workflow: invoice processing

Every invoice gets paid twice: once to the vendor, once in labor

The vendor's charge is printed on the invoice. Yours isn't: the download, the keying, the GL lookup, the approval chase, the duplicate check, the month-end pile. We install a system that takes an invoice from inbox PDF to posted, coded, and exception-flagged without a human touching a keyboard. Your team only sees the ones that genuinely need a decision.

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the manual version

Where the time actually goes

Follow one invoice through a manual AP process and count the touches. Someone opens the email and downloads the PDF. Keys the vendor, invoice number, date, and amount into the accounting system. Looks up the PO, if there is one. Decides which GL account each line belongs to, or guesses, or asks. Forwards it to an approver and waits. Follows up. Waits again.

The per-invoice math looks harmless until you multiply it. If a touch-heavy invoice takes your bookkeeper ten minutes and you process a few hundred a month, run that against their loaded hourly cost. Then add the expensive part: the duplicate that got paid because two people keyed the same PDF a week apart, the early-payment discount that expired in an approval inbox, the close that slipped because the pile wasn't cleared.

None of this is accounting. It's transcription, lookup, and reminder-sending, and every piece of it can be read, decided, or escalated by software.

Header keying: vendor, number, date, terms, amount, all typed from a PDF a machine already produced
GL coding: the same vendor coded the same way for the hundredth time, by hand
The approval chase: forwarded emails, hallway nudges, and 'did you see my last message?'
Duplicate and fraud checks: done from memory, if they're done at all

agentclaw · workflow run

$ claw run invoice-intake

→ 47 documents queued

→ extracted · matched · posted

✓ done in 3m 12s · 0 exceptions escalated

the automated version

From inbox PDF to posted, coded, exception-flagged

Three stages, running continuously, inside the tools you already own. No new portal for your vendors, no new system for your team.

01
Capture and extraction
An agent watches your AP inbox and vendor portals. Every attachment gets read the moment it lands: clean PDFs, scans, even a photo of a paper invoice. It pulls the vendor, invoice number, date, terms, totals, and every line item into structured data, then checks the invoice number and amount against history so duplicates die on arrival.
02
Matching, coding, posting
The agent matches the invoice to its purchase order and receiving record where those exist, and flags quantity or price gaps. It codes each line to your chart of accounts based on how you've coded that vendor before, applies the right tax treatment, and posts to QuickBooks, Xero, or NetSuite. Invoices that pass your rules go straight through. Nothing sits in a queue waiting for a human keystroke.
03
Exceptions and approvals
Anything that fails a rule gets routed to the right person: a price above the PO, a first-time vendor, a missing receipt, a change in bank details. Each one arrives with the reason spelled out, the original PDF attached, and a one-click decision. Your team stops processing invoices and starts adjudicating the few that deserve attention.

Signs it's time to automate this

You don't need all six. Two or three is usually enough to make the math work.

Someone keys invoice data into the ledger by hand for more than a couple of hours a week
You've paid the same invoice twice, or caught a near-miss during close
Approvals sit in email until a vendor calls asking where the money is
Month-end close waits on a stack of unprocessed invoices, every month
GL coding lives in one person's head, and AP stalls when they're out
Early-payment discounts expire because invoices surface too late to take them

Straight answers

Will this work with our accounting system?+

Almost certainly. We build against QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage, and most ERPs with an API. If your system only accepts file imports, the agent produces clean import files instead of posting directly. The extraction and coding layer doesn't care where the data ends up; the integration is the part we scope during the audit.

What happens when the AI misreads an invoice?+

It will, occasionally — scanned faxes and handwritten totals exist. That's why the system never posts anything it isn't sure about. Every extracted field carries a confidence score, and anything below your threshold, or anything that fails a business rule, lands in an exception queue for a human with the original PDF alongside. You set the threshold. Cautious teams start with every invoice reviewed and loosen it as trust builds.

Can I do this myself?+

A narrow version, yes. If your volume is low and your invoices come from a handful of well-behaved vendors, our free invoice data extraction prompt pack plus an off-the-shelf connector gets you surprisingly far, and the rest of our free skills library shows you how. Where DIY breaks down is PO matching, duplicate detection, exception routing, and keeping everything running when a vendor changes their invoice layout. If a DIY pipeline breaks quietly, your books are wrong quietly.

What does it cost?+

Engagements start at $5,000/month, which covers building the workflow and running it: monitoring, tuning the exception rules, and fixing things when vendor formats change. Do your own math before you book. Count the hours per week your team spends keying, coding, and chasing invoices, price them at loaded cost, and add whatever the last duplicate payment or missed discount cost you. If that number is well under the fee, you don't need us yet — start with the free resources and come back when volume grows.

Keep going

AI agents for construction & trades

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AI agents for wholesale distribution

High invoice volume on thin margins: the setting where AP automation pays back fastest.

Workflow automation services

How we scope, build, and run automations like this one.

Invoice data extraction prompt pack

The free DIY starting point if you want to test extraction yourself first.

Find out what your invoice pile actually costs

The free AI opportunity audit maps your AP process end to end and tells you what's worth automating first — and what isn't.

Book your free audit

We take on companies ready to invest $5,000+/month. Not there yet? Our free resources are genuinely free.