture, AI agents can handle errors by constantly learning from data inputs from various sources. It speeds up your processing speed by decreasing human dependency up to 80%. Agents can bring autonomy with automation, making your invoice capturing accurate and efficient over time. 

Conclusion  

Invoice capturing is the first step in your complete invoice processing cycle. If you are willing to automate your entire cycle, you should initiate AI agent implementation from invoice capturing.  

The efficiency of AI agents increases with high-quality data input. Automating invoice capturing increases efficiency for the overall invoice processing as it streamlines your data entry and validation.  

Digital ClerX brings you vertical agents for diverse operations that are customisable as per your needs and provides you with flexibility.