Accounts payable automation for utilities that stops duplicate payments and pays suppliers on time
See one case, screen by screen ↓Built forPayables analystsBuyersBudget ownersFinancial controllersInternal auditors
AP analysts chase exceptions by email, and a new supplier layout fails each of its invoices until someone fixes it by hand.
Matched by hand when it drops out
Built-in controls
Fewer payments go out twice or to a changed account, and each one the controller releases traces to a receipt.
Software that takes a utility's supplier invoices, for network materials, chemicals, fleet and services, from the moment they arrive to a scheduled payment: it reads the invoice, matches it to the purchase order and goods receipt, codes and routes it for approval, and builds the payment run. Utility Accounts Payable Automation does this with six agents, sends only the exceptions to people with the reason, and leaves the release of each payment run to the financial controller.
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A utility's AP team takes in hundreds of supplier invoices a day for cable, meters, transformers, chemicals, fleet hire and services, by email, the supplier portal, structured e-invoice and paper, in either of two languages and often both on one page. Each one has to be matched to the purchase order and the goods receipt, coded, approved and scheduled. When quantities, prices or receipts do not line up, the invoice drops out, and the exception is chased by email and spreadsheet until someone clears it by hand.
Two things make it worse. When a supplier changes its invoice layout, capture fails on each invoice in the new layout, day after day, until a template is changed, so the analyst fixes the same thing again and again. And the same invoice arriving twice, once by email with slashes and a leading zero in its number and once by the portal with dashes, or a request by email to change a supplier's bank account, can slip into the payment run unless someone catches it by hand before the controller releases the run.
Estimated split for one invoice that drops out of the flow, in working days, by hand and with the solution.
It is 10:40 on a working day at the sample utility. 412 supplier invoices worth $38.62M have arrived today, and thirty of them come from one cable supplier that changed its invoice layout. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
A worked example on sample data. Names, IDs and figures on the screens and in this section come from the demo.
The analyst owns the top suppliers and clears the exceptions. The home screen shows today's 412 invoices (268 by email, 96 by the supplier portal, 31 by e-invoice and 17 on paper; 121 in the second language and 77 with both languages on one page) flowing from received to captured, matched, approved and scheduled to pay. 293 went through with no one touching them: 71%. The 119 that dropped out, worth $12.80M, fall into trays with their reasons.
“The cable supplier changed its layout · Each of its invoices drops at capture: 30 today, $3.94M. Fix one and teach it, and the rest re-run.”
The work queue splits the 119 by stage (capture 33, match 48, approval 26, payment 12) and by reason: new supplier layout 30, no goods receipt 17, price over tolerance 14, possible duplicate 6, bank details changed 3. Each row shows the amount, the invoice date, the days left of its 30 and the suggested next step. Eleven must be cleared to make Thursday's run.
Suggested next step: “Point to the right fields once, then teach the fix”
The analyst opens one cable invoice: 4 drums of 11 kV XLPE 3×240 mm² cable at $30,700 a drum, $122,800 plus tax, $128,940.00 due. Each field shows the box it came from and a confidence. In the new layout the reader took the number in the delivery-note box as the order number (0.61, no such PO) and left the quantity, 4 drum, waiting.
“This is a delivery-note number, not an order number. No purchase order has that number, so nothing can be matched.”
The analyst clicks the box under the order-number header: the purchase order, line 10. Then the analyst confirms the unit from the drum length printed on the invoice: 4 drums = 2,000 m. The matcher lines it up with the PO at $61.40 a meter (6,000 m ordered) and the goods receipt (2,000 m received): price agrees, quantity agrees.
“1 drum = 500 m, from the drum length printed on the invoice. 4 drums = 2,000 m.”
The analyst clicks Teach this fix. The fix finder writes the two corrections as rules (take the order number from the PO box, convert drums with the printed drum length), scoped to the cable supplier and its new layout, and no other supplier or layout. It finds 29 open invoices in the same layout and shows each one before and after: a delivery-note number becomes the right order number, 3 drums become 1,500 m.
“Each invoice still goes through every check: order and receipt, price tolerance, duplicate guard and approval limits.”
The fix, version 1, is saved under the analyst's name. The 29 invoices are read again and sent through each check. 28 match within tolerance, pass the duplicate guard and are auto-approved, each under $250,000, into Thursday's run. One bills $63.10 a meter against the PO's 61.40, 2.8% higher and over the 2% tolerance, and goes to the buyer.
“1 held: a real price rise, with the buyer”
The funnel redraws: 321 of 412 invoices touchless, 78%, with capture at 99%. Open exceptions fall from 119 ($12.80M) to 90 ($9.12M). The 12-week trend gets a new marker for the fix, and the next payment run grows to 1,060 invoices worth $99.96M.
“+6.8 pts today · fix taught by the senior AP analyst at 10:52”
Each invoice is compared with 24 months of paid and open invoices before it can be scheduled. One electromechanical supplier's invoice for $186,450.00, sent by the supplier portal today, is 97% alike an invoice received by email two weeks earlier and already paid in an earlier run: dashes for slashes and a leading zero dropped, but the same supplier, purchase order, amount and invoice date. Six possible duplicates are held, $1,037,939.25 in all.
“Paying it would pay $186,450.00 twice. The agent cannot release a flagged invoice; you decide.”
The checker builds the run from each approved invoice due before the next run. A facilities supplier asked by email two days earlier to change its bank account; no one has yet called back on the number on file, so its 3 invoices, $248,300.00, are held until a second person does. Suppliers on hold are excluded, 41 invoices inside their discount window are paid first, and 11 open exceptions are flagged because their 30 days end before the next run.
Paid inside 30 days: 96.8% quarter to date · target 98%
The controller opens the sign-off. The duplicate guard re-checks the whole run (no new matches since 10:40), bank details are checked against the vendor master with the facilities supplier excluded, all 1,060 invoices have a match or an approver, and the bank file is built, one file per paying account, totals agreed to the run. The controller signs and releases it.
“The person who teaches fixes or clears exceptions cannot release a run.”
The same day's invoices, seen by the four roles who carry them: their week by hand, then with the agents.
Invoices are read, matched, checked and routed in either language; analysts teach fixes and the controller releases the run.
Reads each supplier invoice in either of two languages or both on one page, finds the supplier by tax registration number and recognizes the supplier's layout, applying any live taught fix for it.
Matches each invoice line to its purchase order line and the goods receipts not yet invoiced, converting units only from a printed or contracted conversion, and reports each difference with both values.
Compares each invoice with 24 months of the supplier's paid and open invoices, and the same amount from any supplier within ±3 days, normalizing slashes, dashes, leading zeros, reminder suffixes and transposed digits, and says how alike they are and why.
Codes non-PO invoices to GL account and cost center from the supplier's history and contract references, picks the approver from the authority matrix and reminds approvers before the Thursday cut-off.
Turns an analyst's correction into a rule, finds each open invoice with the same tax number and page fingerprint, shows a before and after for each and, once approved, re-reads them and sends each through the full set of checks.
Builds the weekly run from approved invoices due before the next run, excludes suppliers on hold and invoices waiting for credit notes, pays discount-window invoices first and lists exceptions that would pass 30 days before the next run.
Releases the run; analysts clear exceptions and teach fixes.
Ask about an invoice, a supplier, an exception or the payment run in plain words. Each answer points to the invoice, order or run it comes from. These answers use the sample data.
Why are the cable supplier's invoices failing this month?
The cable supplier moved to a new invoice layout at the start of the month. The order number now sits in a box where the delivery-note number used to be, and cable is billed per drum while the PO is in meters. All 30 of today's invoices from that supplier dropped out at capture for that one reason. Fix one and teach it, and the other 29 are re-checked.
Which exceptions must make Thursday's payment run?
11 open exceptions reach the end of their 30 days before the next run. The cut-off for Thursday is Wednesday 18:00. The queue is filtered to them, soonest first.
Show the possible duplicates held from the run
The duplicate guard held 6 invoices today worth $1,037,939.25. One, for $186,450.00, has the same supplier, PO, amount and date as an invoice paid two weeks ago, under a number written with slashes instead of dashes. Another has a different goods receipt and looks genuine.
How much have taught fixes added to the touchless rate?
Analysts have taught 5 fixes so far, and the live ones have cleared 144 invoices with no one touching them. One fix, for a fleet rental supplier's fuel surcharge, paused itself when two invoices failed a later price check.
From the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Tolerances, limits, look-backs and the payment calendar are settings, owned by finance. Each change is saved as a new version and recorded: version 14, saved by the financial controller.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Price tolerance per line | ±2% or $500 | The lower of the two |
| Quantity tolerance | 0 | Billing more than was received never passes |
| Auto-approve PO-matched invoices up to | $250,000 | Above it, the head of procurement |
| Capture confidence needed per field | 0.92 | Below it, the field goes to an analyst |
| Duplicate look-back | 24 months | Paid and open invoices; invoice-number variants on; same-amount window ±3 days |
| Payment commitment and runs | 30 days · Thursday 14:00 | From the invoice date; weekly runs, approvers reminded Wed 12:00 and 16:00 |
| Scope of a taught fix | Supplier + layout | One supplier and one layout, never wider; preview before applying; pause automatically on a later failure |
| Non-PO approval limits | $50,000 · $500,000 | Budget owner by cost center, then head of department; above it, the chief financial officer |
Each figure carries its label: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (Ardent Partners, Accounts Payable Metrics That Matter in 2025, via Corpay: average cost per invoice $10.89, best-in-class $2.78; best-in-class touchless rate about half of invoices, so about half still need a person). Names on the screens are sample data.
Software that takes a utility's supplier invoices, for network materials, chemicals, fleet and services, from the moment they arrive to a scheduled payment: it reads the invoice, matches it to the purchase order and goods receipt, codes and routes it for approval, and builds the payment run. Utility Accounts Payable Automation does this with six agents, sends only the exceptions to people with the reason, and leaves the release of each payment run to the financial controller.
Invoices for network materials, chemicals, fleet and services arrive by email, supplier portal, e-invoice and paper. The invoice reader captures them, the PO and receipt matcher checks price and quantity against the order and the goods receipt, the duplicate guard checks 24 months of payments, the router codes non-PO invoices and picks the approver, and the payment run checker builds the weekly run. On the sample day, 293 of 412 invoices went through with no one touching them.
Yes. The invoice reader reads invoices in either of two languages or both on one page, and checks that the totals in both languages agree. Each field shows the box it came from and a confidence; below 0.92 it is left for an analyst rather than guessed.
Before an invoice can be scheduled, the duplicate guard compares it with 24 months of paid and open invoices, allowing for number variants such as slashes, dashes, leading zeros and transposed digits, and holds a likely match for a person to block or release. A changed bank account holds the supplier's invoices until someone calls back on the number on file and a second person confirms.
When an analyst clears an exception, they can teach the fix. The fix finder turns it into a rule scoped to one supplier and one layout, previews it on each open invoice it would change, and re-runs them through the checks once the analyst approves. In the sample case one fix cleared 28 of 29 invoices from the cable supplier and lifted the day from 71% to 78% touchless.
People do. The agents do not approve an invoice, change bank details or release a payment. Analysts clear exceptions and approve fixes, buyers settle price and quantity, budget owners approve non-PO spend, and the financial controller signs the run; whoever clears or teaches cannot release it.
No. It works over the ERP's purchase orders, goods receipts, vendor master and payment proposal, and hands back coded, matched invoices and a checked bank file. Tolerances, limits and the payment calendar are your settings.
Your AP policy, authority matrix, matching rules and a sample of past invoices in each language your suppliers use. The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from those requirements and documents, and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own invoices first.
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1-min demoWe'll run Utility Accounts Payable Automation on a sample of your own supplier invoices, in each language your suppliers use.